We, at Scientific Management Techniques, decided to pull together data from our forty-six years of mechanical hard skills assessments into a simple but effective chart.  The results demonstrate a clear, steady decline in mechanical troubleshooting skills over the past four and a half decades.  And we don’t need the data to know this, we hear it from the ground every day from our global manufacturing clientele.

Used to collect the data, the Standard Timing Model (STM), our mechanical skills assessment tool, is used to identify mechanical skills and competencies when hiring Maintenance Professionals, Machine Operators, Electro-Mechanical Personnel, Assemblers and Technicians. There are varying degrees of assessment difficulty depending on the position you’re hiring or evaluating.  In addition, the STM is an effective tool for determining mechanical aptitude and determining training needs.

Our assessment programs have been validated thirty-eight times at the Ph.D. level, proving their effectiveness at identifying the most skilled, most capable, and most trainable candidates and incumbents.

The end result is that the manufacturing skills gap is real, and it will continue to significantly impact the bottom line of manufacturers globally.  What has led to this skills gap could be debated at length, but we believe it is critical to move forward with a solution-based skills strategy to embrace your manufacturing workforce pipeline.

If you’d like to know more about the unique, hands-on skills assessment and training solutions we offer, please contact us, we’d welcome the opportunity to customize a program for you and your team.

The post The Manufacturing Skills Gap – A Look at the Hard Data appeared first on Scientific Management Techniques, Inc..

Large Fortune 500 manufacturing companies have a vast workforce, and it is not always easy to maintain an accurate picture of the skill development of their employees.  This is where our clients see the many benefits of implementing a Hands-On Skill Assessment Program.

Scientific Management Techniques has developed 5 skill assessment machines for the selection and evaluation of roles that include maintenance mechanics, machine operators, industrial electricians, PLC technicians, electro-mechanical personnel, process control technicians, and CNC operation personnel.

The SMT Skill Assessment Program has been developed and utilized for over 44 years and has 38 validation studies to support the efficacy of the program.

There are many benefits of assessing the skill levels your incumbent workforce.  The ability to identify skill gaps and training needs is often the most highly recognized.  However, clients have provided feedback that by using SMT’s Assessment Machines, they have discovered they had entry level operators with potential far beyond their current role.  These individuals were perhaps hired to fill an immediate need on a production line, but had high levels of mechanical aptitude and were destined to become highly accomplished senior maintenance staff.

These individuals become the backbone of any manufacturing organization.  It is critical for productivity and profitability of every organization to recognize, train and promote these types of skilled individuals as they become increasingly rare.

SMT’s Skill Assessment machines not only allow for manufacturers to identify and hire the most highly skilled individuals, but allows for easy identification of incumbent skill levels for training, promotion and workforce development.

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