AMT, SME Announce Strategic Partnership in Workforce Development

AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology and non-profit organization SME have announced a strategic partnership in an effort to make bigger strides together toward solving North America’s manufacturing workforce challenges. The two organizations have been longtime collaborators on advancing manufacturing, and this partnership focuses on leveraging the strengths and resources of each organization for the betterment and advancement of the industry through three key areas: workforce development, educational products and services and student events.

A key cornerstone of this partnership included welcoming Greg Jones, former AMT vice president, Smartforce Development, to the workforce development team of SME as director, strategic programs and partnerships, where he will report to Jeannine Kunz, chief workforce development officer at SME (Kunz recently spoke at the MoldMaking Conference, read “Moldmaking, the Relentless Pursuit of Innovation … Oh Yea!”).

“Workforce development continues to be one of the most important factors affecting our members and the manufacturing community, so it makes sense to combine our forces in this area to scale solutions,” Douglas K. Woods, president and CEO at AMT, says. “Greg Jones has dedicated his career to this effort and now joins forces with Jeannine Kunz and her team at SME to accelerate their collective impact.”

AMT’s education products and services will now be owned and operated by SME, which will leverage the existing strength and industry leadership of Tooling U-SME, the organization’s workforce development area. The AMT programs migrating to SME include the Certified Manufacturing Technology Sales Engineer (CMTSE) program, the MT Sales Fundamentals program and additional AMT e-learning products in the area of transformational technologies. They will remain available to AMT members and to the manufacturing community more broadly through Tooling U-SME.

Both organizations recognized the opportunity to incorporate AMT’s education products and services into the expansive learning and development solutions of Tooling U-SME, which include its powerful learning management system. This provides manufacturers with greater value through one access point to a larger and more integrated solution to meet their needs.

“This is a key indicator of our belief that unprecedented collaboration is required at this time to fully address the current and near-term education and workforce development challenges facing manufacturers in North America,” Kunz says. “There are a tremendous number of valuable programs happening across the United States, and the more we can amplify, align and strengthen one another, the more impactful we can be for individuals, educators, employers and communities.”

AMT is well known for its IMTS – The International Manufacturing Technology Show, which is held every other year in Chicago (read “IMTS 2022 in a Flash”) and where the Smartforce Student Summit convenes. The Smartforce Student Summit is dedicated to showcasing the manufacturing technology classroom of the future to educators and students through an engaging, hands-on and memorable experience. Serving more than 100,000 students and educators over the years, the Student Summit is designed to inspire students to seek an education pathway in STEM and lead them to a career in manufacturing.

The Student Summit aligns strongly to SME’s mission as well, and it is no surprise that SME and AMT identified coproducing the Student Summit at IMTS 2024 as another important pillar of its announcement to partner in workforce development.

“Expanding our existing partnership with AMT on producing the MT Series and Smart Manufacturing Experience events to include collaborating on workforce development is exactly what nonprofits should continuously aim to do when it benefits the industry,” Bob Willig, executive director and CEO at SME, says. “We are particularly excited to work with AMT on coproducing the Smartforce Student Summit at IMTS 2024 centered around our shared vision for the ‘manufacturing technology classroom of the future.’”