I had a wide variety of topics from which to choose as I sat down to write this column: the”greening”of K 2019(coverage begin-ning on p.36);the new boss at the Plastics Industry Association(PLASTICS),on p.8;the decision of Coke and Pepsi to withdraw their membership from PLASTICS;the upcoming Manufacturing Day;and a few other things.Since some of those items are covered elsewhere is this issue,I decided to tackle another critical and timely subject: Workforce Development.A piece of research hit my email box recently from the National Association of Manufacturers.Titled Aging of the Manufacturing Workforce: Challenges and Best Practices,the study concluded that attracting and retaining a quality workforce is one of the top challenges facing the manufacturing industry.As of 2017,the survey noted,nearly one-quarter of the manufacturing workforce is age 55 or older.Kind of scary.The Institute's Center for Manufacturing Research collaborated with Keybridge Research for this study,which was funded by a grant from the Alfred P.Sloan Foundation.
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