Are we in the middle of a manufacturing labor crisis? According
to the U.S. Census Bureau, 78 million people will be leaving the
workforce over the next 16 years. During this same period, only
48 million people will enter the labor pool for the first time.
And not surprisingly, very few of those 48 million will be entering
the manufacturing market.
Currently, half of all electric utility workers are age 45 or
older. Furthermore, it is estimated that 75% of petrochemical
workers will be retiring by 2015. As a result, companies are relying
heavily on intensive cross-training programs to ensure they possess
the competencies necessary to successfully continue operations.
But the great dilemma is how to capture all that veteran knowledge
exiting the plant as workers retire in droves? That's why we developed
PRIMEed™.
Creating technologies that effectively transfer veteran knowledge
and skills to younger workers is difficult. With PRIMEed we took
a better approach—creating a benchmark standard for employees
that would rely less on informal on-the-job training (OJT) and
more on well-established, documented fundamentals. Removing some
of the variability that is inherent in OJT, PRIMEed enables companies
to reliably predict who will be successful on the plant floor—minimizing
the risk associated with the unprecedented exodus of skilled labor.
