May
10 -- Generac Holdings Inc. CEO Aaron Jagdfeld is convinced that manufacturing
has an image problem that must be changed as part of any effort to address a
crucial skills shortage facing the sector in Wisconsin.
“The
media has been telling us that manufacturing, if it’s not dead yet, is dying,”
Jagdfeld said. “That makes it awful difficult to get people into our industry.
This image problem that we have is that manufacturing is dumb, dirty and
dangerous.”
Jagdfeld,
who leads the day-to-day operations at town of Genesee-based Generac, a
manufacturer of portable and standby generators and other engine-powered
products, offered his assessment of the skills gap issue during a keynote
address at the Manufacturing Matters conference at the Frontier Airlines Center
in downtown Milwaukee on Wednesday.
“The
skills gap is incredibly real and it’s painful,” he said. “It’s particularly
painful for a company like Generac that is trying to grow. We haven’t been able
to fill positions with people that have the kind of skill sets that we need.”
At
the root of the gap is a lack of people interested in a long-term career in
manufacturing, many of whom have been discouraged by misconceptions about
industrial companies and the overall health of the industry, Jagdfeld said.
“The
biggest part of that is to find students and convince them, and more important
to convince their parents, that manufacturing is very much alive.”
Jagdfeld
wants to see a concerted effort to make Wisconsin a manufacturing hub for the
country.
“What
do people think of when they think of Silicon Valley? They think of
technology,” he said. “Why not think of manufacturing technology and automation
when you think of (Wisconsin). That is the kind of hub we can create around
manufacturing.”
Generac’s
work force has doubled over the past 15 months to 2,400 employees. Finding
workers to fill open positions has been very challenging at times, Jagdfeld
said.
“Our
toughest challenge has been finding people,” he said.
Finding
qualified employees for skilled jobs has been especially difficult.
“We’ve
had to get very creative,” Jagdfeld said. “We’ve experienced firsthand the kind
of skills gap that exists out there.”
The
difficulty in finding skilled workers has led Generac to alter some of its
production processes, he said.
“We’re
relying more on automation and we’re getting a lot smarter,” Jagdfeld said.
“Necessity is the mother of all invention. I think that’s true when it comes to
process innovation.”
A
public relations campaign would go a long way toward changing the image of
manufacturing, Jagdfeld said.
“It’s
got to be wide ranging,” he said. “We have to change the image of
manufacturing.”
The
heritage of manufacturing in Wisconsin needs to be leveraged in any public
relations campaign, Jagdfeld said.
“Manufacturing
is great place for a career,” he said.
Rich
Rovito www.bizjournals.com
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