Sunday, November 27, 2005
Tomorrow's 'Techies'
AEROSPACE BUSINESS; Vol. 159, No. 24; Pg. 81
As the U.S. Defense Dept. prepares to embark on the Space-Based Radar (SBR) program with a soon-to-be-released request for proposals, aerospace industry leaders are again confronting a question that refuses to go away: Where will they get enough people with the right systems-level skills to handle such a massive project? The SBR's initial phase, for example, will require hiring about 800 engineers to define the huge orbital radar system, according to U.S. Air Force officials.
Defense is already under the congressional gun to explain technical, cost and schedule problems plaguing other complex programs, such as Space-Based Infrared System-High (AW&ST Nov. 24, p. 24). Some of those glitches are traced to inadequate systems engineering.
THE U.S. AEROSPACE and defense sector has yet to deal adequately with so-called "people issues" first highlighted by this magazine (AW&ST Aug. 4, p. 54 and June 21, 1999, p. 65). Anybody who reads Aviation Week & Space Technology's letters to the editor sees often-bitter complaints about how this industry treats its flesh-and-blood "intellectual capital." Corporate leaders continue to squirm when asked what they are doing to address employee concerns about everything from outsourcing technical jobs overseas to laying off highly paid experts to beef up the quarterly bottom line.
"People issues" were addressed by the President's Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry, but it basically kicked the problem downfield by recommending creation of an interagency task force to develop a national strategy addressing aerospace workforce problems.
"The [commission] addressed about a half-dozen issues. My sense was that five of them got real action, because we in the government/industry community know how to work those issues," said Rick Stephens, a Boeing senior vice president and recently appointed president of the company's Shared Services Group. "The sixth one was 'workforce development,' where there's really no action and no real consensus. It's not because people's hearts aren't there. It's more a problem of someone saying, 'Here's a solution' without [acknowledging] there are a number of constituent groups that have a major impact."
That point was driven home during the recent American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Space 2003 conference, when Stephens and Elane Scott, a Boeing educational consultant, organized a series of six sessions called "Future Workforce and Education." Most panelists were drawn from outside the aerospace industry.
"For the first time, we reached beyond aerospace in trying to come up with solutions," Stephens noted. Conference participants learned that "aerospace is not alone; we're not unique. By and large, the workforce issues we're facing are the exact same ones other industries that [depend] on technology are facing." [How many of these other indutries are critical to national defense?]
Panelists said the health care sector is having trouble finding enough physicians, nurses and pharmacists. "These well-paying careers require certain technical skills, and they're struggling to find sufficiently qualified people," Stephens said. Few students want to endure the educational rigors necessary to work in these professions, they found.
Similar tales were told by panelists from the automobile industry, which cannot find enough mechanics to repair today's sophisticated, computer-intensive cars and trucks. Dentists are having difficulty attracting qualified dental assistants and hygienists, as well.
"There was a recognition that this isn't about a labor shortage, though," Stephens said. "It's about a skills shortage." Checking the web sites of three large U.S. aerospace companies showed about 10,000 job openings listed. Of those, about 60% had the word "engineering" in their titles or job descriptions. But roughly 80% of the 10,000 listings contained the word "systems."
In other words, companies are looking for a different set of skills than they were a few years ago, because today's aerospace projects -- like SBR -- demand expertise beyond a narrow field such as mechanical engineering. They also require some level of systems knowledge, as well as "soft" skills necessary to work effectively in a team environment. More than ever before, employees need "to be able to communicate, relate to others and do critical thinking," Stephens said.[Plays on the stereotype of engineers as loners. Can't they be trained to communicate better if that's the problem?]
Another skill that seems to be in short supply is the ability to take an idea and convert it to something tangible -- hardware, software or other "product." That's because students today tend to be a lot more "computer smart" than "hands smart," according to Nate Jones, a founder of the Long Beach Grand Prix race. Young people simply don't know how to build and repair things anymore.[ Great. More vague anecdotes and buzzwords instead of real explanations.]
Researchers at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have confirmed the importance of children developing manual dexterity in their early years. If they don't, they later have difficulty applying mental knowledge to the hands-on tasks of creating something (AW&ST May 6, 2002, p. 61).
