19 June 2008

Automation skills shortage

By Jim Pinto

The automation industry is quickly developing a “skills shortage”, which will occur after the current generation of engineers retires. Where will the new engineers and technicians come from to operate future factories and process automation plants?

In the old days, process engineering skills had to be acquired through a long “apprenticeship”—often years, and even decades. The problem today is corporate administrators are simply extrapolating those old patterns of employment.

As industry transforms into a high-tech workplace, the new generation of automation engineers and technicians will be completely different. They have grown up with computer games, the Internet, PDAs, and cell phones. Some computer games are more complex than typical control or monitoring systems. By comparison, the software tools and smart equipment in today’s control rooms are a cakewalk.

Sadly, large end-user company policies are still measuring progress by obsolete learning standards. And this is why bright youngsters shun jobs in factories and plants, and go off looking for careers outside the automation business.

ISA is working diligently to develop the image and value of “certified automation professionals” (CAP). But progress is stymied by lack of recognition of the profession. Here’s the key question: Will automation professionals be recognized with higher base pay and faster advancement? Without that recognition, certification is worthless.

ISA’s challenge is to convince employers of the merits of the CAP program. If there is a big pay differential that comes with CAP certification, engineers will work hard to achieve that status. If not, it is just eyewash and many will just shrug it off.

Dick Morley, father of the programmable logic controller (PLC), and co-author of the book, The Technology Machine – how manufacturing will look in the year 2020, suggests getting young people interested in automation jobs requires significant social change; a modification of the mind-set.

The younger generation must “feel” factories and process plants offer significant work. Pay scales must change to encourage the brightest and best to become engineers and innovators. Plant and factory manufacturing people must be respected and considered as professionals. Heroes of engineering and manufacturing must be recognized and lauded.

Future workplaces—the equivalent of “factories”—must be bright and stimulating places where people enjoy working and the jobs are challenging and rewarding. Knowledge workers do not need time cards, defined working hours and staff-sergeant supervisors. Today’s young people are smart, and even brash. They want to work, but unlike their parents, they do not want work to be their lives. If they can be attracted, they are the ones who will be the automation engineers and technicians of tomorrow.

Related links:

• Dick Morley book – The Technology Machine:
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684837099/jimpintocom
• ISA’s Certified Automation Professional:
  http://www.isa.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Products_and_Services/Certification3/Certified_Automation_Professional1/Certified_Automation_Professional.htm
• Skills Shortage in the U.S. Keeps Widening
  http://blog.tmcnet.com/makingcontact/skills-shortage-in-the-us-keeps-widening.asp

Behind the byline

Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and founder of Action Instruments. You can e-mail him at jim@jimpinto.com or view his writings at www.JimPinto.com. Read the Table of Contents of his book, Pinto’s Points, at www.jimpinto.com/writings/points.html.