How Do We Solve the Manpower Problem?

Hello All, Sorry for long pause. I was on a wonderful vacation with my family for spring break. I am currently at the WBF Conference in Philadelphia. Tonight was the Process Automation Hall of Fame Dinner. One of new members was Vernon Trevathan. He spoke about the components of necessary for human resource development for automation engineers in the USA and globally. He made a good case, but failed to speak to the basic need to make the business case for internal engineering knowledge for automation and manufacturing operations management experts. Currently, this business case is not being made to the executives of manufacturing companies. They only want to pass the buck by outsourcing the plant expertise to vendors and system integrators. This is stupid and dangerous since it assumes manufacturing innovation is a commodity. No new product development and innovation is possible if you cannot engineer a cost-effective way to bring the product the to market.