Advocacy Meets Action: MMA’s Effort to Expand the IGNITE Program in Michigan

This article appeared in the February 2025 issue of MiMfg Magazine. Read the full issue and find past issues online.

In last year’s advocacy-focused issue, we highlighted MMA’s partnership with the SME Education Foundation to expand the SME PRIME® high school advanced manufacturing training program. With over 50 PRIME programs now running across the state and more to come, that effort is a resoundingly successful example of “advocacy meets action.”

In 2024, MMA’s Government Affairs and Workforce Solutions teams embarked on a new partnership with LIFT and Amatrol to build on this past success by bringing the IGNITE: Mastering Manufacturing® program to Michigan schools.

LIFT is a Detroit-based public/private non-profit that is, itself, a partnership between the U.S. Department of Defense, industry and academia. It’s one of over 16 federally-supported Manufacturing Institutes scattered across the country. LIFT is committed to development and deployment of advanced manufacturing technologies and implementing talent development initiatives to better prepare the workforce today and in the future.

Amatrol is a global leader in online and in-person career and technical education (CTE) curriculum, courses, hands-on training systems and virtual simulators aligned to industry needs and developed with industry involvement.

LIFT, Amatrol, the Defense Department and other partners came together in 2018 to develop IGNITE: Mastering Manufacturing, a multi-skilled advanced manufacturing technical educational program that combines technology-specific competencies, fundamental and advanced technical skills, common employability (aka “soft”) and IT skills and an understanding of materials science, manufacturing processes and systems.

IGNITE is a six-course program designed to be implemented at the high school level, but the initial courses can take place in middle school and the upper-level courses can be done at or as “dual enrollment” courses with a community college. The program can be delivered in typical high school semesters, with options for one, two or three-year schedules. The one- and two-year options are great for non-CTE high schools as a preparatory pipeline for a CTE center, while the two- and three-year options are perfect for career/tech centers and early-middle colleges.

Where the SME PRIME® program offers multiple distinct “pathways” for students to explore advanced manufacturing and engineering careers, IGNITE goes deep into developing multi-skilled industrial technicians. As such, it aligns well with the college-level Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) program developed by Toyota and now managed by the National Association of Manufacturers. It also connects nicely with “Mechatronics” programs that can be found at many community and technical colleges around the country.

The IGNITE curriculum was developed to align specifically to the Certified Production Technician (CPT) certification from the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council and multiple Smart Automation Certification Alliance (SACA) certifications. But the classes more broadly align to industry-recognized and highly valued credentials in eight key disciplines: Quality, Safety, Process & Production, Maintenance Awareness, Basic Operations, Advanced Operations, Robotic System Operations & Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Networking & Data Analytics.

Through MMA’s advocacy efforts in 2024, the state legislature approved a $1 million appropriation to pilot the IGNITE program in two Michigan high schools. The two schools that have been selected are Athens High School in Troy and Delton-Kellogg High School in Delton.

Athens High School serves over 1,500 students and nearly 60 percent of those students participate in advanced placement college prep courses. Minority enrollment is around 36 percent and 19 percent of the school’s students are classified as economically disadvantaged.

In contrast, rural Delton-Kellogg High School serves just over 300 students, with around 20 percent in Advanced Placement (AP) courses, 37 percent economically disadvantaged and just eight percent minority. Both can benefit from connection to existing talent and workforce initiatives already going on in their respective regions.

In short, these two schools — one rural school not far from the new Ford BlueOval Battery Park and one urban school with proximity to the heart of Michigan’s auto industry — are ideally suited for this pilot.

MMA’s Workforce Solutions team will integrate these schools into its Collaborative Network effort, connecting them to area manufacturers and plugging them into a statewide learning ecosystem focused on relationship and capacity building across and between schools and regions.

And based on the success of these schools, MMA will continue to advocate in future years for additional state investment in expansion of the IGNITE program footprint across Michigan.

It’s one more example of how MMA’s advocacy efforts translate into action that benefits manufacturers in communities around Michigan.