Jones noted that an entire "hands-on" generation was responsible for the last 40-plus years of U.S. aerospace accomplishments. One reason Southern California spawned so many of America's premier aerospace companies was "because it was a hotbed of 'hot rod' car people," Jones said. The nation's successful Apollo program and Lockheed "Skunk Works'" advanced aircraft coups can be attributed to managers, engineers and technicians who had gotten their hands dirty building street racers in the late 1940s and '50s, he suggested. Few of today's high school students have such opportunities -- or desires. Consequently, Jones started an after-school program that teaches youngsters how to work on cars and engines. Many go on to study engineering in college.
While programs like Jones' are having positive local impacts, they won't solve nationwide technical workforce problems that span multiple business sectors. That requires a strategic approach and a focused, well-crafted domestic policy, Stephens said. To that end, the AIAA Space 2003 conference was a significant milestone -- the initial steps in building a cross-industry coalition dedicated to ensuring all "stakeholders" ultimately have enough qualified technical workers to meet their needs. That's a departure from the industry's past strategy for solving workforce challenges.
"THE WAY AEROSPACE has approached this [workforce development] problem was to go get educators, industry and elements of the government that are directly involved in aerospace," Stephens said. "We've never reached out to the larger community -- the health or other industries. And we certainly haven't reached out to the media. That important message for the aerospace industry came out of [the AIAA conference]: We have to facilitate and help create a coalition of all stakeholders. We have to see them as peers and participants, not just [resources] to help us solve our problems.
"One of the challenges we have is everybody wants to stay on the 'techie' side of the problem, but this isn't a 'techie' issue," he added. "It's a much broader issue that's affecting more than just aerospace. It's a domestic policy issue. There are tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars spent on workforce development at the federal, state and local levels. If we can integrate these and pull this coalition together, then we have a way forward."
The aerospace community also has a responsibility to contribute its systems expertise to whatever strategy ultimately emerges from coalition efforts. One panelist, USAF Lt. Gen. (ret.) Eugene Tatini, deputy director for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, "The aerospace industry has to stand up and explain what it can bring to the solution -- solving all kinds of engineering and technical problems. We have some of the brightest people in the world. We should apply some of those 'smarts' to educational systems, [for example]."
Stephens said he and Scott are building a coalition of six stakeholder groups -- government, business, media, the healthcare industry, "community" and education -- and identifying key leaders in each. This coalition will then develop a common vision and strategy, and start aligning financial and other resources.
As the U.S. Defense Dept. prepares to embark on the Space-Based Radar (SBR) program with a soon-to-be-released request for proposals, aerospace industry leaders are again confronting a question that refuses to go away: Where will they get enough people with the right systems-level skills to handle such a massive project? The SBR's initial phase, for example, will require hiring about 800 engineers to define the huge orbital radar system, according to U.S. Air Force officials.
Defense is already under the congressional gun to explain technical, cost and schedule problems plaguing other complex programs, such as Space-Based Infrared System-High (AW&ST Nov. 24, p. 24). Some of those glitches are traced to inadequate systems engineering.
THE U.S. AEROSPACE and defense sector has yet to deal adequately with so-called "people issues" first highlighted by this magazine (AW&ST Aug. 4, p. 54 and June 21, 1999, p. 65). Anybody who reads Aviation Week & Space Technology's letters to the editor sees often-bitter complaints about how this industry treats its flesh-and-blood "intellectual capital." Corporate leaders continue to squirm when asked what they are doing to address employee concerns about everything from outsourcing technical jobs overseas to laying off highly paid experts to beef up the quarterly bottom line.
"People issues" were addressed by the President's Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry, but it basically kicked the problem downfield by recommending creation of an interagency task force to develop a national strategy addressing aerospace workforce problems.
"The [commission] addressed about a half-dozen issues. My sense was that five of them got real action, because we in the government/industry community know how to work those issues," said Rick Stephens, a Boeing senior vice president and recently appointed president of the company's Shared Services Group. "The sixth one was 'workforce development,' where there's really no action and no real consensus. It's not because people's hearts aren't there. It's more a problem of someone saying, 'Here's a solution' without [acknowledging] there are a number of constituent groups that have a major impact."
That point was driven home during the recent American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Space 2003 conference, when Stephens and Elane Scott, a Boeing educational consultant, organized a series of six sessions called "Future Workforce and Education." Most panelists were drawn from outside the aerospace industry.
"For the first time, we reached beyond aerospace in trying to come up with solutions," Stephens noted. Conference participants learned that "aerospace is not alone; we're not unique. By and large, the workforce issues we're facing are the exact same ones other industries that [depend] on technology are facing." [How many of these other indutries are critical to national defense?]
