劳动力不是万能的——美国全新生态系统重振制造业

编按：为重振制造业，美国正在尝试多种方法，包括提升员工的设计技能，以及从教育着手，推动全新的教学方法在内。制造业一直是维持经济发展的关键，美国所采取的行动和想法，或许有可借鉴之处。 重振制造业成为美国今年度振兴经济的主要议题之一。美国政府已开始着手探讨如何解决美国境内制造产业所面临的困境，以及再培训美国制造业工人所面对的关键挑战。 在稍早前于美国华盛顿举行的能源部会议中，专家们一致认同，新一代的制造业从业人员必须具备能符合现代制造业要求的设计技能，包括许多所谓的“软性技能”(soft skills)在内，如批判性的思考能力(critical thinking)、领导能力、协作能力等。 企业管理阶层、教育工作者、现任和前任政府官员，以及前国会议员等，都对于现阶段美国制造业基地严重遭受侵蚀，以及如何让美国重新获得全球竞争力而忧心忡忡。许多人认为，劳力成本和能源消耗并不是主要障碍，美国需要的是重新创造出一种灵活、可由设计驱动的制造业模式，以及用于训练下一代机械、工程和技术经理人员的崭新、模块化的培训方法。 纵观两世纪以来，美国一直引领全球部署各种创新技术，从铁路到电报网络，从电网到通讯网络都包含在内。然而，麦肯锡(McKinsey & Co.)的市场研究员Stefan Heck却直截了当地指出，“我们目前缺乏部署新技术的胆量。” Heck 用了“胆量”(guts)这个字，不仅是指为了从新能源或其它创新技术中获得更多优势，因而愿意承担风险，部署创新技术所需的基础设施。他认为，许多半导体产业实际上早已离开美国了，主要原因就是劳动成本──仅占每片芯片生产成本2%的劳动成本。然而，正由于大多数美国芯片制造商“不愿意投资”制造更先进芯片生产设施所需的资本与设备，才造成此一结果。 在专注于洁净能源的研究以前，Heck曾经与全球主要的芯片公司密切合作。 他曾经是参与能源部研究计划署-能源计划高峰会，致力于生解决产和劳动力问题专家之一。美国能源部先进制造办公室项目经理Leo Christodoulou指出，制造业目前约占美国生产总值的11%，占美国劳动人口12%，同时，全美大约有60%的科学家和工程师分布在制造业相关领域。

要提升制造业，就必须强化设计专业能力Unzesmc

美国能源部正在寻求能促成当地制造业聚落发展的途径，他们希望利用美国当地和区域制造业的特点来推动制造业的发展，包括位于美国中西部的耐用消费品制造业，以及集中在西南部的高科技产业等。未来，Christodoulous的办公室还将试图定义能帮助美国振兴制造业的“基石以及基础技术”。另外，还包括了优良的通讯基础设施和一流的大学，他表示。 定义发展制造业所需的基础技术，以及研发新材料和制造方法，是推动美国境内形成区域性和国家集产业聚落的下一个步骤，他说。而所有这些努力，都可帮助美国制造业转变为更灵活、设计驱动型的产业，在全球竞争激烈的科技产业中以创新产品脱颖而出。 然而，劳力密集型的制造业已经不可能再回到美国了。麦肯锡的Heck认为，未来制造业涉及的层面非常广泛，包括了科技、自动化、工程技能，以及更多复杂的任务……这些都需要设计，需要3D CAD绘图，更需要特别的技能以确保高品质。他以喷射机和火箭引擎为例，这些设备不仅具有高度的策略性意义，而且需要极精密的制造和加工技术。 本文下一页：制造业的生态系统 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载

