Sustainable Manufacturing and Workforce Forum

On December 16, 2013 the Center for Aviation and Automotive Technical Education using Virtual E-Schools (CA2VES) hosted a Sustainable Manufacturing and Workforce Forum for industry representatives at Clemson University's International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) in Greenville, South Carolina. This 12-page report serves as a summary of the forum's happenings, and includes a brief overview of CA2VES, an overview of activities offered at the forum, and the findings which stemmed from those activities.

The findings, which are analyzed further in the report, were three-fold: 1). Participants stressed that there is a lack of technically trained workforce in South Carolina, and that a pipeline of educated people interested in manufacturing needs to be fostered and developed; 2). Industry representatives suggested some curriculum changes in the South Carolina education system in order to create a better prepared workforce; and 3). Digital learning applications and virtual reality simulations can be effectively used to help improve the workforce both pre and post-employment.