Vocational Education

The National Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing has issued new skills standards for production workers in high-performance companies.

The list of common requirements is intended, among other purposes, to aid teachers in developing curriculum and learning activities, to identify for students the skills they need to succeed in the workplace, and to give parents and community members a basis for judging the adequacy of job preparation in the schools.

U.S. manufacturers have become alarmed by an acute shortage of skilled knowledge workers at all levels of manufacturing, said Eric Mittlestadt, the chief executive officer of Fanuc Robotics North America Corp. and the co-chairman of...