The future

“It’s not your father Oldsmobile”, was a slogan used back in the 80’s to illustrate the new engineering in the auto industry. This is an apt saying for what is happening to manufacturing, as the US goes into the era of reindustrialization, as globalization comes to an end. In the past workers in manufacturing plants were assigned repetitive task as they stood on assembly lines and it was called a factory job. In the new plants robots will do these jobs and the employees will shift from manual assembly to managing advanced technology. Workers will operate, program, and maintain robotics and AI systems, analyze real-time data dashboards, oversee quality control, and solve complex, high-value technical problems. These jobs will be shared by technicians and engineers. The techies will be high school grads who will learn on the job. It will be an apprenticeship program much like unions have. More training leads to higher skills which leads to higher productivity which leads to higher wages. The US plans to double its industrial base over the next ten years and it will be a wild ride so get ready, the world is changing.