Ted Rozier speaks at Festo’s new Regional Service Middle in Ohio as the corporate celebrates its centennial. Supply: Festo Didactic
Right this moment is nationwide Manufacturing Day, which kicks off Manufacturing Month. As well as, Festo is marking 100 years as a world innovator.
The Manufacturing Institute organizes Manufacturing Day actions throughout the U.S. to showcase fashionable factories and manufacturing applied sciences. It additionally hosts STEM (science, expertise, engineering, and arithmetic) occasions and job gala’s to handle ongoing shortages of expert labor.
Festo Didactic is the vocational and technical coaching unit of Esslingen am Neckar, Germany-based automation vendor Festo SE. It has 40 years of expertise with bodily methods, consulting companies, and on-line studying. Festo Didactic has U.S. workplaces in Eatontown, N.J.
The Robotic Report spoke with Ted Rozier, director of digital, superior, expertise, and robotics at Festo Didactic, concerning the firm’s milestone and this yr’s Manufacturing Day.
Festo marks anniversary, Manufacturing Month
Congratulations on Festo’s centennial! What does that imply to you?
Ted Rozier with college students at IMTS Smartforce Pupil Summit. Supply: Festo Didactic
Rozier: Once I joined Festo, I used to be on the lookout for a distinct alternative. What caught my eye was the Festo Bionic community — the robotic butterflies and kangaroo. I used to be considering as an engineer, “It actually can be cool to have a look at creation after which enable that to encourage engineering capabilities.” The humorous factor is, after I bought the job, I haven’t labored on any of these issues, as an alternative specializing in digitization and workforce growth.
Nevertheless it does converse to the breadth and depth of ingenuity that comes from Festo. It hasn’t been round for 100 years for no motive. Having the ability to be so energetic in so many various areas actually speaks to innovation.
What are you trying ahead to this Manufacturing Day and Manufacturing Month?
Rozier: NJMEP [the public-private New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program] is internet hosting yearly occasions together with a Manufacturing Management Convention. I’ll characterize Festo on a panel on synthetic intelligence and manufacturing and the influence on the industrial aspect and schooling.
AI: Menace or alternative?
Lots of people view advancing AI as an existential menace. How do you see it?
Rozier: Proper now, everybody desires to make AI tangible. They need to open up the field, get their fingers inside, and say, “Let’s cease speaking about it, and inform me the way to use it.”
Everyone knows what ChatGPT is, and it’s a useful gizmo. However I feel the No. 1 wrestle is to verify we don’t go ignorant utilizing it. It’s “rubbish in/rubbish out.” You continue to want to make use of your thoughts to tweak the outcomes to get them the place they must be.
On the opposite aspect, there’s AI for manufacturing. We’ve to remember as we’re designing algorithms, do they remedy a specific downside?
Our perspective on the tutorial aspect of the enterprise is are you able to educate college students about what historic information is, what real-time information is, and may you classify that information to get rid of what I don’t care about and assist me with predictive upkeep? If I can get a machine to speak to me, and we will belief the output, that may enable technicians and operators — the 2 hottest job roles on the market proper now — to make higher selections and enhance effectivity.
Talking of careers, the place do workforce growth efforts have to focus to get folks into fashionable manufacturing?
Rozier: I don’t care if we’re speaking about excessive faculties, vocational faculties, group faculties, or universities. In terms of manufacturing, there’s programming PLCs [programmable logic controllers], working with robots, and HMI [human-machine interface] that’s stackable to the PLC.
After which there’s one other piece, the place there’s an MES [manufacturing execution system] that captures info. So do you perceive connectivity, IP addressing, and battle of IP addresses? What I simply outlined are some ability units that talk to mechatronics.
On the software program aspect, it’s Python and a number of other software program platforms that work alongside Python programming. Some firms have information scientists. With rising applied sciences, everybody has a task to embrace a chunk of AI at totally different phases, whether or not it’s on the information assortment, the analytics, or {the electrical} and mechanical design. The usual roles in manufacturing will broaden horizontally.
Editor’s notice: RoboBusiness 2025, which might be on Oct. 15 and 16 in Santa Clara, Calif., will function tracks on bodily AI, enabling applied sciences, humanoids, design and growth, enterprise, and discipline robotics. It is going to additionally embody a number of networking alternatives. Register now to attend.
Mushy abilities nonetheless matter
Rozier: There are further abilities that we’ve actually been pushing together with {the electrical}, mechanical, and software program.
What are these?
Rozier: We’re making an attempt to assist people get jobs in manufacturing, and you’ve got technical abilities and “delicate” abilities. It’s so necessary that the delicate abilities — adaptability and the flexibility to speak — are being taught correctly.
Generally college students or incumbent employees do issues in silos, and what occurs is that no one ever injects a brand new concept. Issues are solely executed a method, however folks have to work properly with others. It’s necessary for instructional establishments and companies to be sure that college students can articulate themselves.
It’s additionally necessary that college students get their fingers on on the identical gear that’s at the moment utilized in trade. Generally issues are put in entrance of them conceptually, after which there’s a steep studying curve after they get a job placement.
Establishments ought to work more durable to get college students to go to manufacturing services to allow them to see what’s occurring in actual time.
How does Festo’s new Regional Service Middle in Mason, Ohio, slot in?
Rozier: It gives a glimpse of the manufacturing facility of the long run. Once you take a look at an ordinary manufacturing facility or warehouse, you’re going to have loads of manpower.
We’ve loads of new expertise that’s being tightly built-in in that facility to not solely present a unbelievable expertise for the workers in working with the vanguard of expertise, however to even be extra environment friendly in getting parts to our prospects.
Festo Didactic gives a cyber-physical lab for coaching and teamwork. Supply: Festo Didactic
How does Festo Didactic see itself within the wider manufacturing and automation ecosystem?
Rozier: We’re a world group. One technique to gauge Festo Didactic’s exercise is certifications. Together with our accomplice NC3, we’re getting near handing out 1 million certifications.
That quantity is spectacular, however an employer has to have the ability to ask, “Whilst you had been in your coaching or apprenticeship program, what have you ever discovered?” Certificates and credentials assist candidates reply in a standardized, measurable manner.
Years in the past, when funding was given to colleges, there weren’t loads of checks and balances ensuring graduates may carry out with present applied sciences. With certifications, the human assets managers or hiring managers can really feel a complete lot higher.
Festo has put loads of laborious work into constructing out a curriculum that aligns with certifications, ensuring that the coaching, repetition, and high quality are there.
Are you able to give some examples?
Rozier: At Enterprise State Neighborhood Faculty in Alabama, the job placement fee is almost 100%, and native employers need to recruit our college students earlier than they even graduate. As much as 40% of taking part highschool college students earn their associates earlier than they get their diplomas with an Enterprise mechatronics program supported by Festo Didactic.
Portland Neighborhood Faculty has a unbelievable program with a instructing cleanroom. The method of gowning up for it may not be nice in case you’re claustrophobic, however it will get college students ready early for superior manufacturing.
We’re additionally ensuring we’re incorporating STEM even on the center college stage.
We’re at the moment specializing in semiconductors and are taking a look at totally different verticals, together with electrical automobiles, battery manufacturing, agriculture, and life science. You’ll be able to’t quantify the quantity of labor that may very well be executed with AI, robotics, and cobots.
The frequent thread in all these sectors is the automation, digital, information piece. If you happen to can put together the workforce to innovate and construct that out in order that it’s stackable, it’ll assist everybody thrive.
