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Maroun Nehme, director of Buena Park High School’s Advanced Robotics and Mechatronics program, started folding SACA into his program shortly after he became the head of it. He said it started off as a way to get something in the hands of students along with their diplomas, but it’s turned into a lot more.

He got his Gold SACA instructor certification and began testing his students for the Gold credentials. After seven students passed the Silver exam, six attempted and passed the Gold exam.

“We became the very first college or high school in California to have Gold Certified students and a Gold Certified instructor,” Nehme said.

He said he wanted to make sure his students got a little recognition, so he began posting their projects and accomplishments on social media.

That’s when his community began taking notice. A councilman for the Buena Park City Council saw the hands-on training in action, and asked Nehme to bring his students to a public meeting to honor them and their work. He also said industry began taking notice and wanted to see how they could benefit from Nehme and his lab.

“Their parents were super stoked and I think it just gives more recognition to the program,” Nehme said. “And now we’re beginning to partner up with some companies that may use my classroom as a training facility for their employees, which is pretty big for a high school.”

He said it was a big deal, especially since he wasn’t sure how to deliver SACA curriculum at first. Nehme said a presentation from Joe Russo at Klein Educational Systems helped him see how to keep things moving. Working with students in pods helped him make sure he could keep 30 students going at once and still give them time to test on the necessary skills.

 Watching them gain interest in the first year is huge, he said, and part of that is how the initial curriculum is built.

“I like the 101 curriculum because it gives students a taste of everything,” Nehme said. “It doesn’t go super deep into anything, but it gives them a taste of all these different things, whether it’s electrical, pneumatics or robotics. They go into year two, they’re doing the same thing and they can decide what they want to learn, what they want to pursue.”

He said that gives them opportunity once they graduate outside of just going to a four-year institution. He said it helps motivate students while they’re in high school, and find paths to high-paying careers once they graduate.

“I think one of the roles that SACA fills is provide for not just the students, but their parents, a purpose for them to go to school,” Nehme said. “They would like them to get into some kind of career where they can learn a trade and earn a decent living, especially in Southern California. If a student wants to go into a field, they can stack those certifications and use them to get a job.”

It’s no secret that technology has changed our personal lives in ways few could have foreseen decades ago. But to what extent has technology changed the way we work?

People unfamiliar with the manufacturing sector might assume that factories where people work with their hands to make things might not be on the frontier of technological progress. However, they might be surprised to learn that the nation’s manufacturing facilities are driving forces when it comes to advanced technology.

There’s even a name for the technological revolution taking place throughout manufacturing: Industry 4.0. This term refers to the fact that we’re in the midst of a fourth Industrial Revolution, in which advanced automation technologies powered by Internet-connected systems are transforming the way modern manufacturing facilities operate.

This phenomenon goes by a variety of different monikers, including Smart Factory, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and Smart Manufacturing. It’s gotten a lot of attention over the past several years, leading some to question whether all the hype is justified.

After all, there are plenty of people who work in facilities that remain largely unchanged from the way they’ve always been. Is technology really transforming manufacturing the way the media portrays?

In a nutshell, the answer is yes. If you haven’t jumped aboard the Industry 4.0 train yet, it’s time to make your way to the station. Believe the hype. The current state of manufacturing is smarter and more automated than ever before, and it’s only growing and accelerating. As Blake Moret, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Rockwell Automation, recently noted, “We’ve experienced 20 years of evolution in 2 years.”

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at a few of the conclusions reached by experts at Rockwell Automation and Plex, in association with Sapio Research, in their Eighth Annual State of Smart Manufacturing Report (the “report”).

Challenges Spurring Technology Investments

Why are so many manufacturers choosing to invest in advanced smart automation technologies? That’s one of the questions the authors of the report looked at when developing questions for their survey of 1,353 global manufacturers across 13 of the top manufacturing countries.

What they learned is that many manufacturers see technology as a means to address one or more of the many challenges they face in today’s manufacturing environment. For example, “[s]killed labor – and labor of any kind – continues to be elusive across the globe. As manufacturers continue to seek opportunities for profitable growth, they’re finding that uncertainty in workforce availability is impacting quality, along with their ability to meet their customers’ needs and transform at pace. They are addressing this impact by using technology to extract data from their operations and assemble actionable insights.”

As manufacturers compete for skilled labor, they’re also competing with other manufacturers globally for customers and market share. The authors of the report “are also seeing how technology is helping the industry accelerate their agility and competitive differentiation.”

In fact, “manufacturers view technology as an advantage for improving quality, agility, innovation, and to attract the next generation of talent. Manufacturers expect to mitigate risk through technology tied to processes and people to build resiliency and drive future success.”

