2013 State of the Industry: Mike Weller, Miller Electric

CRITICAL ISSUES
The skilled labor shortage continues to be a very real and pressing issue, and it is twofold:

First, you need the people to perform the work and it’s about more than just having bodies on the shop floor – they must be trained in the proper skills and processes to do the jobs that are in demand.

Second, another significant problem that isn’t always addressed is the loss of gained wisdom as the current generations of career welders retire. Because there is a significant gap between the primary age group currently in the industry and the younger folks who are joining the industry, some of that collected wisdom will leave the industry as these men and women retire. How do you pass on 40 or 35 years of passion, knowledge and experience? That’s something we all have to plan for.

There is a multi-pronged approach to addressing the skilled labor shortage:

• We have worked extensively with professional organizations such as the AWS Foundation (American Welding Society; Miami, FL) to help create scholarships and provide training and raise the awareness of welding as a viable career option. We have also worked extensively with SkillsUSA and AWS to sponsor the bi-annual SkillsUSA competition and scholarship for the American winner that promotes welding nationwide through a series of skills competitions that culminate with an Olympics-style event held internationally. The 2013 event will take place in Germany and the American representative will be determined in a final competition held at the Daytona 500.

As an industry, we must continue to support initiatives like this to raise awareness and show our young people that we value their work and their commitment to the industry. We recently received an email from an instructor who had a student participate in the SkillsUSA U.S. Weld Invitational at FABTECH 2012 who described it as a “life changing event for these young men.” We need to continue to foster that and to hold these young men and women up as examples of excellence.

• We need to start early: In middle school and high school. We are facing generations who have been told by their parents and guidance counselors that the most rewarding path is to go to a 4-year university and then not provide any other viable path if that does not appeal to the student. This has set us significantly behind.

I recently ran a forum with 127 guidance counselors here to show them just how successful a career path in manufacturing can be and discussed the best ways for students to transition to that from high school. We need to work to connect high schools to local tech and vocational schools to help everyone understand – most importantly, the students – that you can be very successful and it does not require a 4-year college education. It should be noted, however, that there are careers in welding – such as a welding engineer – that can be attained through a 4-year college.

• As an industry, we need to continue to support our technical schools. We’ve partnered extensively with schools in our region (Fox Valley Technical College, Northeastern Wisconsin Technical College) to not only help us as a company find workers for our operation, but to give them the tools and resources to train welders for the extensive manufacturing needs in our region.

Similarly, employers must work hand-in-hand with these schools to create a curriculum designed specifically around the skills they are hiring for. We hear a lot of employers say “yes, a student can weld, but they aren’t trained in the processes we need them trained in.” Local industry, working hand-in-hand with tech schools in this way, can help arm those entering the workforce with the skills they need to get hired and this technique will go a long way in solving this.

• We need to continue to work with and educate our communities. We’ve recently worked with Fox Valley Tech and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to help identify the basic skills that someone needs to get hired as welder. There are a number of initiatives aimed at training the men and women who return from serving overseas (UA’s Veterans in Piping (VIP) comes to mind). Reaching out into the community this way and recruiting people into our industry is vital.
• From a technology perspective, welding equipment suppliers must continually simplify the operator interface and make processes easier to learn and perform – especially processes and applications that have been historically difficult to find trained workers for.

Another critical issue is confidence based on economic conditions. Part of the inconsistency in 2012 could be tied to the uncertainty over who the president would be in 2013. We’re facing the fiscal cliff (which may or may not be resolved by the time this goes to print). What are tax rates going to look like in 2013 and how is that going to impact the levels at which companies invest back into their businesses?

There are global considerations and continued uncertainty in Europe and the Middle East. How does that impact businesses’ confidence to continue to invest based on their targeted segments? We are now, more so than ever, part of a global economy – and these are major issues that we are faced with.

Regarding these confidence and economic issues, we see it as our duty to counteract that by providing compelling value propositions to shops needing a competitive advantage. Many businesses, during times of slow growth, will take a ‘wait and see’ approach and wait to update their technology until things improve. What welding equipment suppliers offer are ways that, regardless of the economic situation, are going to help those shops run their manufacturing operation more efficiently.

This will help shops save time and money now – and will position them to be extremely competitive and successful as the economy grows. So while it may not seem like the best time to change, now might be the perfect time for shops to take those steps forward. It’s the job of the welding equipment supplier to partner with the shop and their distributor to understand the best way to do that and provide them the best solutions.

Some of these solutions may be new and a little out of the box, but through such partnerships we’ve found that suppliers have not only been able to help shops take significant steps forward, but everyone learns a thing or two that they can put into their products to help make life easier for everyone.

Miller Electric Manufacturing Co., 1635 W. Spencer Street, PO Box 1079, Appleton, WI 54912-1079, 920-734-9821, Fax: 920-735–4134, www.millerwelds.com.