Name Comments Benjamin Baker
GMNA Electrical Bakerbenjamin.baker@gm.com Employee Survey 
Demographics:

Your position:                                                                                  Age:                                           
Years in current position:__________  (if Subject matter expert in s/w tools - 6 mos. Or 6 years?)

What industry is your firm part of? Please check any that apply. [huh - is this an industry-standard list?]  this question lacks correct context ????
Thomas Crampton
Mott Community College
Thomas.crampton@mcc.edu
I reviewed both documents and think they are quite complete.  At first I was going to suggest removing Academic from the Employer type because I think we are interested in capturing information about how our private sector partners view this issue.  I would suggest that we either keep this number to a minimum or be able to sort them into a discrete group to compare their responses against the company responses? On the
Draft Employer Interview Protocol document:
On pg. 5 under Technician Job Categories I would suggest adding CAD/Design Technician. Historically this has been a large technical career and I think some employers will struggle to place it in any of the other categories.  I realize that some might expect to see CAM Technician also but think most would list that as Manufacturing Engineering Tech. 
Also, on pgs. 8 & 9 under the Engineering Specific Technology Categories I thought you might want to add Digital Manufacturing/Computer Aided Process Planning somewhere.  We have worked with companies that are analyzing their manufacturing systems (off-line robotic programming, discrete event/throughput planning, ergonomics/human factors, etc.) digitally to optimize performance before moving forward with physical build.  My last thought about this document is that it may be difficult to complete in 45 minutes - but realize it is still being groomed. Other than these minor comments, it looks to me to be a great start.

Gary Woodrough
Symmetry Medical Jet
gwoodrough@jeteng.com
Employee Survey 
Demographics:

• What industry is your firm part of? Please check any that apply.   
  •  Aerospace _____
         Agriculture/foods _____
         Automotive_____
         Alternative energy
    
• Your Job Function:
  Design
  R&D
  Production/Manufacturing/Process
  Quality
  General
  Consultant
  
  
• What previous positions have you held within the company, if any?                                                  What percentage of work time do you currently spend using technology or computing skills?
   Technology:
  What do you see as some of the challenges in the implementation or integration of software and new technology? 
• What additional computational skills and training do you envision you'll need for the future?      (this should help us define our long goal of the undergrad education)
  
  Employer Interview
• What industry is your firm part of? Please check any that apply.Aerospace _____
  Agriculture/foods _____
  Automotive____
  Alternative energy
  
  
• How many engineering technicians does your company employ at this location? We are defining an engineering technician as someone who has at least an associate / two-year degree in engineering technology.  Refer to table
  Engineering Managers/Directors/VP's
  Material Engineers
• What is your company's current hiring demand for the following types of entry-level engineering employees? Please check High, Medium, Low, or NA for each category. Refer to table (Job Categories )
  Material Engineers
• Does your company project notable changes in hiring demand for any of these entry-level positions in the next three to five years? Please check Increase, Decrease, or NA for each category. Refer to table (Job Categories)
  Material Engineers
• What are your current educational requirements for these entry-level positions? Please check level of education for each category.
  HS= High School Diploma; AA=Associates; BS=Bachelors of Science
  Isn't this misleading since we're classifying Engineers as having at least a BS degree? Mark agrees.
  
  
• For entry-level engineering technicians, do you anticipate the educational requirements changing in the next be three to five years? To what level? Please check level of education for each category.HS= High School Diploma; AA=Associates; BS=Bachelors of Science
  similar comment as above section
• Specific Technologies(Refer to table) What are the types software that your entry level engineers use on a regular basis?
  General Purpose Software
  Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) or Product Data Management (PDM) (OK)

Mary Ann Dolehanty, Supervisor
Thermal Process Unit, Permit Section. Air Quality Division Employee Survey

• Note: This survey represents our initial thoughts on the type of questions to which we are seeking information: (to gather information we re seeking answers to). The survey questions also represent versions of the employer interview questions. The questions are currently framed as open-end questions in this draft, but most of them will be converted to close-ended questions once we feel we have identified the core set of questions. This survey will be web-based rather than paper-based.
•  
  Skills and education
  
  * If you were entering your first job in engineering today, would you answer (that question) differently?
• (delete How) Would the education you received (delete then) be (delete in)sufficient for the skills needed today?
• (I would make this your first question to better frame the issue)* For this study, we're particularly interested in computational skills, which we define as ability to use computers to analyze, design, model or make decisions as part of the engineering practice. What are the key computational skills you need to do your job? Where did you learn those skills?  
  Technology
•  How are technology changes affecting the computational skills you need (delete to have)?
• (delete about w)What percentage of the work-week would you estimate you spend using these programs/software? 
• What are the pre-requisite skills that a new hire would need to use these programs/software?
  
