The New Collar Workforce: An Insider's Guide to Making Impactful Changes to Manufacturing and Training

U.S. manufacturing companies are expected to face a shortage of 2 million skilled workers by the year 2020. As a result, manufacturers, educators and economic development professionals everywhere are looking for real, actionable ideas to train workers, reduce the shortfall and realize the potential of the new age of manufacturing.
Author Sarah Boisvert is an innovative leader in high-tech product commercialization and digital fabrication whose undeniable passion for the subject – it is one she has lived and breathed for many years – and the results of her survey of the worker needs U.S. manufacturers are facing, are at the core of this very timely and easy-to-read book 
The “new collar” workers that manufacturers seek have the digital skills needed to “run automation and software, design in CAD, program sensors, maintain robots, repair 3D printers, and collect and analyze data,” according to the author. Educational systems must evolve to supply Industry 4.0 with new collar workers, and this book leads the reader to innovative programs that are recreating training programs for a new age in manufacturing.
The author’s call to action is clear: “We live in a time of extraordinary opportunity to look to the future and fundamentally change manufacturing jobs but also to show people the value in new collar jobs and to create nontraditional pathways to engaging, fulfilling careers in the digital factory. If industry is to invigorate and revitalize manufacturing, it must start with the new collar workers who essentially make digital fabrication for Industry 4.0 possible.”
This book is for anyone who hires, trains or manages a manufacturing workforce; educates or parents students who are searching for a career path; or is exploring a career change.

"In this book, Sarah Boisvert does a wonderful job of clarifying the relevance and importance of the global shift that is occurring in the workforce today and waypoints to observe as industry 4.0 takes hold. We are experiencing an unprecedented increase in velocity and scope of change today affecting entire ecosystems of manufacturing and production strategy. Radical thinking is needed, now more than ever, to bridge the gap that still exists in most manufacturing sites creating the extreme between industry 4.0 and today. The evolution of traditional blue-collar jobs into new digitally minded jobs that work symbiotically with robots and intelligent technology will be the key to exponential growth.  The New Collar Workforce captures the overall ecosystem in a clear and evident way to help you understand and prepare your team for this exciting new era."

Bob Welsh - VP. Innovation Accelerator 

STANLEY BLACK & DECKER - Global Tools & Storage

“The rapidly emerging convergence of automation, 3D printing and data analytics is transforming modern manufacturing and will have significant economic and national security implications for the United States.  Sarah Boisvert’s insights on the importance of the New Collar Workforce skills that are needed to meet this evolving and imminent future must be addressed strategically by vocational schools, universities, small startups and large corporations to ensure the US becomes more competitive in this key area.”

Ross E. Muenchausen, Richard P. Feynman Engineering Innovation Fellow, Los Alamos National Lab

Molly Cernicek, Regional Business Development Associate, Los Alamos National Lab

"I read The New Collar Workforce with great interest because as CEO of a laser material processing company in a previous life I had lived it.  Education and workforce was the cornerstone of my company.  As I read the book, there was not a page that I did not mark or make a note on.  Every paragraph is filled with “tribal knowledge” and wisdom defining workforce needs in the 21stcentury. Every high tech company should have at least one copy.  A most timely and much needed resource!"

Dr. Larry R. Dosser