Research shows that there is a growing need for skilled workers in the area of advanced manufacturing; this refers to making use of new technologies and advanced processes to produce products that have high value. More importantly, U.S. government employment data reveals that there is lack of supply of skilled workers in the manufacturing sector. Furthermore, it has also been widely cited in industrial literature that there is a concern regarding the job readiness of fresh college graduates and the gaps in skills sets needed to be successful in an industrial setting, especially in the engineering or manufacturing fields. One approach to bridge the skills gap is to provide customized continuing education to current the workforce as per the industry need. This paper presents a case study of such customized continuing education offered by Texas A&M University for oil and gas industry in Houston, Texas. Specifically, as a part of National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education project, two professional development sessions were organized in the summer of 2018 in Houston targeting the energy industry. Both programs were two-days long and focused on two key aspects of high value manufacturing: manufacturing operations excellence and manufacturing quality excellence. The professional development sessions were focused on materials and inventory planning, production economics, manufacturing quality, non-destructive evaluation, statistical process control, and lean/ six-sigma. The continuing education programs and course materials were developed based on the feedback from the industry advisory board for the Manufacturing Center of Excellence at Houston Community College, which is a collaborating partner on the ATE Grant. As a part of assessment of the programs, industry participants in the both sessions were given comprehensive surveys asking for their feedback on the applicability of the educational sessions. Overall, the participants rated the sessions very highly on the organization and the relevancy of the program topics and learning materials. The participants also felt that they learned new information through these programs.
Dr. Michael D. Johnson is a professor in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University. He currently serves as Associate Dean for Inclusion and Faculty Success in the College of Engineering. He is a member of the Engineering Education Faculty at Texas A&M. Prior to joining the faculty at Texas A&M, he was a senior product development engineer at the 3M Corporate Research Laboratory in St. Paul, Minnesota. He received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Michigan State University and his S.M. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on engineering education; design tools; specifically, the cost modeling and analysis of product development and manufacturing systems; and computer-aided design methodology.
Dr. Bimal Nepal is an Associate Professor in the Industrial Distribution Program at Texas A&M University. His research interests include integration of supply chain management with new product development decisions, distributor service portfolio optimization, pricing optimization, supply chain risk analysis, lean and six sigma, large scale optimization, and engineering education. He has authored over 100 refereed articles in leading journals and peer reviewed conference proceedings in these areas. He has B.S. in ME, and both M.S. and Ph.D. in IE. He is a member of ASEE, INFORMS, ASEM, and a senior member of IIE.
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