  Employer Interview
   Demographics
  
• What is the estimated annual revenue of this location? ______(this question should be framed in a multiple choice. Otherwise it is likely to be skipped) (take the question out 5-6-08)
• The next (delete sets of) questions are about your organization's demand for entry-level engineering employees.  When we talk about entry-level jobs, we are specifically interested in jobs where you are hiring newly graduated applicants, either at the 4-year or 2-year level, not jobs that require education and previous work experience. We would like you to respond for each category of entry-level engineering job.
• For entry-level engineering technicians, do you anticipate the educational requirements changing in the next (delete be?) three to five years? To what level? Please check level of education for each category.
  
  Introduction (I would place the introduction first within the document to help frame the issue.) It is at the front. It is the set up 5-6-08
• Before we get started, I want to just quickly go over the goals of this interview. We are reaching out to companies to learn more about the skills they need from newly graduated engineers and engineering technicians. In particular, we are focusing on computational skills. By computation skills we mean using computers to analyze, design, model or make decisions as part of the engineering practice.  For a number of the questions, (delete I'll ask today) I'll be asking you to think about your needs 3-5 years out. This is because we are collecting data to use in redesigning curriculum, which is a long-term process.
• As indicated when we set the interview (delete up), we expect (delete this interview) to take around 45 minutes (delete to complete). I'm going to start off by asking some general questions about your company and its engineering jobs. Then I'll ask you some more specific questions about the kinds of technologies your engineering workers use.  Do you have any questions before we begin? 
  Please rate the college graduates you have hired in terms of the following computational skills (5 Excellent  - 1 Poor)
•  Technical ability to readily use and apply the computational operations using the programs/tools firm uses most. Ability to creatively and independently use computational capacities of the programs/tools firm uses most in ways they were not trained to do (this sentence is awkward)  When you hire a new graduate, as for computational skills, which statement best applies to your typical experience?
•  Capacity to readily use and apply the computational operations using the programs/tools your firm uses most.  Ability to innovate and think beyond computational operations of the programs/tools your firm uses most(delete up) Until now, we've been talking about your current hiring trends and practices.  Looking three to five years out, what entry-level engineering-related positions do you think will be (delete in) most in demand by your company?
   
  Technology
• What are the types software that your entry level engineers use on a regular basis? (It will be critical at this point to interview the correct person.  A higher level HR person may not have the level of detail sought in this survey. As mentioned in the Strategy Overview, make every effort in to include an Engineer Manager in answering this question.)* Of the software you listed above, which 2 or 3 are the most mission-critical or important to your company? We recognize that email and Excel might be (delete really) importantto getting the job done, but what we're most interested in are thosethat are crucial to your company's competitive advantage in the marketplace.How has this software changed the nature of engineering work for your company's engineers?
  
• (Delete About w)Whatpercentage of the work-week would you estimate is spent using these programs/software?In what ways do any of the software programs used by your engineering and technical staff encapsulate or capture the engineering and design knowledge of your company? 
• For example, software may not only be used by individual engineers to design components, but may consolidate and merge these designs into a larger project and may support the collection of bids from vendors. (this is confusing ... rephrase or clarify).

James Millhench
Bordener Engineered Surfaces
Mid Michigan Innovation Center Employee Survey 

• What industry is your firm part of? Please check any that apply. What is the purpose of the above question?  Do you want to insure that you have a cross section of business segments in which this list is fine.  If you want a list that can be drilled down into for future reference, than I think you should ask for the North American Industrial Code (NAIC) that they operate under. (OK if they know the code Employees do not know this 5-6-08)
• For this study, we're particularly interested in computational skills, which we define as ability to use computers to analyze, design, model or make decisions as part of the engineering practice. What are the key computational skills you need to do your job? Where did you learn those skills? How important are interpersonal communication skills with none tech personnel? 
  I have found that corporate agenda setting is often done top down, this group of policy setting bodies with in an organization, are rarely tech savvy.  They need to be educated on their actions.  Another way of asking the question is; have you ever said "what is management thinking?" At this point, what responsibilities and action steps should the technologically competent take.
  