Panelists said the health care sector is having trouble finding enough physicians, nurses and pharmacists. "These well-paying careers require certain technical skills, and they're struggling to find sufficiently qualified people," Stephens said. Few students want to endure the educational rigors necessary to work in these professions, they found.
Similar tales were told by panelists from the automobile industry, which cannot find enough mechanics to repair today's sophisticated, computer-intensive cars and trucks. Dentists are having difficulty attracting qualified dental assistants and hygienists, as well.
"There was a recognition that this isn't about a labor shortage, though," Stephens said. "It's about a skills shortage." Checking the web sites of three large U.S. aerospace companies showed about 10,000 job openings listed. Of those, about 60% had the word "engineering" in their titles or job descriptions. But roughly 80% of the 10,000 listings contained the word "systems."
In other words, companies are looking for a different set of skills than they were a few years ago, because today's aerospace projects -- like SBR -- demand expertise beyond a narrow field such as mechanical engineering. They also require some level of systems knowledge, as well as "soft" skills necessary to work effectively in a team environment. More than ever before, employees need "to be able to communicate, relate to others and do critical thinking," Stephens said.[Plays on the stereotype of engineers as loners. Can't they be trained to communicate better if that's the problem?]
Another skill that seems to be in short supply is the ability to take an idea and convert it to something tangible -- hardware, software or other "product." That's because students today tend to be a lot more "computer smart" than "hands smart," according to Nate Jones, a founder of the Long Beach Grand Prix race. Young people simply don't know how to build and repair things anymore.[ Great. More vague anecdotes and buzzwords instead of real explanations.]
Researchers at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have confirmed the importance of children developing manual dexterity in their early years. If they don't, they later have difficulty applying mental knowledge to the hands-on tasks of creating something (AW&ST May 6, 2002, p. 61).
Jones noted that an entire "hands-on" generation was responsible for the last 40-plus years of U.S. aerospace accomplishments. One reason Southern California spawned so many of America's premier aerospace companies was "because it was a hotbed of 'hot rod' car people," Jones said. The nation's successful Apollo program and Lockheed "Skunk Works'" advanced aircraft coups can be attributed to managers, engineers and technicians who had gotten their hands dirty building street racers in the late 1940s and '50s, he suggested. Few of today's high school students have such opportunities -- or desires. Consequently, Jones started an after-school program that teaches youngsters how to work on cars and engines. Many go on to study engineering in college.
While programs like Jones' are having positive local impacts, they won't solve nationwide technical workforce problems that span multiple business sectors. That requires a strategic approach and a focused, well-crafted domestic policy, Stephens said. To that end, the AIAA Space 2003 conference was a significant milestone -- the initial steps in building a cross-industry coalition dedicated to ensuring all "stakeholders" ultimately have enough qualified technical workers to meet their needs. That's a departure from the industry's past strategy for solving workforce challenges.
"THE WAY AEROSPACE has approached this [workforce development] problem was to go get educators, industry and elements of the government that are directly involved in aerospace," Stephens said. "We've never reached out to the larger community -- the health or other industries. And we certainly haven't reached out to the media. That important message for the aerospace industry came out of [the AIAA conference]: We have to facilitate and help create a coalition of all stakeholders. We have to see them as peers and participants, not just [resources] to help us solve our problems.
"One of the challenges we have is everybody wants to stay on the 'techie' side of the problem, but this isn't a 'techie' issue," he added. "It's a much broader issue that's affecting more than just aerospace. It's a domestic policy issue. There are tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars spent on workforce development at the federal, state and local levels. If we can integrate these and pull this coalition together, then we have a way forward."
The aerospace community also has a responsibility to contribute its systems expertise to whatever strategy ultimately emerges from coalition efforts. One panelist, USAF Lt. Gen. (ret.) Eugene Tatini, deputy director for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, "The aerospace industry has to stand up and explain what it can bring to the solution -- solving all kinds of engineering and technical problems. We have some of the brightest people in the world. We should apply some of those 'smarts' to educational systems, [for example]."
Stephens said he and Scott are building a coalition of six stakeholder groups -- government, business, media, the healthcare industry, "community" and education -- and identifying key leaders in each. This coalition will then develop a common vision and strategy, and start aligning financial and other resources.
# posted by reckoner @ 2:40 PM 