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{pagination} 通用电气(GE)全球研究中心的Christine Furstoss呼吁更多中小企业加入制造业供应链，因为这个产业“需要全新的生态系统”。例如使用薄膜沉积的“添加制造法”(additive manufacturing)等新途径，将有助于建构一个全新的制造业生态系统，Furstoss说。 “今天，我们的产品都以一贯的流程制造，”她说。“我们必须改变，去建立另一种非连续的制造流程。” 其它的高阶企业主管，如波音(Boeing Research and Technology)的Matthew Ganz承认，飞机制造商已经面临着设计与制造业务分离所带来的阻碍。波音目前正在凝聚其设计和制造流程，并激励年轻的工程师不断精进其设计能力。 更多专业证照 振兴制造业的另一项关键，是教育下一代的劳动人口，使其能胜任未来以设计为导向的产业。目前，许多企业管理阶层和教育工作者都同意，连结企业、工会和大学院校的“全体总动员”(all-hands-on-deck)模式，是重振制造业的最佳途径之一。 大学院校已经开始寻求策略联盟，希望培育出下一代优良的劳动人口，陶氏化学(Dow Chemical Co.)公共政策经理Carrie Houtman说。陶氏化学 CEO Andrew Liveris和麻省理工学院(MIT)董事长Susan Hockfield也于去年六月在白宫揭示了双方将就先进制造展开策略合作。 现在，美国加州的大学院校系统 (community college system)已经开始推行一种用来培训制造业劳动人口的新做法──“stackable credentials”(获得更多专业证照)。该系统的名誉副校长Van Ton-Quinlivan长期致力于推动劳动人口的发展，他指出，为了满足制造商的需求，这种方法能帮助新一代的制造业从业人员获得更多专业证照。每一张证照，即代表一项专业技能。 例如，Ton-Quinlivan解释道，一个希望投身能源科技产业的工程系学生，可以先取得销售前与售后(pre- and post-sales)证书，这将能让新出炉的工程师得以了解一家企业的最新项目。这种模块化的教育和培训计划旨在让学生具备雇主要求的技能，同时也能让学生具备更多其它领域的知识。 加州的官员们也指出，企业必须在人才培训上发挥更积极的作用。她表示，大学院校系统的主要目标是为企业提供具备所需技能的人才，但企业在应征新员工时，必须更明确地提出他们的需求。 而谈到业者对政府的繁琐监管机制和缺乏推动制造业所需之租税优惠方案的普遍抱怨时，前美国国会科学委员会主席表示，要推动美国制造业复苏，最终仍将回归到培育更多技术劳动人口层面。“你可以改革税制和管理政策，”Bart Gordon对许多企高阶主管表示，“但你仍然需要拥有熟练技能的工作人员”，才能在全球市场竞争。 编译： Joy Teng 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 参考英文原文：： Manufacturing by design: New skills needed to compete，by George Leopold

