By Shaun Edwards, CTO and co-founder, Plus One Robotics
As it falters in its reshoring efforts against China, the US faces a clear obstacle: mechanical engineers.
According to the New York Times, the data are apparent, with China graduating more than 350,000 mechanical engineers each year, while the US lags behind with a mere 45,000.
This puts the US at a structural disadvantage because its ability to innovate is hindered by a lack of a skilled workforce.
The future of US manufacturing stands at an intersection. And that’s only part of the story – other engineering fields like industrial, controls and manufacturing are just as critical to automation and often missing from the national conversation.
You need two things to scale a business in the US, or in any country for that matter: humans and tools.
Whether you are in a startup, a research lab or a major international organization, you need highly skilled engineers to integrate solutions for automation that keep your business running smoothly and effectively.
Without these experts, small teams would be left in the dark, unable to have any real impact against the competition.
The US may try to compete with China through policy changes, but these tactics will only go so far.
Instead, we need to invest in the right education structures that emphasize increasing the graduation rate for STEM careers. This includes education for robotics automation.
Reshoring Won’t Happen Without Engineers
Whether it’s designing systems, integrating connectivity between software and infrastructure or troubleshooting issues that arise, modern-day manufacturing relies upon engineers to push business forward.
Fewer students coming into the engineering field means higher competition among businesses to get the right skilled workers in those roles, which drives up the cost of business overall.
With enough organizations struggling to attain the workforce they need to be successful, it contributes to a global problem.
Where the US lacks in its nation’s educational investment, China has filled the gap. The government backing that Chinese citizens receive to pursue engineering-related roles spans every level of their educational apparatus.
If the US were to take the same approach, STEM education would increase across the board, making obtaining engineering degrees easier for everyone.
As a result, organizations would feel less pressure in searching for the right talent to hire, which would lift all boats in the US global competition to reshore manufacturing.
The Fear of Robotics is Unfounded
I hear it all the time: the fear that robots will replace human workers. However, automation through robotics isn’t the boogeyman that many make it out to be.
Sure, there will be some roles that will be replaced or changed through increased automation. But the truth is that engineers will be far more efficient with automation tools like robotics in their arsenal to help manufacturers scale quickly and effectively.
Especially when it comes to small or mid-size teams, robotics can provide an edge to compete with larger manufacturing firms.
Since modern manufacturing is increasingly software-defined, engineers must embrace the tech stack – which includes robotics – to make their organizations scalable. It’s about multiplying the output without needing to build out a physical team at the outset.
However, the possibilities of automation also depend upon software solutions and tools remaining accessible to a wide user base.
Complexity may kill the opportunities such automation creates if engineers and other skilled workers aren’t able to learn and use their platforms with ease.
For this reason, it’s essential to include your engineers in any automation discussions.
Indeed, I even founded an organization to make it easier for businesses to embrace robotics at their firms. But an open-source platform like my company’s only goes so far.
We need the US to build policies that emphasize education, training and support for engineers to make the manufacturing industry a thriving beacon to the rest of the world.
Success Depends Upon People and Tools
The topic of how to reshore US manufacturing has long been a discussion ever since many manufacturers began shipping operations overseas en masse.
But policy hasn’t delivered, nor will it without taking on an additional emphasis on education – the heart of workforce development.
China and other global competitors have picked up the slack where the US has lost its way, strategically bolstering their automation infrastructure through churning out highly skilled engineers who are driving up innovation.
The countries that empower mechanical engineering education are also improving their own resilience, not just their capacity to compete.
Automation is here to stay. It’s part and parcel to the new economy of manufacturing, which means any country that fails to recognize the importance of robotics risks running itself into obscurity.
To keep pace with the global market, the US must act now. The tools that empower the future of innovation depend upon the humans that design, implement and iterate them.
STEM education, therefore, is at the core of the human component, and such education needs rethinking at its core to grow the US graduation rate.
The interconnectedness of education, workforce development and automation tools like robotics all rely on having the right skilled experts in the right seats, at the right time.
When we stop treating engineering education and robotics as separate conversations, we will begin to see the reshoring tide turn.
About the author: Shaun Edwards is the CTO and co-founder of Plus One Robotics, a venture-backed startup deploying robotics in logistics and e-commerce. He shapes the company’s technical vision, product roadmap, and software architecture. Previously, he was a Principal Engineer at Southwest Research Institute, where he led R&D and deployed automation solutions across industries like aerospace, food, and logistics. Shaun also founded the ROS-Industrial open source project, now a global initiative supported by major robotics companies. He holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.
