HEY KIDS,
THE PROBLEM OF A SKILLED TRADES SHORTAGE IS NOTHING NEW. I REMEMBER READING 20 YEARS AGO ABOUT A REAL PROBLEM WITH A SHORTAGE OF WELDERS. THIS CAME FROM SHIP YARDS,FOUNDRIES AND MAJOR WELDINGS SCHOOLS. I ALSO REMEMBER HEARING AND READING ABOUT VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS DISCONTINUING CERTAIN TRADES DUE TO LACK OF PARTICIPATION. I HAVE READ MANY ARTICLES ON THIS VERY SUBJECT ON THE WEB. I GUESS MY QUESTION IS, HAS THE HANDWRITING BEEN ON THE WALL FOR SOME TIME NOW AND,HUMAN NATURE BEING WHAT IT IS,HAVE WE WAITED TILL THE LAST MINUTE TO TRUELY ADDRESS THE PROBLEM.
BILL SCHNEIDER

Most or many pump Bibles were written in the '30's. Some 50 y/o machines still around - plenty. Apprenticeship programs and mentorship is necessary but the base has to be good. The base is falling short and shorter as time goes by because companies don't adress the problem. New paper shufflers to create situations so hi-exec's can rake the cream off the top is first and foremost. So many of our tech schools have retired mil staff with no real experience in industry. Will this change? Sure it will; GB and company will move to Iraq to begin anew with almost free natural gas and a labor pool available. Sarcastic; youbetchya! Basic things like; why doesn't a left-handed person use a file effeciently? Framing square measurements! Using a wooden rule, how do you get a 45 degree angle. What's the 3-4-5 rule used by millwrights? Do we rocket scientists really need this; sure we do! Let's go build some pyrmids! Out-dated knowledge?

Not all people are still healthy at 60. We have a number of maintenance techs, who are excellent with their hands, but who now have bad backs, knees, hands etc and can no longer work in the field / on the bench. We're struggling to retrain them in IT skills (improve reliability data quality etc), so finding meaningful work for them is difficult (some of them are nearer 50 than 60), and we no longer keep 'fat' in the organisation to allow them to become the mentors of the younger generation.
How is anyone else solving this issue?

Hey, Doc

Yes. One of the reasons why the US Census Bureau is predicting new job growth in the USA will be focused on the service industry, particularly the health services. We are living far longer than our predecessors 100 years ago by over 35 years. At the turn of the 20th Century (1900-1910), 20% of the US workforce aged between 10 and 14 years old with a life expectancy in the late 40's. This gave the average worker about 30-35 years of useful work-life.

From the 'from the president' letter in my latest newsletter:

""
From the President

The impending disaster of all of the workforce leaving and USA industry crashing down around us is upon us… if you were to take many of the latest articles and information seriously. As I have stated in previous letters, one of the greatest short-term sales techniques is to generate fear and a solution to alleviate that fear. This usually ends up with a get-in, get-out sale by the person, or company, or media, in the direction that they want you to go and leaving you with the feeling of being unfulfilled or receiving less than expected.

Look closely at the motives of any company that tries to generate panic or fear. Usually, what you will find is that the material, study or problem that is presented has a solution that they can… wow… magically… provide… for a price.

Folks, we are entering a period of change in the workforce. You can even use the word ‘crisis’ if you define it as a change. The workforce, whether they are skilled trades, R&M, or other, is in the process of evolving and it has a lot to do with changes in society. I have been involved in the first, and only, independent study of the workforce that is not attached to a special interest – other than the fact that I prefer to investigate situations where someone is telling me that the world is coming to an end.

Guess what… it isn’t.

Why do I continue on this particular topic? Simply put, I cannot respect salesmen, so-called experts, or others who feel the need to generate fear to get a sale. Such things are left to the dictators of the world.

