The profound shift from a materials-based economy to an information-technology marketplace has had its ill effects on the labor pool and skill sets for machinery manufacturers as well. No doubt many of them would rather see students spend less time with their hands on a mouse and keyboard and more time putting those hands to work with tools and materials.
      A May 2001 survey by the National Association of Manufacturers entitled "The Skills Gap 2001" found that there is not only a shortage of skilled hourly workers (around 75 percent call the need "moderate or serious"), but that the top deficiency among applicants is a lack of basic employability skills like attendance, timeliness, and a solid work ethic. In fact, while the recent influx of foreign IT workers has grabbed headlines, more than twice as many employers (22 percent) said they would like the government to allow greater immigration of skilled hourly workers than of professional/technical workers (10 percent).
      While the survey respondents said that technical and community colleges played a big role in filling their training needs, they gave equal credit to business associations -- the first time those organizations have been so highly esteemed in the area of workforce development. Manufacturers want to see not only tax incentives for training initiatives but also a renewed focus on the positives of vocational education and employment.
      Companies looking for sites in the future may be paying closer attention than ever to the curricula and basic skill sets taught in grade schools and high schools too. The Skills Gap 2001 survey found that 78 percent of manufacturers still believe public schools are doing a shoddy job of preparing students for the workplace, in large part because of what it termed an over-emphasis on four-year degrees, steering students away from lucrative opportunities in technical and mechanical trades.
      Collaborative approaches are working in workforce retention. In Phoenix, the 20 companies of the Arizona Manufacturing Network are trying a shared labor pool program, with many of the network's 800 workers found in the precision machinery field. Based on a similar program in Austin, Texas (a location Motorola recently picked over Tempe, Ariz., for production of a new semiconductor), the program will have employees alternating between companies every six months, working in different capacities and receiving training as well.
      In Milwaukee, a group of six OEMs called the Wisconsin Supply Chain Development Consortium (including such companies as Harley-Davidson and John Deere), is working with technical colleges and the state to supply training to hundreds of supplier companies, with the state picking up half the tab. Harley-Davidson put the model to work in a similar program in Pennsylvania, but the suppliers are equally attracted to it because their improvements are universal, not tied into one major client.
      Association for Manufacturing Technology's Robert Gardner points out that even in the struggling sector, a few firms are having some success in deploying customer service and sales centers. One is Haas Automation, a general purpose cutting machine manufacturer based in Oxnard, California.
      The automated mill and lathe maker completed an addition to its 800,000-sq.-ft. (74,320-sq.-m.) facility last spring that enabled it to reach a production capacity of 1,000 machines a month. The company has found that a small unit called the Mini Mill is filling a niche because of its size (taking up only 42.5 sq. ft. or 4 sq. m.) and its price (under $50,000), meaning companies with tight space requirements and tight budgets can still find room to use it to improve their own processes.
      "We just have not suffered as extensively as the rest of the industry," said Haas Automation's Dupuis in December. "Haas's sales will be down less than 15 percent in 2001 over 2000. This is significant compared to the rest of the industry, which is down nearly 40 percent."
      "With an unknown future, customers are reluctant to invest in machines with longer payback times," Dupuis explains.
      Japanese machine tool firm Mori Seiki has seen a rebound in its domestic automotive-related business, driven partly by an internal upgrade of the technology in its lathes and mills. The company has completed a new sales and engineering center in Nagoya, Japan, established a Digital Technology Laboratory in Sacramento, Calif., to conduct R&D into the fusion of CNC machine tools and information technology, and opened a technical center in Shanghai.