Leveraging the Undergraduate Mathematics and Physics Curriculum to Strengthen the Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Pipeline

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Abstract

This report provides faculty with advanced manufacturing terminology and data to articulate the occupational relevance of their teachings, without changing curriculum. The MFG USA Competency Framework can be used to make mathematics and physics certifications more accessible to employers and hiring managers. Undergraduate mathematics and physics courses develop abstraction, modeling under constraints, and reasoning with uncertainty, which are skills applicable to a wide range of advanced manufacturing career pathways. The academic language used to describe these skills can make it challenging for employers to interpret academic course relevance in the competency-based terms more familiar to industry. To address this systemic issue, the Manufacturing USA Advanced Manufacturing Occupation and Competency Framework (MFG USA Competency Framework) provides an industry-validated framework that outlines occupations, competencies, and knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) in advanced manufacturing. By mapping the skills developed in familiar undergraduate coursework onto the framework's industry-wide and sector-specific competencies, this analysis highlights relevant connections between academic training and entry-level advanced manufacturing roles-connections that are often implicit to faculty but not immediately apparent to hiring managers, workers, and employers.

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Manufacturing

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