McGraw Hill Education says “Clusters are Jobs in the manufacturing career cluster which involve 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.” They also, identify and further clarify “. . . Six Career Pathways in Manufacturing.” Which are 1) Health and Safety, 2) Logistics and Inventory Control 3) Maintenance, installation and Repair, 4) Manufacturing Production Process Development, 5) Production and 6) Quality Control.

O’Net a reference source for the Bureau of Labor explains, “Career Clusters contain occupations in the same field of work that require similar skills. Students, parents, and educators can use Career Clusters to help focus education plans towards obtaining the necessary knowledge, competencies, and training for success in a particular career pathway.”

Keeping the latter information in mind there was evidence of the wide base of career choices that are available at the most recent career Expo at Henry Ford Community College job Expo. That is close to 20% of the 70 recruiters present. Of Course HFC is known for training and providing the manufacturing and trade arena with viable candidates in the area of manufacturing. Another caveat to this reality is that much of the skills and training are transferrable to other large career clusters such as health and Project Management. In the next career articles we will review the six cluster areas designated by McGraw Hall and Career Outlook with a close look at areas of transferable job locations.

In addition to taking a look at the career cluster, there will be interviews with some the manufacturing companies which attended the most recent job fair. This is one of the best ways to get know the employers and their companies.