Members of manufacturing community wrap up year-one activity on workforce strategy, set action items for coming year
A cross-section of manufacturers, education and training providers, workforce development professionals and state agency representatives came together Nov. 13 at the Northwest Viticulture Center to review the major accomplishments of the first year’s execution of the Oregon Manufacturing Workforce Strategy (OMWS) and to chart a course for the second year.
The business-led plan directs resources at the critical manufacturing sector, which employs more than 200,000 Oregonians. Key milestones accomplished in year one of OMWS’s implementation include the formation and seed support of five new high-performance consortia and the development of this portal, OregonManufacturing.org, to aggregate news and resources and share best practices among the many stakeholders of Oregon’s manufacturing community.
The five new consortia and the original model, the Northwest High Performance Enterprise Consortium, have involved more than 200 companies in the goal of broadening the reach of high performance and lean manufacturing practices. During the morning session, representatives from each consortium shared “Stories from the Trenches” that highlighted the performance gains achieved through learning tours, training, and implementation. Sustaining these consortia into year two emerged as a key consensus priority for the OMWS.
In the afternoon session, the focus turned to building a model to address manufacturing’s skilled worker shortage: moving from talk into action. While dozens of groups and initiatives exist across the state that involve manufacturing-related workforce activity, the OMWS will try to “connect the dots” among the groups and link all effort to the goals of the strategy. The OMWS management team shared the Oregon Manufacturing Workforce Strategy Model as a way to think about this work visually. The team also offered a Skills Pyramid, based on a model developed by the U.S. Department of Labor in partnership with major manufacturing organizations, as a starting point for conversations regarding foundational competencies that all workers need in a modern high-performance enterprise.
Emerging from this discussion were more action items for year two of the Strategy, including the development of a common manufacturing legislative agenda, delivery of data to highlight the impact of manufacturing to the economy and to quantify the skilled worker shortage, and the launch of an awareness campaign to attract young talent to manufacturing. Regarding workforce development, attendees stressed focusing efforts on several key initiatives, including identifying and sharing effective models, building out manufacturing related career pathways, and working to expand apprenticeships in critical occupations.
The PowerPoint presentation delivered at the Nov. 13 forum is available for download.
The OMWS steering committee will convene in December to prioritize these action items and establish clear goals for year two.