Panelists: Collaboration key to talent gaps in composites industry

Novi, Mich. — More than 1 million jobs in plastics may go unfilled over the next decade as a result of baby boomer retirements and a lack of qualified young professionals to fill those open positions, industry experts with the Society of Plastics Engineers say.

The shortage of qualified workers and the skills gap were just two of the larger problems mentioned during a panel discussion Sept. 7 at SPE's Automotive Composites Conference & Exhibition in Novi. International collaboration between the composites industry and research institutions is imperative to finding solutions, panelists said.

Patrick Farrey, who succeeded Willem De Vos as CEO in June, was celebrating nearly 75 days in his new leadership position with SPE as well as the organization's 75th anniversary. He addressed audience members prior to the panel discussion and said the society "considers the development of the future workforce an important priority."

"Our celebration of the past though was tempered by the realization that the next year for SPE and for plastics professionals are going to be quite challenging," Farrey said. "Living large among those challenges will be the predicted talent gap: the gap between plastics industry jobs and available people to fill those positions."

Two SPE initiatives are in place to help "close the gap," which includes PlastiVan, a roadshow bringing plastics technology and education to middle and high school students; and the SPE Foundation, which Farrey said awarded a total of nearly $200,000 in scholarships to 60 students last year.

Dale Brosius, chief commercialization officer for the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation in Detroit — a group which works to advance research from universities to near-production level for automakers — continued the conversation on the talent gap by asking six panelists how institutes and companies can accelerate innovation in the composites industry.

Option No. 1, Brosius said, is everybody solves the larger industry problems on their own, and option No. 2 is dividing up the problems, finding solutions and then sharing the results. But option No. 3 — and a word mentioned throughout the panel discussion — is collaboration.

"Can we take a big problem and all work on it, and then bring the results back together and celebrate the development?" Brosius asked.

When it comes to getting young students and professionals involved, Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology's Frank Henning stressed that working directly with research organizations and industry leaders is key.

"Every one of us who is running these big centers knows that we need these young, engaged people to really take our strategies and turn the strategies into realities," said Henning, who has 20 years of experience in polymer processing at the Pfintzal, Germany-based institute.

Henning is also managing director of the Fraunhofer Project Center for Composites Research at Western University in London, Ontario.

Paul Gallen from the National Composites Center in Bristol, England, said over the next five years institutes and industry leaders should strive to "simplify the message" in order for suppliers and OEMs — and perhaps future plastics professionals — to start understanding the benefits of composites.

"We've got to make composites a more understood and accessible technology than it is today," said Gallen, who's the sector lead for the automotive market within the NCC's strategy and business development team.

At IACMI, chief technology officer Uday Vaidya said the organization is working on three metrics that "the industry will be judged against," which include lowering the cost of advanced composites by 50 percent, reducing the energy used to manufacture composites and increasing the ability to recycle composites.

Ian Swentek, an applications development engineer at Hexion Inc., who was named one of Plastics News' 2017 Rising Stars, said alignment also stands out as an issue in composites. When you look at something like the steel industry, he explained, "they're well-aligned with the trade organizations."

"But the industry as a whole for composites is somewhat fragmented in our opinion," Swentek said. "Even on the shop floor today, you have different people having different approaches and a tremendous amount of complexity, but no singular voice to say here's a standard, here's a solution, here's us working together."

Michael LaLande, Americas director of transportation and mobility at Dassault Systèmes, a French multinational software company, said internal education on industries involved with composites should happen as well.

He added that collaboration among companies and institutions shouldn't just be global, but cross-industry, citing organizations like NASA that have databases on composites and materials that could be useful for automotive OEMs or Tier 1 suppliers.

Glade Gunther, business development manager at Solvay Group's Cytec Industries Inc., said institutions like Fraunhofer, IACMI and NCC can ultimately bring problems and solutions together as well as addressing ongoing issues like workforce development.

"That is the lifeblood of what will keep us going," Glade said. "There are a lot of very, very smart people in this room. … We need to make sure we're continuing to engage the students of the future."