Who Will Run Tomorrow's Plants

As business prospects continue to rise on the strength of demand in key markets like petroleum refining, water treatment, industrial processing and mining, end-users of valves and actuators, and the companies that manufacture them, face a growing dilemma-a shortfall of the young engineers and technicians needed in coming years to design and specify products and maintain installations. The ability to recruit and train these workers is essential if companies are to remain competitive and expand operations in step with market opportunities.

Finding the next generation of plant engineers and technical workers is especially important now, experts say, because a graying workforce will soon be retiring in large numbers. As they leave they will take with them much of the knowledge and on-the job experience that are vital to innovation and operational efficiency, leaving companies with a critical shortage of talent and institutional expertise.

A Dearth of Experts

"Retirement is creating a dearth of engineers and experts in the industry," says Cooper Etheridge, president of actuator maker Automation Technology Inc., Industry, TX. By some estimates the average age of engineers in manufacturing and sales positions at most companies ranges from the mid 40s to the early 50s, a marked difference from 20 years ago, executives say, when the average age was mid 30s to early 40s.

Moreover, much of the institutional knowledge has been moving upstream for some time, he says, from end-users like refineries through the engineering companies and valve-automation houses to the valve and actuator manufacturers. This trend, which gained momentum from the consolidation of the oil companies and the downsizing many went through in the 1990s, is easing a bit as petrochemical producers ramp up operations to meet current demand, but for cost reasons it's unlikely to reverse itself. "End-users are looking more and more at using the engineering expertise of their suppliers to help determine what they need for their plants," Etheridge adds.

Most companies find it difficult to recruit engineers despite forecasts of at least another decade or more of growth in many key end-use markets. "Industries that use a lot of valves, like petrochemical, have very bright futures," remarks Jay Petegara, senior engineering advisor at Syncrude Canada Ltd., Fort McMurray, Alberta. "I don't see demand slowing down. This could go on for the next 15 to 20 years."

Valve and actuator demand is also expected to grow in areas other than industrial applications. Ed Foster, vice president of The Mundy Cos., a maintenance contractor in Houston, says demographics will play a role, as the growing number of elderly in America increase the need for commercial and service buildings like hospitals and assisted-care centers. "I see a continuing need for people who can bolt things together and weld things up," he remarks.

Nevertheless, many young engineers are either opting for careers in other industries or looking to parlay their degrees in jobs that may be a fast track to an executive office rather than a plant floor or field installation. "From a manufacturing standpoint we're not seeing a lot of engineers, and on the sales side we're having a hard time finding people," says Leon Brooks, industrial sales manager of distributed products for Cameron in Houston.

Even when companies recruit enough young engineers, individual work preferences can be challenging to managers who stress cross-training. "It's not always easy to get them to do some tasks, like working on CAD drawings," says Tom Velan, president of Velan Valve Corp., Montreal. "Some want to go into sales, some want to move around to various jobs."

Addressing the Shortfall
Solutions to the shortfall vary, but executives across the industry agree on three ways to address the problem of finding and retaining young engineers:

• Develop generic programs for four-year engineering colleges and two-year technical schools that teach students about valves and actuators and how they are used, and raise awareness of opportunities in the industry.
• Promote greater cooperation with colleges in developing work-study programs that give students a chance to intern with end-users, manufacturers, and maintenance contractors.
• Create more training and mentoring programs within companies to help young engineers bridge the gap between what they learn in school and real-world problems and applications.

It's not as if the supply of young engineers is lacking. A study released in December 2005 by Duke University found that almost twice as many engineers graduate annually from four-year U.S. colleges than has been reported by either the National Academies in Washington or by the media. When computer science and information technology degrees are included, the study noted, about 137,000 students receive undergraduate engineering degrees every year. The National Academies and the media have put the figure at 70,000.

The study adds, however, that for students with advanced degrees, 30% to 40% of those receiving a master's degree in engineering and engineering management take jobs outside these professions that offer higher salaries. When it comes to engineers with at least undergraduate degrees, increasing their awareness of the industry and what it provides in terms of hands-on experience and career opportunities may be key to effective recruiting.

"These kids coming out of school today have no clue about one valve or another," says Brooks. "They have no literature from any actuator companies, valve manufacturers, or end-users. They're coming out with what they were taught in school and that's it."

And often, what the four-year colleges teach is not consistent with the operational needs of companies. Some executives claim that an engineering education focuses on theory and research at the expense of manufacturing and economic trends. "It's my experience that our schools are used to the manufacturing of old, where you're making the same things over and over," says Etheridge. "That type of manufacturing is not in the U.S. anymore due to labor costs." North American manufacturing is more customized, a capability that he says requires different analytical skills in production capacity, throughput, and unit costs than what many universities teach.

