Karthik Ramani, the Donald W. Fedderson Distinguished Professor in Mechanical Engineering, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and professor of educational studies in the College of Education, by courtesy.

Everything has to be designed and made. New-age products and services increasingly need blending of digital and physical technologies. The emerging manufacturing industry is very different from the conventional view of manufacturing with many forms and shapes of convergence of different types of technologies. The economic role of design and production are very different from many other forms of science and technology we invest in — they are first and foremost very important and closely tied to our economic competitiveness and a part of emerging new products, processes, and business models.

The globalization of many skills, especially in manufacturing-related areas, is transforming our economy to one where many soft skills that are hard to measure are also becoming increasingly important such as creativity, communication, grit, resourcefulness, integrity, sincerity, adaptability, team spirit, confidence and mindset. The emerging competitive nature of the new economy needs blending of soft and hard skills — new human capital for innovation in design and manufacturing technology.

Manufacturing has changed

The new and emerging manufacturing industry is already changing its face by absorbing advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, data science, augmented and virtual reality, Internet of Things and connectivity: 5G emerging infrastructure and edge computing, connected machines and many others.

Along with it, the role of humans and what they need to know to create and work in these new settings is changing. These changes include many sectors tied to manufacturing from transportation, consumer, machinery, electrical and construction, clothing and computers as well as electronics.

Additionally owing to the changes in technology, the skills needed by employers and that they want to hire for, are posing serious problems. Many employers, especially the small and medium industries that need to up-skill workers, are already struggling in what is known as the skills gap. To complicate matters, the gap in education and learning opportunities is especially stark between the rural and urban areas. Outsourcing manufacturing is not a solution anymore, since the innovation and design knowledge that is tightly coupled also continue to go away. With these changes, to bridge the increasing skills gap, we need new policies and sustainable methodologies to train the new young generation at scale. One cannot view employment in each sector separately — they are all connected in a connected economy. It is true that not just manufacturing but every field will undergo transitions and transformations because of convergence of technologies.

Learning must change

With these changes that are already starting to increase in rate, the need to “learn on-the-go” becomes more important — rather than imagining that a short span of education will prepare for a lifelong of many changes.

We have a substantial skills gap both for understanding and developing appropriate technology, and also in serving these emerging sectors, where the skills needed tomorrow are different from what we are going to prepare children for in the near-term.

How can we prepare children to learn-to-learn? How can we engage more of our children in our manufacturing and design innovation sector? What happens if education and learning become playful? How do we appreciate and reward creativity in design and maker skills in education? One way is to “make the maker” — make learning hands-on design and making skills exciting and playful.

Play has been studied for a long time and known to help in brain development, persevere in adversity, enable creative thinking, and so on. More importantly, play is about having fun and it creates engagement that drives the “want-to-learn.” In doing so they, without knowing they are learning, develop the skills that are important.

A more flexible form of education is needed. Learning by designing, building and playing, as well as experiencing, integrates interest in fundamentals and foundations. It makes people curious to want to learn. We need to be much better at educating and skilling hands-on, which is critical for manufacturing and design, especially in the younger people in a more personalized way at scale.

What is good is that our understanding of how people learn, especially learn-by-doing and experiencing, has increased. We also have technology itself that may cure the problems created by technological changes. With virtual and augmented reality, the cloud and greater penetration of 5G to remote and rural areas, we may solve the access problem of content and even “hands-on remote learning.” We can scale expertise and coach the coaches — the teachers and others in remote areas. Our recent research has demonstrated the potential for such technologies to transform both education and training for new skills. Much remains to be done globally and many challenges such as for energy and climate change have to be overcome.

The impact of change

Our current research is overcoming challenges related to the cost and expertise needed to author good content for these virtual environments so we are not dependent on the classical one-on-one coaching or an overload of canned and boring homeworks and laboratories with known methods that easily scale but provide less opportunity for learning. What is promising is the hope that the merging of new media such as virtual and augmented reality, well-designed playful content for learning as well as hands-on and minds-on education can create the future “innomakers,” the creators of our new economy.

Source: National Manufacturing Day: “Making the makers of the new world of manufacturing”