Overview
Led by IACMI, the national ACCP workforce initiative is part of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Office of Naval Research’s Manufacturing Engineering Education Program (MEEP). MEEP programs prepare current and next-generation manufacturing workers to produce military systems and components that assure defense technological leadership.
IACMI and collaborators are establishing a national ACCP learning network to develop a skilled advanced composites manufacturing workforce. It is based on the best-in-class program at Davis Technology College in Utah and adapted to the needs of regional ecosystems. Similar learning centers are underway in Alabama at Enterprise State Community College in Enterprise and in New York at the Composites Prototyping Center in Long Island. Additional states are in consideration.
Program partners are Davis Technical College, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Composites One, Vanderbilt University, University of Dayton Research Institute, and Purdue University.
Problem: Shortage of skilled laborers in the composites industry.
The composites industry workforce gap is comprised of critical industry-sectors including aerospace, automotive, industrial, and medical industries. Through the production of composites items, these industries have a direct impact on the parts supplied to the DD.
Davis Technical College offers a renowned composites program that has developed and implemented a fully established curriculum with highly trained instructors that can develop and work with other institutes to set up training programs designed to fill the labor gaps in the composites industry. ACCP builds out Davis Technical College’s composites training program at multiple community college and training locations across the U.S. to best serve the DoD manufacturing supply chain
Solution: Create location-based training programs with national standards in locations central to the DoD manufacturing supply chain.