The Manufacturing Advancement Center has updated our inventory of skill standards by adding the newly released Manufacturing Skill Standards Council, MSSC, National Skill Standards, A Blueprint for Workforce Excellence. These standards, after over three years in development, were released in May of 2001. The standards have been created under guidelines from the National Skill Standards Board, NSSB. The National Skill Standards Act passed by Congress in 1994 formed the NSSB as a non-partisan organization to serve as a catalyst and information clearinghouse for the standards development process.

The NSSB has identified three types of knowledge and skills:

• Academic knowledge and skills: The knowledge and skills associated with the academic disciplines of reading, writing, mathematics, and science.
• Employability knowledge and skills: The applied knowledge and skills used to perform effectively across a broad range of occupations – such as teamwork, decision making, and problem solving.
• Occupational and technical knowledge and skills: The occupational and technical knowledge and skills needed for work such as machine operator or inspector.

The occupational and technical knowledge and skills tend to be specific to each industry sector, so the NSSB did not develop a common language for this category. Instead they developed guidelines to help describe this type of knowledge and skills.

The National Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing, NACFAM, was the grant recipient from the NSSB for the development of manufacturing standards. NACFAM then formed a unique partnership among business, labor, education, professional and community groups that became the Manufacturing Skill Standards Council. The MSSC, using the three types of knowledge and skills identified above developed standards that divided manufacturing into six concentrations:

Production

Quality Assurance

Maintenance, Installation, and Repair

Manufacturing Production Process Development

Health, Safety, and Environmental Assurance

Logistics and Inventory Control

The Manufacturing Advancement Center is currently working with Leo Reddy, CEO of NACFAM, in developing an assessment tools based on these standards.

These six concentration standards lay a solid foundation for industry specific specialty standards. For years various organizations have developed specialty standards for particular jobs within different manufacturing sectors. Standards for woodworking, metal machining, electronic technicians, etc that have previously been developed can now give your organization a complete set of standards for all manufacturing workers.

Because these and other industry standards developed under the guidance of the NSSB are to be industry-lead and voluntary in nature we would like to introduce them to as many Massachusetts manufacturers as possible in hopes of creating the first step in a nationally recognized certification program. This same type of effort will be going on in other states and regions throughout the country and in time it is foreseen that a MSSC Certification for workers in manufacturing will be as nationally recognized as an ASE Mechanic.

Workforce Training Express Fund Provider

In addition to offering these skills standards, the Manufacturing Advancement Center is an approved Express Workforce Training Provider.  To learn more about the Express Workforce Training Grants that are available to your company, please check out the Department of Employment and Training’s website or contact them at 1-800-252-1591. www.detma.org

The Manufacturing Advancement Center is approved for the following courses:
 
 

If you are interested in skill standards for your organization, contact: