Scaling Up Utah's Automated Manufacturing Technician Pipeline

Utah is experiencing a critical shortage of skilled technicians in advanced manufacturing due, in part, to the abundance of large and small industries which continue to automate their facilitates statewide. Furthermore, there are a limited number of advanced manufacturing programs which are able to adequately educate and prepare future technicians for the workforce. In addition to creating an innovative pipeline of high school students into advanced manufacturing to support the economy, this project will provide a refined prepackaged curriculum and programmatic resources that could be easily shared anywhere across the state or nation. The project will serve as a model on how applied technical colleges and secondary schools can collaborate through learning management systems to simultaneously prepare participants with high paying jobs and/or a pathway to college. A professional development model will also be developed and implemented to best serve high school and college faculty as they adapt the advanced manufacturing program at their own institutions. It is anticipated that the expected outcomes and findings will offer the educational community an insight as to how to build blended learning environments comprised of learning management systems with high levels of hands-on training.

This project will make a significant impact on the capacity and quality of advanced manufacturing technicians statewide by directly impacting high school and college students, Bridgerland Technical College, the Utah System of Technical Colleges, and our industry partners. The benefits to students will be: (1) improved curriculum, (2) higher retention rates, (3) access to a pathway into a career into automated manufacturing and robotics, and (4) strong connections to local industry leaders. The benefits to the College will be: (1) improved curriculum, (2) new branding of recruitment strategies, (3) enhanced tracking/retention, (4) advanced leadership development in project management/grant writing, and (5) a pathway for the College to become a regional training leader in automated manufacturing. The benefits to the Utah System of Technical Colleges will be: (1) a pilot of curriculum development and collaboration across technical colleges, and (2) a mechanism of how to share and scale best practices across the State of Utah. The benefits to industry partners will be: (1) growing number of students pursuing careers in automated manufacturing, and (2) a curriculum more reflective of industry needs.