Where are we… really? Well, the workforce is aging, that is true. The primary reason is that the baby-boomers are aging and the generation following immediately after is much smaller because many baby-boomers waited to have children. Those children, who make up the generation referred to as the baby-boom echo generation, will mostly go to college, university or technical school, and will not enter the workforce until 2015. This is different than the turn of the 20th Century where, 100 years ago, the workforce started at 10 years old and most workers passed away in their late 40’s. Now, workers are not entering the workforce until their 20’s and are retiring (or not) in their late 60’s. So, what is really happening is at the turn of the 20th Century, we had 15% unemployment, few safety and worker support programs, and a workforce that averaged 35 years in their trade. Now, we have unemployment well under 5%, good safety and worker support programs and a workforce that averages 50 years in their trade. If you were to actually look at the data from the angle of age and workforce between then and now, you might be worried. However, the average worker is living almost twice as long as their predecessors one century ago.

At this point in time, the average workforce is aging, apprenticeships are not being offered by many companies with these same companies complaining that education is not providing them with ‘ready-made’ workers.

Another fallacy is that the newer workforce has less work ethic than past workforces of the same age. The fun part of these comments, which I have seen in reports and studies world-wide, is that they echo the exact same sentiments as those over the past two centuries. In fact, every generation has made similar comments about the generation that follows them into the workforce. This can be observed in quotations, papers and reports published by management and workforce leaders since the early 1800’s. Even the founder of Scientific Management, Frederick Taylor, published comments on how poor the workforce was in the 1890’s through to the 1910’s.

The primary difference is that different societal inputs, such as radio, television, computers, video games, the cell phone and other technology improvements have changed the expectations of each generation.

However, there is a change of interest in the skilled trades. It mainly has to do with the lack of marketing to the younger generations on the benefits of the trades coupled with the lack of positions for the trades in companies. In fact, it is estimated that the number of available skilled jobs will decrease through 2014, whereas most other jobs are either stagnant or growing.

I will be continuing to discuss this particular topic in the Motors Blog section of ReliabilityWeb.com as the next part of the Penrose Lecture Series. You can view the blog by going to: http://maintenancetalk.com/blog.php/motorblog/

Sincerely,

Howard W Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP

""

The study that I am referring to is the "Skilled Workforce in the 21st Century" study that Terry O'Hanlon and I completed in January of this year that will be published, with a little fanfare, in August.

Now to address the healthcare part:

As I had mentioned, here in the USA, the healthcare industry is increasing as the workforce ages. That is a fact. The good news is that ergonomics, automation and some newer technologies can assist the workforce, including the reliability and maintenance group.

For instance, I was at a client who was installing a WiFi system for remote vibration and monitoring of cranes at their facility. Instead of the workers having to climb on top of an operating crane they can perform their vibration inspections from an office elsewhere onsite. Not only does this reduce the dangers associated with testing the cranes, especially with older workers with, as you stated, health issues, it actually has improved data collection times, fault detection (continuous monitoring against alarms) and other unexpected opportunities.

So, in effect, we are entering a time of change in the workforce. An evolution, if you will.

Sincerely,
Howard

Howard, (Others)

As I stated earlier, and will try to refocus on now, I don't think that skills alone is the answer, or even the main problem!!

It is the one-of things that the baby-boomers lived through that is the knowledge we need to gain continuation of... (Poor grammer I know)

Things such as:
- The once every ten or fifteen year task that they have exlusive knowledge of

- Contingencies for certain infrequent events

- Who is doing what and how certain parts of the plant respond to certain treatments (Such as differing operating styles or different maintenance regimes)

SKills is an issue, and I agree that it is an important issue. I recall in a previous posting mentioning that our economies were headed towards s3ervice based economies and had this ridiculed... good to see that all things come full circle!!

What is needed is a way to codify information and make it useful. This is one of the short-duration challenges of the 4th generation of asset managers.

SO back to the original point, and Dr Spoons' issue also, what are people doing about this?

We have had a lot of information about different aspects of the problem but few real tangible, "can do it tomorrow" type solutions offered.

Are there any out there?

Howard, Spoons and others,

You may find this blog of use to you. I am starting to address the issues surrounding knowledge continuation here as well as a few general comments on the "problems" that we face.

Modern Asset Management is my own personal blog that I have started up recently because everybody else seems to have one! So why not!

I hope the posts there are of use to you. Please feel free to comment on any of them.

Actually, the issue basically happens every time a skilled trade quits. Nothing new, nothing different.

