Supply Chain Executives Weigh in On Manufacturing Operations Talent Shortages Threatening US Investments

By Chris Gaffney and Joshua Stack

Introduction

A creeping imbalance in the supply chain talent world could threaten to disrupt American manufacturing investments. Not enough people have manufacturing operations experience.

As billions flow into manufacturing plants, we don’t have enough talented people who know how to run them. Manufacturing centers are struggling to retain frontline employees while having even more difficulty finding and retaining qualified people to manage the plants. 

Why is this happening, you ask? In part because too many people graduate from college and get swept up by consulting and analytic services as high-paid “analysts” without first gaining valuable front-line operational experience. 

For help with this article, we pulled some quotes from our Supply Chain Careers Podcast senior executive guests, including Lee Beard SVP at Swire Coca Cola, Mike Leggett, SVP & CSCO at Lay-Z-Boy, and Rick McDonald CSCO at Clorox. Together with supply chain talent expert Rodney Apple, we’ve tried to weave a narrative around the importance of operational experience and knowledge as a career accelerant and a necessary component of global manufacturing competitive edge for the United States.

Challenges in Building a Sustainable Talent Pipeline

As we make our way out from the classrooms at large research and engineering universities into the field to talk to supply chain folks, we’re learning more and more about what’s happening – and more importantly – what’s not. The discussions we’re hearing as we offer training and talk talent continually come back to two main issues:

• Now: struggling to keep manufacturing operations employees in our industry. Need to retain unsexy frontline jobs.
• Soon: senior manufacturing people retiring. No one wants to run these plants. 

The first issue revolves around an immediate talent shortage. Not only is it difficult to retain frontline operators but it’s also becoming harder to hire them out of college. At Tier 1 universities, we see more and more students studying supply chain disciplines and being hired out of school as high paid analysts at big city consulting firms. In doing so, we’re creating a supply chain talent pipeline that doesn’t have the hands-on knowledge and skills to operate tactically in a world where experience matters. In short, opportunities to work in these plants are increasing but the talent to adequately staff them is not keeping pace. 

Today’s younger professionals often gravitate toward data science and urban-centered tech jobs leaving plants in regions with low recruitment interest. This trend undermines the pipeline for operational leadership essential to sustaining a competitive manufacturing sector.

The talent shortage also is a result of a workforce that is aging out. The aging workforce, compounded by a declining interest in plant-based careers, has created a skills gap that poses real risks to production quality, efficiency, and safety. Senior manufacturing staff are retiring. Their tenured presence withstood a sometimes thankless job. Having to deal with the EPA, OSHA and less than desirable working conditions takes a lot out of a person. But, plants need to be run. Upwards of $20 billion has been spent building manufacturing plants since 2022. Historic appropriations of this magnitude have opened the door to a spike in domestic production and a need to staff these facilities. But the shift in how companies run these plants has made it even more difficult to find good help. 

From the Expert Operators: Frontline Operational Experience is a Missing Ingredient

Students can gain a lot of essential manufacturing operations experience through hands-on internships. However, they will not gain the necessary leadership skills until they are on the front lines in the plants and helping to run a shift.

There are no classes that can substitute for the hands-on leadership management skills derived from actually doing the work. It comes with developing enough on the job training and knowledge of the processes and the people skills to be able to earn the respect of your peers and direct reports. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s hear it from some of the pre-eminent supply chain experts in the field.

Lee Beard, SVP of Logistics, Swire Coca-Cola USA

When talking with SVP of Logistics for Swire Coca-Cola, Lee Beard, he points out the risks of hiring new graduates directly into supervisory positions. He says “There’s also some upside. You have to have both. When I became a shift supervisor, I had an engineering degree, had technical background. That shift supervisor job was like going to college all over again in a completely different way. It was as foundational as that undergraduate degree.” Beard says that the combination of technical degree and hands-on experience gave him the necessary tools to become a successful leader of a larger supply chain organization.

Mike Leggett, La-Z-Boy, SVP & Chief Supply Chain Officer

Mike Leggett with La-Z-Boy built a successful career by gaining skills and understanding on the operational front lines across many different industries. From companies like Masonite, Abbot Laboratories, and finally La-Z-Boy, Leggett developed a comprehensive view of not only the ins and outs of production and manufacturing but also the people side of things. And in doing so, shares his concerns about the future and the possibility that our competitive edge could be dulled by a lack of leaders who fully grasp and  lead and manage a plant. 

“Going into the plants, learning the plants, learning the distribution centers – who’s doing that? The problem for us is going to be 10, 15 years down the line. How can we get those people the right experience they need so they can lead? It’s a big struggle finding people that want to get their hands dirty versus do the cool thing and develop a new app,” says Leggett.

Rick McDonald, Chief Supply Chain Officer, The Clorox Company

With roots in Frito-Lay’s demanding operational culture and a leadership philosophy honed through years of navigating complex supply chain crises, Rick McDonald’s story offers invaluable insights for professionals aspiring to reach the upper echelons of supply chain leadership and how manufacturing operations experience can be highly beneficial to career growth.