The Current State of Smart Manufacturing

Knowing that manufacturers are increasingly turning to advanced automation technologies to address the many challenges they’re facing, the authors of the report sought to gauge both the current levels of technology adoption and manufacturers’ plans for the future.

Before jumping into those findings, though, it’s important to understand what we’re talking about when we refer to “smart manufacturing.” According to the Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association (“MESA International”), “Smart Manufacturing is the intelligent, real-time orchestration and optimization of business, physical, and digital processes within factories and across the entire value chain. Resources and processes are automated, integrated, monitored, and continuously evaluated based on all available information as close to real time as possible.”

Manufacturers embracing smart manufacturing technologies are doing so “to mitigate risks, open up new opportunities, and remain competitive.” In terms of risk management, manufacturers face both internal and external risks.

According to the report, “[t]he top two ways respondents are addressing internal risk are to adopt new technology aimed at minimizing disruption from workforce or supply issues (53%) and to shift their operations to the cloud for purposes including increased cybersecurity protection and business continuity (50%). When it comes to external risks like inflation, supply chain, and workforce shortages, the top-ranking mitigation tactic is adopting new technology (44%).”

So exactly how many respondents are we talking about? The report concludes that “[e]ighty-four percent of respondents have adopted smart manufacturing or are actively evaluating solutions with the intention to invest in the coming year.” That’s an astounding adoption rate, which shows clearly the role these technologies play today and will continue to play in the future.

The report did note a difference in adoption rate based upon available revenue: “Companies with higher revenues are more likely to have adopted smart manufacturing technology, with a 58% adoption rate among respondents in the top third for revenue, compared to 40% among the lower revenue bracket.”

This finding is unsurprising, but the report indicates it “may indicate an opportunity for small and mid-size organizations to leverage an incremental, lower initial cost and resource approach to smart manufacturing with modular solutions that provide strong value and quick time to payback and ROI.”

With manufacturing becoming a more global phenomenon every year, it’s worth noting that investment in advanced automation technologies isn’t limited to the United States. Indeed, the top three countries with the greatest adoption rates of smart manufacturing technologies are “China (70%), the US (60%) and India (57%).”

Smart Manufacturing Solutions Abound

So what exactly are these advanced automation technologies we’re talking about when we discuss smart manufacturing? The report summarizes a set of ten smart manufacturing solutions manufacturers are adopting:

• Smart Devices

“Smart devices are self and system-aware assets that acquire and process operating data – and monitor and report on asset conditions such as self-diagnostics and energy usage.”

• Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)

“Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) track and document the transformation of raw materials into finished goods, providing real-time production management to drive enterprise-wide compliance, quality, and efficiency.”

• Quality Management Systems (QMS)

“Quality Management Systems (QMS) standardize and automate quality documentation, processes, and measurements.”

• Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS)

“Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) help organizations track and manage maintenance and repair activities for their facilities, equipment, and other assets in one place.”

• Asset Performance Management (APM)

“Asset Performance Management (APM) combines process, operational, and machine-level data through dashboards to monitor machine and plant health, ensuring optimal uptime, throughput, and maintenance needs.”

• Production Monitoring

“Production Monitoring provides seamless connectivity to machines on the plant floor, delivering transparent, real-time operational KPIs like OEE and dashboards to drive continuous improvements.”

• Distributed Control Systems (DCS)

“Distributed Control Systems (DCS) use decentralized elements to control dispersed systems, such as automated industrial processes or large-scale infrastructure systems.”

• Supply Chain Planning (SCP)

“Supply Chain Planning (SCP) combines data from multiple departments across the business or from outside market resources to sync demand and supply forecasting to improve inventory accuracy and production management.”

• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

“Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) automates front- and back-office processes, including financial management, revenue management, human capital, order management, billing, and inventory.”

• Analytics

“Analytics use data to solve manufacturing bottlenecks, optimize output and quality, and provide new insights.”

Contact SACA to Learn More about Smart Automation Certifications

As manufacturers incorporate these new advanced automation technologies, they’re finding they need workers with more advanced technical and technological skills than ever before. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough workers with these skills to fill the many roles available today, creating what is known throughout industry as the “skills gap.”

How can manufacturers find the highly-skilled workers they need so desperately? One promising solution is the development of industry-standard certifications that focus on connected-systems skills. The Smart Automation Certification Alliance (SACA) sits at the forefront of the effort to certify students and workers who demonstrate the required knowledge and hands-on smart automation skills employers so desperately need.

To learn more about Industry 4.0 certifications and how SACA can help both educational institutions and industry employers begin the task of bridging the Industry 4.0 skills gap, contact SACA for more information.

About Duane Bolin

Duane Bolin is a former curriculum developer and education specialist. He is currently a Marketing Content Developer for Amatrol, Inc. Learn more about Amatrol and its technical training solutions, including eLearning, here and connect with Duane on Amatrol’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube pages.