Beyond MFG Day/Month: Keeping the Conversation & Interest in Manufacturing Alive
For the past six weeks, we at FLATE have been very busy coordinating and organizing “Made in
Florida” Industry Tours for K12 students across the state to celebrate Manufacturing Day/Month. It’s been demanding, but rewarding at the same time. We know that this effort makes a difference. The most recent ‘manufacturing perception’ survey conducted by the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte captures a high level impact/correlation between ‘being familiar’ with manufacturing and the likelihood for considering a job/career in the field. Family members who are familiar with manufacturing are twice as likely to encourage their child to pursue manufacturing (“Overwhelming Support: U.S. public opinions on the manufacturing industry”, 2014 Deloitte Development LLC).
And, what better way to “get familiar” with manufacturing than a guided tour by passionate people who work in manufacturing. We have been tracking our own impact from Manufacturing Day in Florida with annual, summarized statewide student, educator and tour hosts surveys. Most recently, we published a new white paper “Manufacturing Day Tours: Student Feedback Shows Huge Impact” which took an in-depth look at nearly 1500 comments from students who attended Manufacturing Day tours in Florida in 2014. Categorized written responses were grouped into seven major themes: Hands-On, Interactive, Real Life; Machines, Assembly Line; Image, Importance; Careers; Tour Guides, and Other. An overwhelming 42% wrote positively about impressive, expensive and high-precision equipment and machinery. Eleven percent commented positively on the “great tour guides,” who “were knowledgeable,” and loved the work they were doing and sharing it with the students. Students were impressed with the cutting-edge technology, the intricacies of components, the complicated scheduling and tracking systems and the universal laser focus on quality. Please check the link above to review the white paper and see exactly what students said. We should not be surprised that many of the people they interacted with made big impressions on the students.