Manufacturing

This Career Cluster encompasses careers involved in

Planning, managing and performing the processing of materials into intermediate or final products and related professional and technical support activities such as production planning and control, maintenance and manufacturing/process engineering.(1)

Career Pathways

Each Career Cluster has distinct Career Pathways, which are like work sub-areas.

In addition, each Career Pathway has a sample Plan of Study that details the courses a student might take, both during and after high school, to work in that sub-area.

This Career Cluster has the following Career Pathways:

Production

People with careers in production work on the shop floor making parts or assembling them. They work with machines, making or assembling electronic parts, constructing or assembling modular housing, performing welding jobs, or printing various materials.

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Manufacturing Production Process Development

Employees in Manufacturing Production Process Development are responsible for product design and design of the manufacturing process. They work with customers to ensure the manufacturing process produces a product that meets or exceeds customer expectations. They also monitor the manufacturing process and the materials used to manufacture the product.

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Maintenance, Installation and Repair

People with careers in Maintenance, Installation and Repair perform preventive maintenance procedures on machines, tools and equipment. These are performed routinely and on a regular basis. They also troubleshoot and repair electrical, electronic and mechanical systems. This will include mechanical repair as well as using computer-based inventory control systems, retrieving information histories on each machine from computer records, and recording repair activities on the system to keep accurate records of repairs performed on each machine.

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Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance employees assure that standards and procedures are adhered to and that delivered products or services meet performance requirements. They may have responsibility for monitoring and maintaining the quality of parts and manufacturing processes. This could include identifying the raw product to ensure it meets specifications, as well as measuring or otherwise testing products and parts to ensure they meet required customer specifications.

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Logistics and Inventory Control

People with careers in Logistics and Inventory Control work with an inventory of raw materials and finished parts. They move raw materials to the production line, unload trucks with raw materials, wrap pallets of finished products for shipment, and communicate with traffic managers.

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Health, Safety and Environmental Assurance

Employees in Health, Safety and Environmental Assurance ensure that the equipment is being used safely in the workplace; plan for safety in new production processes; conduct health, safety and/or environmental incident and hazard investigations; conduct preventive health, safety and/or environmental incident and hazard inspections; and implement health, safety and/or environmental programs, projects, policies or procedures. They may train workers in health, safety and/or environmental issues and provide event documentation.

Source(1): National Career Clusters™ site (original text and PDF's).