December 13, 2024 Using Configuration to Fill the Workforce Gap

As the manufacturing sector struggles with a workforce gap, Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM) can help secure the brain trust.

By Daniel Joseph Barry, vice president of product marketing, Configit

Demands on manufacturers have never been higher, and at the same time, organizations are struggling with a workforce gap.

Manufacturers of highly complex customizable products, in particular, are very reliant on experienced employees who understand what works or doesn’t work when designing, manufacturing and delivering a customized solution. As these experienced employees retire, it’s more important than ever to capture their knowledge in a structured way.

A Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM) approach is one way to achieve this. Centralizing product configuration information so it can be shared among multiple departments lays the foundation for better collaboration and innovation. This capability lessens the sting of retiring pros and the fear of losing a company’s “brain trust.”

Struggling to bridge the talent gap

The U.S. manufacturing industry has experienced strong growth in the past year. Deloitte found that “manufacturing employment has surpassed pre-pandemic levels and stands close to 13 million as of January 2024.”

However, a talent gap remains – and will continue to grow as employees retire. Deloitte also noted that the growth in manufacturing has led to the need for more workers of all kinds, from entry-level associates to skilled production workers to engineers. Yet, there aren’t enough candidates applying for these roles. What’s more, the industry needs to hold onto the valuable talent they already have. The National Association of Manufacturers’ (NAM) outlook survey found that, for Q1 2024, attracting and retaining talent was the number one business challenge for over 65% of survey participants.

The industry also has a rapidly aging workforce. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the median age of manufacturing workers in the U.S. in 2022 was 44.3 years, compared to 42.3 years for all workers. Lightcast labor market data found that last year, individuals between the ages of 45 to 65+ made up 51% of the manufacturing workforce.

Capturing the institutional knowledge

Organizations need to capture institutional knowledge before veteran employees leave. This will require abandoning the operational processes that rely on documents for coordination and manual intervention by experienced employees to ensure quality and timely execution. A CLM approach can be used for this purpose. It creates a structure that improves innovation and collaboration by creating a central repository of product configuration information that can be shared across the enterprise.

Here’s how it works: CLM collects product options and rules for configurable products from multiple systems and creates a common product model that acts as a shared source of truth that every business function related to configured products can use. That includes engineering, sales, manufacturing and service. It’s a way to bring together all the information within an organization to improve visibility. It is also a way to enhance collaboration using a common language and format everyone understands. Using this approach, employees’ experience can be captured as product configuration rules that help automate the process and reduce reliance on scarce experienced resources. This, in turn, lowers the bar for new employees who don’t need to learn lessons the hard way like their experienced employees have.

Here’s something manufacturers don’t tend to think about, but that is key to employee satisfaction: CLM systems improve the employees’ digital experience (DEX), eliminating the need to herd the cats of multiple departments and IT systems until they agree. CLM ensures an error-free process, saving time and effort spent tracking down the reason for inconsistencies and avoiding delivering the wrong product to the customer.

DEX is an essential aspect of each employee’s work life and should not be overlooked. CLM effectively supports end-to-end processes, which helps overcome data misalignment and miscommunication that lead to frustration at many levels. This creates a more positive work environment, resulting in greater employee engagement and satisfaction—both of which are important for employee retention and recruitment.

Centralizing your brain trust

No company wants to lose its institutional knowledge, built up over the years by seasoned pros. However, as just over half the workforce nears retirement, companies must find a way to gather that knowledge in a centralized, accessible way so they can remain in business. CLM can serve as a repository for all that information, alleviating concern and improving employee satisfaction by taking the hassle and bickering out of the process.

About the author: 
Daniel Joseph Barry is vice president of product marketing at Configit the global leader in Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions and a supplier of business-critical software for the configuration of complex products. He has over 30 years of experience in the Telecom and IT industry, working in various technical and commercial roles.  

Educated as an electronic engineer, he progressed from research and system development roles to leadership roles in business development, sales, product management, marketing and strategy in global multinationals like Ericsson, as well as startup and growth companies. After several years as an independent consultant, he joined Configit in 2023 in a role that leverages all his experience in articulating the value that CLM and Configit can provide, as well as providing insight into market needs.

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