METAL to address workforce shortages, improve lives

For someone caught in a fruitless job search, it may seem as though the jobs just aren’t there. In certain industries, however, the opposite is true; the jobs are open and waiting – and, in most cases, desperately needing to be filled – but the workers aren’t there. This is a particular issue in manufacturing, where there’s a tremendous need for workers to fill roles in areas such as casting and forging, but a lack of personnel with these skills has caused a critical workforce shortage.

There are multiple reasons for these shortages. Older workers are retiring without younger ones to replace them. Part of this is due to, simply, a declining birth rate in the United States. Also, a greater emphasis than in previous eras is being placed on four-year university degrees over trade schools. Many people don’t realize the benefits of a manufacturing career – but that’s exactly what the Metallurgical Engineering Trades Apprenticeship and Learning program (METAL) is trying to change.

METAL is spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)’s Innovation Capability and Modernization (ICAM) office (through its Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program) and the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI). Recently, the two expanded the collaboration with additional partners including Pennsylvania State University (Penn State); the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT); and Jobs for the Future (JFF). The goal of the industry-led program is to develop a hands-on national training network for people of all ages to bolster and replenish the country’s base metal manufacturing workforce in the castings and forging industry.

The key is starting young, says Dr. Matthew Draper, ICAM’s technical director of Metallurgy and Manufacturing within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy. One of METAL’s target demographics is the K-12 age range, particularly the younger end. Getting kids interested in metal manufacturing is easier to do when they’re still naturally excited about creating and building things like rockets and robots, for example.

For this age range, METAL offers workshops and outreach events where students can actually cast their own objects, including animal figures. Older kids, at middle and high school ages, are taught to make things such as chess pieces using sand casting, while younger children learn to cast in chocolate.

“It’s so neat,” says Joannie Harmon, vice president of workforce development for IACMI. “These kids, when you give them something they can actually put their hands on and make, they come alive. Nobody’s looking at their cell phones. They’re all engaged, hands on, working to make these parts.”

When their kids come home, proudly showing off the objects they made in the workshops, parents also get interested, Draper adds. Parents are just as important as students when it comes to to generating excitement about manufacturing careers, as they play a large role in encouraging their children to pursue trades.

Building on earlier success

The partnership between IACMI and the DOD is not new; it began in 2020 with the launch of an ICAM-funded national workforce initiative called America’s Cutting Edge (ACE). Created by the DOD to restore the prominence of the U.S. machine tools sector, ACE focuses on computer numerical control (CNC) machining fundamentals for both metals and composites manufacturing. It offers online courses and weeklong in-person boot camp training sessions to young adults from across the United States. To date, ACE has created and delivered free online courses and boot camps in the automated control of machine tools to more than 10,000 students from 50 states. ACE’s success inspired the partners to begin METAL for a wider age range, focusing on base metal processes such as casting, forging, and plate production. In addition to boot camps, METAL incorporates online learning, outreach events, workshops, and metallurgical engineering courses and certificate programs.

The METAL testbed is taking place in Pennsylvania, and Penn State and UT are developing online and in-person curriculum. JFF is developing apprenticeship programs and upskilling workers. The program has the potential to expand in the future to include hybrid processes, automation, and consumables. According to Harmon, METAL is looking at robotics and Industry 4.0 technologies as ways to make manufacturing more cool, exciting, and appealing to younger generations.

“But here’s where the biggest impact is: when students tour manufacturing sites that perform casting and forging, it makes such a difference,” she says. “There’s a natural curiosity of how things are made, so when they get to see it actually happening, when they’re doing these casts and thousands of pounds of liquid molten steel are being poured into a form and they get to see that, it’s really amazing and cool. Manufacturing comes to life. So these aren’t jobs that people wouldn’t want to have, they’re jobs they don’t know exist.”

Improving national security, personal lives

Workforce shortages in the U.S. casting and forging industry and supply chain pose a significant risk for the U.S. industrial base. Over the next 10 years the DOD will need 122,000 new shipbuilders, engineers, and other critical personnel just for submarine construction alone. This lack of workers could seriously impact national security. The United States currently relies on adversarial foreign countries to supply critical parts for warfighting elements, including castings, forgings, and upstream critical materials. This level of dependance is risky because those manufacturers could stop supplying those parts at any time. As conflict increases across the globe, it’s crucial for the United States to have a reliable domestic defense supply chain.

“Developing and maintaining this skilled manufacturing workforce bolsters national security and strengthens the competitive posture of the United States and our wider defense industrial base,” Draper says.

Besides the obvious benefits for the country, Draper and Harmon also emphasize the benefits of manufacturing careers for workers. Harmon talks about looking at the invisible talent, or individuals who might have a more difficult time finding work than others – people with nonviolent criminal records, people on the autism spectrum, or stay-at-home parents with not much employment history. IACMI has also worked with rural and underserved communities using virtual reality and mobile learning labs, offering training to people who might ordinarily not be able to access it.

“You can change generations,” Harmon says. “If somebody who has been in prison gets out and they get this really good job that changes their attitude and behaviors, and if they have kids, it’s a ripple effect.”

For Draper, opening people’s eyes to the potential of trade careers has personal importance. His father was a Vietnam veteran who, upon returning home, built a career as a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) technician and small business owner, allowing him to raise his family comfortably.

“He built the foundation for his family on a good career, a good, sustainable, high-paying career in a trade,” Draper says. “One of the keys I’m trying to drive into this program is it’s not just about building up the defense industrial base, it’s that we can change people’s lives.”

METAL https://www.metalforamerica.org

About the author: Clare Scott is associate editor for Defense and Munitions magazine. She can be reached at CScott@gie.net or 216.393.0314.