Preparing for Manufacturing Jobs of the Future

As manufacturing moves more into the digital age, the types of jobs that will become more prevalent on the factory floor are likely to become more technologically oriented and require advanced training.

The industry is in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a transition that is bringing about the type of technical change that hasn’t been seen in manufacturing in decades. More factories will be employing the use of artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and cognitive automation.

And, with these types of wholesale changes, comes the need for humans who know how to monitor the machines, fix the problems and program the computerized tools that will make the factory run cleaner, smoother and more efficiently.

We Still Need People

In many dystopian novels, the future is mechanical and warns of a time when machines will rule humankind.

But, back here in the real world, the fact is that we will still need people to run our factories. We will not only need humans to design, build, program and maintain robots, computers and other machines, we will also need people to manage the factories and train other humans to use these machines as the tools they are designed to be.

People will also have to design and develop even more innovative software that will drive the automation and robotic technology factories will become more reliant on.

And, while robots can complete a wide range of tasks, there are still specific jobs that are outside their scope and will require a human to complete. Robots and humans both work best when they work together, so, even with dire predictions of a “Terminator”-style scenario, the fact remains that we’ll always need humans in the manufacturing process. At least for the foreseeable future.

The New Factory Jobs

But that doesn’t mean that jobs won’t change. In 2017, Manpower and UI Labs released a report on digital manufacturing that lists some of the jobs – both inside and outside the factory walls – that it foresees will become more common in production. These include:

• Digital manufacturing chief technology officer: This role is responsible for overseeing all the automation, digitization and connectivity of the factory.
• Digital manufacturing analyst: This position will be responsible for unearthing improvements in the manufacturing process by searching through data.
• Machine learning specialist: This career will be responsible for documenting the human decision-making process to help computers assist in the design and development of new tasks.
• Predictive maintenance system specialist: The person in this role will be responsible for monitoring the health of all a factory’s critical manufacturing assets to predict where and when these assets may fail.
• Digital factory automation engineer: These engineers will develop and set up automation tools that improve productivity.
• Collaborative robotics technician: As the name suggests, these workers will be responsible for setting up and maintaining a factory’s robotic systems.

At Ficosa, we’re already seeing the need for some of these positions and are encouraging our advocates in education to start recommending some of these careers to high school and college-age students.

These positions will be highly-paid and in demand in the not-so-near future and we must support initiatives that get young people interested in the resurgence of the age of manufacturing.