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{pagination} Manufacturing by design: New skills needed to compete George Leopold OXON HILL Md. – Reviving U.S. manufacturing has emerged as such a hot election-year issue that an entire afternoon of an energy technology conference was devoted to the barriers to domestic manufacturing and obstacles to retraining the U.S. manufacturing workforce. Those new workers will require design skills that are integral to modern manufacturing along with “soft skills” like critical thinking, leadership and collaborative abilities, experts agreed during an Energy Department conference this week across the Potomac River from Washington. Corporate executives, educators, current and former bureaucrats and an ex-congressman all weighed in on the erosion of the American manufacturing base and how to return it to global competitiveness. Most argued that labor costs and energy usage aren’t the key barriers; what is needed is a revival of flexible, design-driven manufacturing and a new, modular approach to training the next generation of machinists, engineers and technical managers. Throughout the preceding two centuries, the U.S. led the world in deploying disruptive technologies ranging from railroads and the telegraph to an electrical grid and communications networks. No more, argued market researcher Stefan Heck of McKinsey & Co. “Where we are lacking is the guts to deploy new technologies.” Heck’s use of the word “guts” refers not only to the infrastructure needed to roll out new technologies by the willingness to take risks in order to reap the benefits of new energy and other innovations. He argued that much of the semiconductor industry has left the U.S. not because of labor costs - which account for only about 2 percent of the chip production costs - but because most U.S. chip makers “haven’t been willing to make the investment” in the capital equipment needed to operate advanced chips plants. Heck, who worked closely with global chip companies before shifting his focus to cleantech, was among a range of experts addressing manufacturing and workforce issues during an Energy Department summit sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy. Leo Christodoulou, program manager for DoE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, noted that manufacturing currently accounts for 11 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, employs about 12 U.S. million workers and about 60 percent of U.S. scientists and engineers work in manufacturing-related fields. Factory floor skills must be augmented by design expertise. The Energy Department office is looking for ways to promote manufacturing clusters that leverage the local and regional characteristics of U.S. manufacturing (durable goods in the Midwest, high-tech in the Southwest). Further, Christodoulou’s office is attempting to identify the “keystone, foundational technologies” that the U.S. can exploit to revive manufacturing. Two, he noted, are a superior communications infrastructure and first-rate universities. Identifying and developing new materials and manufacturing methods are among the next steps in forming regional and state clusters focused on value-added manufacturing, he added. Together, these advances could help transform American manufacturing into an agile, design-driven sector capable of thriving in a global technology competition that places a premium on being the first to deliver innovative products. With labor-intensive manufacturing unlikely to return to the U.S., McKinsey’s Heck argued: “What we have to shift to is the kind of manufacturing that involves technology, involves automation, involves engineering skill sets, involves more complicated kinds of tasks…things that actually require design, require looking at 3-D CAD drawings, require particular skills to make sure the quality is high.” He offered as examples jet and rocket engines, products that are not only strategically important but require precise tolerances, very exact machining and control of temperature cycles during design and manufacturing. Manufacturing ecosystems Christine Furstoss of General Electric’s Global Research Center called for integrating more small and medium-sized manufacturers into industry supply chains since a manufacturing revival “will require a new kind of ecosystem.” A greater focus in new approaches like “additive manufacturing” using thin-film deposition, for example, will help in scaling up a new manufacturing ecosystem, Furstoss said. “Today, we’re very sequential” in how products are manufactured,” she added. “We need to change that paradigm to make it a non-sequential process.” Other corporate executives here like Boeing Research and Technology’s Matthew Ganz acknowledged that the aircraft maker has been “hindered” by separating its design and manufacturing operations. Boeing is now in the process of reuniting design and manufacturing while promoting younger engineers with strong design skills. “We grab them by the arm and pull them up the [organizational] chart,” Ganz stressed. ‘Stackable credentials’ The other part of the manufacturing equation is educating a new generation of skilled workers capable of driving a design-oriented manufacturing sector. An “all-hands-on-deck” approach that links companies, trade unions and community colleges is seen as one of the best approaches to reinvigorating the sector, corporate executives and educators agreed. Community colleges “have been excellent partners and a critical cog” in training the next generation of manufacturing workers, said Carrie Houtman, public policy manager at Dow Chemical Co. Dow CEO Andrew Liveris along with MIT President Susan Hockfield head an Advanced Manufacturing Partnership unveiled by the White House last June. A new approach to training manufacturing workers called “stackable credentials” is being pioneered by California’s community college system. Van Ton-Quinlivan, the system’s vice chancellor for workforce development, described the approach as earning course certificates that can be “stacked” in order meet manufacturer’s requirements for new employees. Each stack represents an individual skill. For example, Ton-Quinlivan explained, an engineering student hoping to work in the energy technology market could gain both pre- and post-sales certificates, allowing the newly minted engineer to implement an energy program that a company has just sold. The modular education and training program is designed to provide students with the skills employers want now, while allowing students to “stack” other courses that would lead to undergraduate or graduate degrees. The California official also put the onus on manufacturers to play a more active role in training future workers. She said community colleges are motivated to deliver the skills companies need, but companies must be more specific about what required and desired skills they are seeking in new employees. Responding to widespread complaints here about regulatory red tape and the lack of tax incentives needed to promote manufacturing, the former chairman of the House Science Committee said the revival of U.S. manufacturing ultimately comes down to training more skilled workers. “You can have all the tax and regulatory reform you want,” Bart Gordon told an audience of technology company executives, “but you still have to have a skilled workforce” to compete in global markets.