Advanced Manufacturing

What Is Advanced Manufacturing?​

Advanced manufacturing is defined by manufacturing.gov as “the use of innovative technologies to create existing products and the creation of new products, including production activities that depend on information, automation, computation, software, sensing, and networking”

Women make up nearly one-third of the manufacturing workforce. It’s easy to see yourself working in this field where nearly all the products and equipment used in daily life are produced. The four pathways below showcase some of the variety of jobs across the manufacturing sector.

I love working in a factory, I love doing something different each day, I love working with my hands, I love seeing the end results.

Margie Chambers, Tool & Die Maker and HHW Ohio Role Model Speaker

About Advanced Manufacturing Careers

The manufacturing workplace has become a much more high-tech place where automation drives many routine tasks. These changes require a skilled, trained workforce able to learn new technology on the job, and quickly adapt from one project to the next.

Career Benefits

Facts About the Advanced Manufacturing Industry

  • Manufacturing is the fourth largest industry sector in the United States.
  • 11.6 million employees produce goods that are consumed domestically or exported abroad.
  • Women make up nearly one-third of the manufacturing workforce.
  • Manufacturing facilities are often described as plants, factories, or mills and generally use power-driven machines and materials-handling equipment.
  • Manufacturers produce the food we eat, the medications that keep us healthy, the cars we drive, the phones we rely on, the clothes we wear, and so much more of the everyday conveniences that enhance our lives.

Get Started on the WISE Advanced Manufacturing Pathways

Industrial maintenance involves installing or repairing electrical and mechanical equipment, preventive maintenance of machines, tools, and equipment, and installing and aligning new equipment in a variety of manufacturing settings.

Make precision parts with machine tools that use computer-controlled (CNC) machines and manual equipment. Work includes fabricating, modifying or repairing mechanical instruments, applying knowledge of mechanics,  layout, and machining procedures.

More than half of all American products manufactured require welding, including furniture, computer parts, machinery – just about anything you can think of that’s put together on a production line will need welding somewhere during the process. 

Automation and robotics is a term used to describe the implementation of automation and robotics systems into the manufacturing environment to increase efficiency and productivity.