Transcript 0:02 That's where I think there's a disconnect. This incongruence between being aware of the ongoing shift toward automation and still believing nothing will change reveals a strong naivete. We need to evolve. 0:15 The way we work needs to change. The way we need to reskill and upskill our employees. Work is changing. 0:30 [upbeat music] Welcome to The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation, with your host, Peggy Smedley. Hello, listeners, and welcome to today's edition of The Peggy Smedley Show. 0:48 I'm your host, Peggy Smedley. Today on The Peggy Smedley Show, I want to talk all about manufacturing once again. Since a new report out, I will look at the top challenges that are keeping manufacturers up at night. 1:03 I think they're keeping all in... all of us up at night. So tough global c- competition means almost eight in ten manufacturers are cutting costs. 1:14 Still, they're navigating through the COVID-19 well, with sixty-nine percent saying their performances are unchanged or have even improved. And I will explain how on the first segment. 1:29 So stick around for that, because that's gonna be very interesting. Later on in the show, I'll be interviewing some guests, as always. 1:36 I will be talking to Anthony Pagano, associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. And then I will wrap up the show with Dale Calder at... CEO of InSkill. And stick around. 1:49 That's gonna be a very interesting conversation considering we have the shortage of skilled workers. So let's get started. Ericsson recently released the second edition of its Future on Enterprises report. 2:03 The research points to the top nine challenges with manufacturing today. Now, let's take a look at what this report says, because it's very interesting. First, there's a lot of competition. We all know that. 2:15 There always has been, especially among low-cost countries. Now, manufacturing is... Well, let me take a step back. Most of you know I've written a book called Mending Manufacturing, and I wrote that back in 2004. 2:28 So it's kind of interesting that I'm always talking about this. But let me tell you about Ericsson's report here, because manufacturing is constantly on the move to the lowest labor country and region. 2:40 S- no surprise there, but this is kind of interesting when you hear the report, because this isn't a new trend, but it is continuing always. 2:49 Second, they say, workers still view the work as either dull, dirty, or dangerous. Huh. Uh, w- I, what is the guy's name that always talks about dirty jobs? 3:01 Well, maybe he should have been part of this report, but we can talk about that later. In fact, seventy-one percent of production employees say that work is at least one of these three: dirty, dull, or dangerous. 3:14 [laughs] Something to talk about. Third, manufacturing needs contingency plans and resilience in the supply chain. Like I always say, the need for this is higher than ever before. 3:28 Where is everybody when they need to wake up and smell the manufacturing roses? Okay. Fourth, the manufacturing industry is transforming a fixed and wired production into a more flexible one. Hmm, no surprise there. 3:43 The majority of the equipment is fixed and stationary. Well, of course it is. These are big, heavy machines. It's, you know, much, like, bigger sometimes than your car. No surprise there. 3:54 I don't know if any of you don't know that, but I'm pretty sure you all do if you're listening to my show. So rearranging for a consistently changing product line can be time-consuming and costly. 4:06 Well, okay, you can't just change overnight. Have you ever tried to change a Ford F-150 overnight? Well, it doesn't happen. But it is necessary today because why? 4:16 Okay, you're getting a lot of competition from the tech industry. Okay. Well, we're gonna keep talking about this in a second. Fifth, manufacturing needs to be more efficient and customization. 4:27 Well, yeah, because all of us customers want everything overnight. Oh, wait, Amazon, like, in hours. Okay. In the past century, manufacturing has shifted from, let's talk about this. What did I just say? 4:39 Mass production to a lean manufacturing to greater customization. We want it in every color, shape, size, and whatever we can get. Now, I don't know who did this report, but none of this is really eye-opening yet. 4:52 But okay, we'll continue on. Manufa- manufacturers already have implemented efficient, small, tailor-made batch production. We know that because you have to. 5:02 If you don't, you're not gonna be in business, and those that didn't, guess what? Well, they're not in business anymore. They kind of are using, I guess, prediction to adjust designs and volumes in real time. 5:13 You almost have to, because if you're not able to use technology to do that, you have no idea what we as a demanding public want. But there still is a need for more efficient customization. We're seeing that. 5:25 With the long life cycles, roughly fifteen to twenty years for investments in machines and systems in factories accelerating, customization can be what? We always talk about it. It can be a challenge. 5:36 You just can't do it. So this has led to a heterogeneous factory floor.Old machines working side by side with newer installations and IT systems, which really lends itself to being very creative. 5:52 Which brings me to the next challenge number six manufacturing faces a hurdle of moving to integration of new and old machines and information and operations technology kind of like what you think about. 6:07 How do you get that expertise to work alongside of that knowledge that we always have to think about? The lack of integration results in a lack of standardization and data flows that you have to think about. 