  Employer Interview Protocol
   Which of the following best describes the market of this location? Please choose one.
• local ____
  state __
  multi-state ____
  national _
• international ___
  above, but activity is only for internal customers or parent organization___
  
• How many engineers does your company employ? _We are defining an engineer as someone who holds at least a four-year degree in engineering. ___     Why do you limit the term engineer to degreed individuals?  Non degreed engineers probably have had a significant amount of formal education, and they still have an understanding of what skill sets are need to do the job.  If you do let non degreed engineers participate, than you need to track them separately. ____(We will stay with the degree 5-6-08) 
• How many engineering technicians does your company employ at this location?* _We are defining an engineering technician as someone who has at least an associate / two-year degree in engineering technology or equivalent formal education.
•  
  Introduction
• The CPACE project is a partnership with Michigan State University (MSU), Lansing Community College (LCC) and the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW).  The project's goal is to design and implement a process to create a collaboratively-defined undergraduate computing education within the engineering and technology fields that is in alignment with the computational problem-solving abilities needed to transform mid-Michigan's economy and workforce. Delineate exactly what the interviewee is getting out of participating.  This can be soft, like a feel good for giving back to the community that they operate in.  The value to the interviewee may be solid like copies of the aggregate findings.
  
• How important are interpersonal communication skills?  Would it be valuable for an engineer to be able to better break down a technical plan into easy to understand common business terms?|
  

 
David Hollister
President
Prima Civitas Foundation From: David Hollister [d.hollister@primacivitas.org]
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 11:02 AM
To: Cindee Dresen
Subject: RE: FW: Feedback on CPACE Employer Interview Protocol and
Employee Survey
The material looks fine to me   Chris Knapp
Executive Director
Capital Area Info Tech Council I apologize for my delay in getting my observations/feedback about the survey tools to you--I chose to just email you my thoughts because the "track changes" function doesn't work well with the JAWS screen reader I use.
The first question (and its actually more of an observation) is about the section explaining how the choices correspond with those used by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational classifications.
Computer Hardware Engineers is included as one of the 11 choices-but since many institutions (including MSU) prepare Computer Software Engineers, and many of the area employers consequently hire these graduates (ie: TechSmith, Sircon, Artemis-Solutions, etc.) it may be useful to modify this choice or add a new one. Unless of course this conflicts with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics classifications or if you are purposefully only including a sample of occupational classifications.
Of course some would argue that Computer Software Engineers end up doing more computer programming than anything, but I think if we instruct employers to report their findings using the definitions below those employees loosely defined as engineers will be weeded out...
"How many engineers does your company employ? We are defining an engineer as someone who holds at least a four-year degree in engineering. ________ How many engineering technicians does your company employ at this location? We are defining an engineering technician as someone who has at least an associate / two-year degree in engineering technology.
The occupations below correspond to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational classifications. For our purposes, we are defining an engineer as someone who holds at least a 4 year degree in engineering, and an engineering technician as someone who holds at least an associate/two-year degree in engineering technology. We recognize that some companies use the term engineer more broadly, but we would ask you to keep these definitions in mind for your answer. For each of the occupations listed, please indicate if your firm employs workers in that occupation, and if so, how many total employees you have in that occupation at all levels."

My other observation has to do with the following question on the employer survey...
"How do you determine whether applicants have these computational skills at the necessary levels?"
Since many employers have developed their own unique system for identifying talent, we could ask employers to provide us with samples of any assessment tools they have developed to screen applicants. For instance, one of the employers we work with, Liquid Web, has developed their own screening process which assesses an applicant's basic competency of the Linux OS-but understanding what sorts of skills/knowledge companies typically look for in their entry-level engineers, it may direct us toward basic things that are common within industries or even across disciplines.
Also, if you find that you need more employer representation from the manufacturing sector, I can talk to my counterpart who head's up the Capital Area Manufacturing Council to see if he can help distribute the survey tools through his membership.
Hope my observations were helpful-and please let me know if you have any questions or if there is anything else I can do to help.