Time Wise Management Systems

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2008

For more information please contact:
Muriel Mosher
Tel: 207-623-0680

MassMEP Addresses Need for Skilled Workforce in Manufacturing
Manufacturing Training Being Promoted at the Worcester Public Schools

WORCESTER, MA - The MassMEP and Worcester Public Schools have partnered to promote manufacturing careers to middle-school children. The MassMEP Mobile Training Unit will be touring some of the middle schools during the month of November. The mobile training unit is a traveling classroom that is fitted with 12 computers, a tabletop lathe and milling machine.

During the tours, middle-school students will have the opportunity to write a sample program, on one of the 12 computers, that creates a design onto a block of wood and see the program cut the block into the design they created utilizing the simulator software. The presentation includes an example of a career ladder within manufacturing. Students that have experienced this tour at other schools stated they were amazed at the opportunities within manufacturing and that they did know they could have this much fun at a job.

The Staying Power Report, a manufacturing study conducted by Northeastern University, states that Massachusetts stands to see more than 100,000 replacement job openings in manufacturing by 2016, which will compound the current serious skills shortage and 55% of the manufacturers plan on expanding production in the next five years. MassMEP is working to address the desperate need for skilled workers within the manufacturing industry in order that manufacturing companies will grow in Massachusetts.

“The lack of knowledge about manufacturing has permeated our school systems, as well as the workplace training system, and has produced a significant lack of critical manufacturing skills. This deficit is especially acute in such traditional vocational school training venues as “machining” and has reached the point where our basic industries that require precision machining are one generation away from being extinct.” States Jack Healy, Director of MassMEP.

The Time Wise ® Mobile Outreach Skills Training (M.O.S.T.) program trains people, with little or no prior manufacturing experience, in the basics of manufacturing operations in a fraction of the time of traditional programs. The training can be applied to new hire training and incumbent employees who need to advance their existing skills.

-END-

####