“I’ve got a very strong point of view on this. And part of it, I think, is because I grew up as a an output of that sort of approach. On this one, the very first thing I’d say about the Chief Supply Chain Officer Officer role is you’ve got to be a great operator. And that is not just a technology comment. That is not a digital comment. That is not a factory floor comment. That is a leader of people in a manufacturing and or logistics environment. And I find that many people are not willing to spend enough time on the bricks of the floors of their manufacturing plants to get those experiences.

And by not doing so, I think it is going to undermine their interest to get to the pinnacle chair in the supply chain. And the reason I say this is, I’ll just give you, the Clorox example. There are 9000 people in the company, 6000 of them work in some sort of an operational role. 5, 000 of those people work somewhere in a plant.

And so I don’t know how you can be tuned into the issues, the challenges, the concerns, the levers, the value creation opportunities that exist in such a large swath of the company if you haven’t personally experienced it and spent the time grinding in those operations, learning how things work, learning what, where does innovation show up.”

Supply Chain Talent Expert’s Views

Rodney Apple with SCM Talent Group can vouch for the difficulty in finding experienced plant managers and operators to lead these facilities. 

“These roles have always been challenging, in general, to fill. Especially for highly complex technical operations with a lot of specialized equipment, including automation. The bigger the plant the more complex and technical the operation, the less talent there is. Most of the people in these roles are retiring. I’d say the last 10 years as more folks from the boomer generation retire, exponentially more roles are having to be filled – leaving way more jobs than people.” 

Apple suggests placing a greater emphasis on trade schools and the university system to get the message out that manufacturing is coming back and career paths are enhanced by operational and front-line knowledge. Associations need to also begin emphasizing this along with employers who are proactively developing the pipelines. 

Manufacturers may have to explore creative solutions to mitigate the talent shortage of frontline leaders. Incentivizing early-career professionals to invest time in plant roles by offering clear pathways for career progression could make these jobs more appealing. Ensuring that these young professionals fully grasp the benefits manufacturing operational knowledge and experience offer as a career accelerant will also help. 

Career success is born out of utility and making yourself indispensable. “Right now, we have an overabundance of people working as analysts in big cities.They make good money but their long term value is diluted by the volume of their peers,” says Apple. 

The analysts who decide to burnish their background with front line plant experience instantly become more valuable and better assets to supply chain organizations. They are fewer in number and offer a higher ceiling with both operational knowledge and people management experience. The challenge lies in conveying this to a younger workforce unaccustomed to such roles.

What does this mean for America’s Competitive Future

As has been shown above, supply chain leaders in manufacturing companies have big concerns about the future of the manufacturing talent and what’s going to happen in that space. Who’s going to take over as the current batch of leaders age out of the work force and retire?

In recent years, the manufacturing sector’s emphasis on data-driven strategies has somewhat sidelined the immediate need for hands-on operational experience, especially since a lot of these roles have been currently occupied by leaders with necessary operational experience. Yet effective plant management demands a nuanced understanding of the physical production process. This over-rotation toward analytics has inadvertently widened the experience gap; executives with solely tech-focused skills may struggle to validate data without an on-ground understanding of plant operations. Bridging this gap will require new hires to not only engage in technical training but also gain operational exposure, echoing the structure of medical residencies, where domain knowledge is paramount to later success.

The decentralized nature of operations can create headaches for the modern day plant manager. Having HR, talent, procurement and the rest of the leadership at a central office rather than on-site creates siloed responses to problems that require real time solutions. One particular anecdote from yesteryear comes to mind. When trying to cover a weekend while operational staff was out sick or on vacation, the finance guy was able to pitch in and keep things moving. He eventually rose to CFO of the entire company because he gained a more hands-on understanding of the overall workings of the organization. He wasn’t siloed inside balance sheets but gained a more comprehensive understanding of what the balance sheets actually mean. The numbers came to life in a different way and helped to accelerate his career.

Conclusion: Re-imagining the Future of the Manufacturing Workforce for Competitiveness

We know there’s a problem finding new talent with manufacturing operations experience. Leaders won’t be elevated without a comprehensive knowledge of who and what they are leading. Think of it like a general manager in a restaurant. That GM needs to be able to bartend, serve, host, expedite, line-cook, prep, and manage. The job is to support and plug in as necessary to prevent the gaps from being a liability. The same applies to plant management. 

For the United States to sustain a manufacturing resurgence, attracting top tier talent to front line roles is crucial. If plant operations don’t perform at peak efficiency and quality, companies risk losing their competitive edge globally. By investing in training, rebalancing workforce strategies, and adjusting compensation to reflect the critical nature of these roles, manufacturers can create a more attractive and sustainable career path for emerging talent, positioning the sector for long term growth and stability.