Francis Tuttle looks to `Industry 4.0'
What do Francis Tuttle Technology Center's workforce and economic development initiatives do for Oklahoma companies?
Our team partners with local organizations and resources to help Oklahoma companies remove barriers to growth and sustain their business models. While we're mostly known for creating training initiatives to address current and near-term industry needs, organizationally we're turning our attention to the concept of "futuring" — which for us means helping Oklahoma companies thrive in a rapidly changing economy. We're starting to look at what our local companies will need from us in the era of Industry 4.0.
Why is this type of assistance important for businesses?
When businesses thrive, the entire state of Oklahoma benefits. We aim to work on whatever challenges keep our employers from growing their businesses. Right now, a constant theme we hear when working with clients is just how tight the labor market is. Not long ago, there were several candidates competing for each job. Now there are several jobs competing for each candidate. We work with employers in a variety of industries to develop and implement training solutions for existing employees and to identify the skills needed to strengthen the future labor pipeline. Today you may not find the perfect candidate with all the skills you need already in place. Increasingly it's about finding candidates who are a good fit for your organization and growing their skills to meet your needs. Our goal is to help clients overcome these kinds of challenges. Just last year, our team provided our business partners with more than 233,000 training hours for almost 30,000 students.
What types of professionals make up your team?
We're fortunate to have team members with decades of private sector experience who know the pain points our customers are facing first-hand. When you include the remarkable adjunct trainers we have, the breadth of expertise is even greater. Some of the industry sectors we work with are human resources, high-tech manufacturing, engineering, business processes, call centers, safety, automotive, aerospace, energy, heavy industrial and mechanical, light industrial, municipalities, government contracting, business incubation, real estate, insurance, construction, sales and economic development. We're also lucky to have bilingual talent on our team that can communicate solutions in both English and Spanish.
How is your organization help businesses prepare for the future?
Francis Tuttle recently has teamed up with the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance, consulting firm Applied A.I. and curriculum developer Logical Operations to create a new data analytics initiative aimed at meeting the demands of Industry 4.0. This combination of seminars and classes is designed to give attendees an understanding of data analytics and data science that is applicable across a variety of industries. The upcoming classes are based on industry demand and current trends in data analysis. Classes will instruct students on how to implement and use data visualization tools and even help identify which platform may work better for their organization.
What other initiatives is your group pursuing?
We have looked closely into the communities and populations we serve and have identified a need in certain locations for assistance with economic development. We plan to work with officials in Crescent and Cashion, as well as members of the Deer Creek community, to aid in their efforts to support economic growth in these areas.