The Association For Manufacturing Technology and SME announced a strategic partnership, making bigger strides together toward solving North America’s manufacturing workforce challenges.

The Manufacturing Imperative – Workforce Pipeline Challenge (MI-WPC) launches this fall and combines the industry and workforce expertise of SME with the educational programs and innovations of a select group of U.S. community and technical colleges.

RDAbbott and NovationSi recently gave a group of Ohio middle schoolers a firsthand look at American manufacturing in action.

Why do we remember the past, and not the future? It’s an interesting question in that it is thought provoking.

While COVID dampened demand early on, the skills gap and labor shortage that has plagued the industry for more than a decade is still in full swing. As new NDT methods advance, quality professionals require new training, and technicians transitioning from film techniques to non-film techniques need hands-on experience.

It’s called Roko's Basilisk. This thought experiment posits that the creation of an artificial intelligence will lead to an all-powerful, future artificial intelligence that will retroactively punish anyone who did not help bring it into existence.

Despite offering workers an average annual compensation of $84,832 in 2017, manufacturers struggle to fill positions. 

Quality spoke with a host of NDT experts to discuss how the field has changed in recent years, trends, and challenges related to working with NDT technology.

Developed nations, though equipped with industrial and educational infrastructures, face a current and increasing shortage of qualified, skilled and motivated workers.