A Steep Learning Curve

"The universities are becoming detached from what is needed at a company like Bechtel, which is building a plant, or ExxonMobil, which operates a plant," notes Etheridge. "When the engineer enters the world of a Bechtel or an ExxonMobil, a lot of times it is foreign to him, and he gets frustrated if he can't immediately apply what he's just studied." When this happens, Etheridge says, there's a chance a young engineer will lose interest in both the job and the industry. The learning curve for engineers is steep after they leave college. "But once they get over that learning curve they see engineering in a different perspective. And those that stick with it become extremely valuable to an organization," he adds.

Consequently, executives want engineering students to receive greater exposure to the industry and how it operates in their senior years, and ideally as early as their junior years. One way of doing this is to send teams of industry representatives to four-year and two-year colleges to speak with students in conference settings and informally afterwards. Presentations could include an overview of the flow-control industry, information on valve types and functions, forecasts for industry growth in North America and abroad, and a look at different career paths and the opportunities each offers for advancement. Literature from various companies and digital media like DVDs and CDs would be left with students and professors for reference.

Another approach involves strengthening relationships with colleges and two-year technical schools to build effective intern and cooperative work-study programs. Students who participate receive academic credit in return for a semester or more of work at a sponsoring company. Many executives believe such programs will not only steer graduates to the industry, but inject a dose of real-world experience and hands-on learning into the curricula of engineering colleges. Etheridge, for one, says the work experience students bring to class after participating in these programs can contribute to a more realistic approach to engineering studies. "There's always going to be a disconnect between the academic world and the industrial world," he says. "Coops and internships are really the only ways to bridge this gap."

Some companies are increasingly turning to two-year colleges and technical schools to recruit engineers. The consensus is that most students are older and more mature than many college graduates entering the workforce, and more inclined to seek the type of hands-on work that characterizes entry-level jobs. "Not everybody can be the chief," says Greg Ganz, Houston regional manager for Pacific Valves, Signal Hill, CA. "A lot of what you learn comes from on-the-job training."

Foster believes that an industry outreach should extend into the high schools to be truly effective at informing future engineers about the business and its possibilities. He argues there has been too much emphasis by secondary schools on business courses, computers, and programming at the expense of fundamentals like math, science, and vocational education: "We see a sharp decline in the number of mechanical craftspeople coming out of high school because there's a bad association about working with your hands." Rekindling an interest in trade studies, he says, would not only benefit students who are mechanically inclined, but alert others to the advantages of studying math and science and to the career opportunities in engineering.

Needed: Comprehensive Training

One of the best approaches, though, would be to reinstitute the comprehensive training programs companies used to offer new employees before consolidation and cost-cutting made these difficult to continue. Thirty years ago, a big oil company would hire a young engineer and invest several years in training him in different jobs, says Greg Johnson, president of United Valve, Houston. An experienced engineer at a major company typically had several assistants and would be assigned a young engineer for training and mentoring. Now, however, staffs are stretched too thin and nobody has time to guide the development of young engineers beyond a point, Johnson remarks. "Today they just throw them in the fire. They haven't had the time to be trained and nurtured."

One way to counter this problem is by keeping a record of the type of knowledge an experienced engineer would pass on to a new engineer when it comes to specifying, installing, and maintaining valves-a task Petegara has undertaken for the past 20 years at Syncrude Canada. By recording such entries in brief, easily accessed bits of information-what he terms "cookbook style"-Petegara has compiled volumes of information that young engineers can reference for information and insight. "We have specs on how to select various valves and components, how to buy a valve, and how to monitor it. Once we decide to run a line from point A to B, we have all the information we need in these books."

Despite Syncrude Canada's success with this effort, many executives say that education and training programs will work better if developed and administered by industry organizations, such as the Valve Manufacturers Association, which could draw on the talents and resources of members. Such groups could play an important role in developing, for instance, traveling presentations and Web-based interactive training for new employees. For these to be effective, though, the industry would have to provide its full support, since many programs would depend on companies underwriting them with funding and employee participation.

While efforts to recruit and train the next generation of engineers and technicians intensify, executives say the industry in North America has one huge advantage that's not likely to change anytime soon-its expertise. Companies in other parts of the world design, build, and specify valves and actuators, says Johnson, but they don't have the breadth and depth of experience of end users and producers in North America. This is, he adds, one of the strongest selling points the industry can make when recruiting graduates who want a challenging and rewarding career.

PATRICK A.TOENSMEIER, a free-lance writer based in Hamden, CT, specializes in manufacturing and technology issues. His background includes covering the global plastics and tooling industry for 20 years and writing for a variety of industry and business publications. He has organized conferences on manufacturing, marketing, and product design, and is author of the Resin Pocket Guide (published by McGraw-Hill). Reach Toensmeier at toensmeier@sbcglobal.net.