Efficient Plant December 2017 - 17

feature | industry views

Partnering with Educators
Amanda Beaton, program manager, Siemens Cooperates with Education, Atlanta, siemens.com
Siemens is committed to working with
schools and students to grow the pool of
STEM talent and provide the skilled workforce that manufacturing needs. Through our
Siemens Cooperates with Education program, we
are building a pipeline of talent with a ready understanding
of Siemens technology for our customers and partners. This includes
equipping students and teachers with practical components from our
digital enterprise portfolio for industry to embrace the promise of digitalization.
Hundreds of K-12 schools, community colleges, universities, and other
nonprofit training centers have opportunities to partner with Siemens
on leading-edge technologies in their classrooms, research projects, and
workforce-development programs. We support them with equipment,

software, instructor training, and technical guidance.
Students have access to the same technologies used by our industrial
customers all over the world. Siemens also supports teachers with free
training and curriculum resources.
The results of these partnerships are numerous and include a disabled
soldier who recently returned to school to earn a mechatronics certification. Another is a student team from rural Georgia that participated
in the WorldSkills Championships of Mechatronics in Abu Dhabi in
October 2017. Also, one of Siemens Cooperates with Education partner
schools had a female representative on the mechatronics team at the
national championships. Only through these kinds of close partnerships
between industry and education will we tackle the skills gap and invest
in student success in STEM programs. For more about the program, visit
siemens.com/mcms/sce/en/pages/default.aspx

Supporting STEM and GirlStart

Three Paths to Skilled Workers

Jim Nyquist, group president, Emerson Automation

Billy Hamilton, senior vice president of Human

Solutions, Houston, emersonprocess.com

Resources, Motion Industries Inc., Birmingham, AL,

As an industry, it's imperative that we
encourage children to pursue studies in
science, technology, engineering, and
math. STEM careers are growing at a
much faster rate (24% versus 4% in the
past decade) and provide tremendous opportunities for the coming generations. STEM
concepts are relatively language agnostic-which
means students across the world can participate, regardless of language
or geographic location. Each day I'm inspired by the enthusiasm
at Emerson for STEM. In 2017, Emerson hosted more than 1,000
students for I Love STEM Days in offices from Texas to the Philippines
and from Florida to Brazil.
#ILoveSTEM Day encourages kindergarten through eighth-grade
students to flex their STEM muscles with hands-on technology and
engineering-focused activities that are designed to help them understand the scientific concepts they encounter every day. Emerson also
partners with organizations such as GirlStart (Austin, TX, girlstart.org)
where our employees act as coaches and mentors. By learning about
STEM concepts from geometry to electrochemistry to the fundamentals of force and motion early and in a kid-friendly and memorable
way, children develop a sense of curiosity and start asking the "why"
and "how" questions that can often lead them to pursue STEM studies.

DECEMBER 2017

motionindustries.com

The skills gap created by the slow decline of
STEM (science, technology, engineering,
and math) graduates in the United States
is a threat and an opportunity for Motion
Industries in the marketplace. We are addressing
the skills gap along three different paths: external
training, internal training, and philanthropic STEM activities.
Our Learning and Development team travel to numerous customers every year, providing highly technical skills-based training to the
plant-maintenance departments. The subjects of these classes are usually hydraulics, pneumatics, bearings, or power transmission applications.
The classes are not product-specific, as we are working to improve the
audience skill set to make them more effective at their positions.
The Learning and Development team also hosts similar classes for
our employees. We have 22 learning centers around the country where
we conduct most of these classes. Virtually all of our employees are
within a half-day drive of one of our training centers.
Last, but certainly not least, is our philanthropic donations of time
and money to high school and technical school STEM programs
across the country. In some cases, we partner with customers, such as
Frito-Lay, to assist schools in program development. It is critical to our
economy to graduate more students with STEM skills.
EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM |

http://www.siemens.com http://www.siemens.com/mcms/sce/en/pages/default.aspx http://www.emersonprocess.com http://www.motionindustries.com http://www.girlstart.org http://www.EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Efficient Plant December 2017