How about from this angle: Perhaps knowledge capture is not the answer. Perhaps it is better that people retire to remove some of the bad habits that also have a negative effect on R&M. In other words, reset the organization.

My point was that this issue is being dealt with exactly the same way as Y2K. People are going to spend $Millions, or more, to correct themselves back to the way things have always been. In the meantime, a hybrid of determining the correct maintenance to perform through all of the tools we have available (knowledge capture, RCM, etc.) and technology (the ability of newer technologies to guide the skilled trade - basically automation for maintenance) may be the better solution. The problem I see is that, in many cases, some of the workers and some of the managers with old ideas are the issue in the proper implementation of a program.

For instance, in the earlier example of the person who performed a critical maintenance task while walking his dog. When he left, because he did not properly document his time or enter information into his CMMS system, he endangered the ability of the facility to meet its 'mission.' My opinion is that is if he had been caught doing this while he was still employed that he should be first reprimanded and possibly later additional corrective action would have been required, if he did not change his ways. Such issues re-enforce bad habits with new employees and the existing employees of a company.

Howard

Howard,

Thanks for the posting. I dont agree that the issue is onloy about when a skilled trade quits. But even so we are coming up to a number of them quitting so it remains a significant problem.

As I stated on my blog however, this in itself is not an insurmountable obstacle. A problem, but one that my country has been facing regularly for a while now. As has Saudi Arabia and other nations. The solution, get external help.

Is this the best solution? Probably not, but it is the reality of how countries are dealing with skills shortages. The thinking that the skills to fulfill technical roles within a country need to be found within the same country just doe not hold water anymore.

quote:

Perhaps knowledge capture is not the answer. Perhaps it is better that people retire to remove some of the bad habits that also have a negative effect on R&M. In other words, reset the organization

Without a doubt I agree with you. Not all knowledge is good knowledge, and furthermore some of it may even be counter productive.

Part of the challenge I feel...

quote:

My point was that this issue is being dealt with exactly the same way as Y2K. People are going to spend $Millions, or more, to correct themselves back to the way things have always been.

I think that danger exists to some extent. And I also agree that basic maitnenance may well provide some of the answers to some of the issues, but by no means to all of them.

I have helped severl organizations to take this a step beyond the day-to-day or even just by implementing basic maitnenance or asset management practices.

One of the keys has been to codify the knowledge, that is, place it in a form where it can be accessed, used, and (more importantly) can "learn" better ways to do things.

So when the new people come into the plant, instead of the bad habits of 20 years of experience, they get the distilled and improved version based on a combinatiuon of data and event based logic.

Very interesting area Howard, you would really enjoy it I assure you.

quote:

My opinion is that is if he had been caught doing this while he was still employed that he should be first reprimanded and possibly later additional corrective action would have been required, if he did not change his ways. Such issues re-enforce bad habits with new employees and the existing employees of a company.

I agree with you on this fundamentally. And like yourself (it appears) I am very focussed on enforcing rules and doing things in the "right" way. (Whatever that may be at the time)

But the issue is that nobody knew, and I am sure that in similar companies in your country (in fact I know this) the exact same situation is in effect.

We get to the Rumsfeld factor here where we don't know what we don't know. Regardless of this, it is only a part of the issue but a significant part.

A plant surrounded by a fence where everybody comes in and goes out the same gate reduces this effect a little.

When you are with Union Pacific, or one of your very many water or electricity firms, or even with some expansive global mining companies, then this could be a significant leakage that is being caused.

We have seen limited effects of this since the "downsizing trend of the nineties and eighties in some areas. Compoanies where there are no people left who know how certain parts of a network are to be run in certain situations, or how to bring a plant under control in other situations.

It does help to have good basic processes in place, but there is more to it I think.

In Australia the Strategic Industry Research Foundation, www.sirfrt.com.au, has recognised the importance of knowledge management and has recently started a Knowledge Management Round Table.

Howard, (And others)

A link to a recent news story which supports the statements you have been making. Thought it may have been of interest.

http://www.energyreview.net/storyview.asp?storyid=60894§ionsource=s0