6:20 So seventh on their list is manufacturing needs compliance with stricter environmental policy and, and legislation. You know, I've said this, uh, many times before, and we've talked about this. 6:32 You can't just make things happen in an instant. So eight, manufacturing needs to close that skills gap and find a solution for this retiring workforce. 6:44 There's the-- all this wealth of information, this wealth of expertise that just doesn't happen because it's, it's, it's just there all of a sudden. Knowledge and, and expertise is, is a little bit different. 6:57 So I'll talk about that more in a couple of minutes. But... And finally, manufacturing needs to protect its data and access to factory assets with a good cybersecurity because guess what? 7:10 We all know that theft is on the rise, and it's doing nothing but going up and up and up because the bad guys love to figure out how to hack into things, especially when we're connecting them. And what does it mean? 7:22 A lot, a lot of lost revenue. So all of these topics I've discussed here on this show before, and we've gone into great detail. 7:31 I've gone into them in my book Mending M- Manufacturing, but when we put them all together, it adds up to a lot of spinning plates that seem to be overwhelming indeed for anybody who's running and managing a manufacturing. 7:45 So today's manufacturers have a big task at hand. You know, how can we address many of these issues that are... seem to be overwhelming? So I'll reiterate it once again. 7:57 With technology, you need to look to ever, ever, ever implementing technology. So for the rest of this segment, let's walk through exactly what that might look like in a manufacturing operation. 8:12 So even though Ericsson's come out with this report, which to me seems a bit obvious, it lends itself to say we have to look at what we're talking about. 8:21 So the Ericsson Future of Enterprises report, for example, also reinforces my point by suggesting manufacturers will move to a smarter, swifter, and safer production with tech. 8:34 Well, again, it, it really needs to be said and needs to be reiterated. More specifically, this will be assisted by this ICT-enabled production tools. 8:44 So some of the most popular tools will sound very familiar to all of you: AI software, video recognition and analytics, remote control of machines, robots, and vehicles in the line, you know, automated guided vehicles and autonomous mobile robots. 9:03 You're gonna see those on the factory flo-floor. Augmented reality. How many times have we talked about digital twins? We need these kind of things. Virtual reality, collaborative robots and, of course, exoskeletons. 9:17 These are things that the factory is going to use. And in fact, this report says roughly fifty percent of manufacturers that use three or more of these tools say they are very financially successful. 9:31 That just goes without saying. It's logical. This is seventeen percentage points more than those with no tools at all. Well, again, technology is proving to be very successful. 9:46 The report goes on to point to a few other big trends to watch in manufacturing. And of course, the first is that manufacturing as a service and pop-up factories, which I find really interesting. 9:58 You know, we talk about pop-up restaurants, now we got pop-up manufacturing. And the report suggests they will be commonplace by twenty thirty. 10:06 And I think that's going to be where the need is, where we need to see things come in for a given time period. Makes sense. We, we see a lot of trends and a lot of need in a lot of different areas. 10:17 So different parts of the regions and different parts of countries are gonna have different needs at different times, depending on what happens and, you know, where, where our needs are. 10:26 So other trends to watch include additive manufacturing and three D printing, which we're seeing this will also allow for flexible and cost-effective production and practices, which I think are really great. 10:39 Wireless technologies. You've seen me talk a lot lately about five G and Wi-Fi six. And then I even think we're gonna see Li-Fi. 10:47 They haven't said that in their report, but I think will be very critical to enable all of this to happen. 10:54 And there will be one more point I would like to focus on for the remainder of this segment, which time is short of course. So Ericsson goes as far as to say full automation is on the horizon. 11:06 Almost two-thirds of the surveyed manufacturers expect to be automated to at least eighty percent within ten years. That's awesome. Think about how we've changed. 11:18 Many believe artificial intelligence will become widespread. Close to nine in ten decision-makers expect AI to be used in their production processes within the next ten years, and I agree with that. 11:33 So however, three in four think humans will still make at least half or all of the production decisions. Now, I also agree with that. I don't think we're going to see machines making all the decisions. 11:48 HoweverI have long said we will live and work in a world where humans work alongside of machines. I, I still believe that. There is a little bit of a disconnect in the market that we need to openly address. 12:04 Frank- frankly, I'm concerned that people are still not opening their eyes wide enough. 12:11 More than half of the production employees still believe more people will be needed in similar roles by 2030, and only one in five think fewer people will be needed. That's where I think there's a disconnect. 12:26 This incongruence between being aware of the ongoing shift toward automation and still believing nothing will change res- reveals a strong naivete. So I'm, I'm, I'm just saying that's, that's m- what I see. 12:41 So here's my opinion for today. We need to evolve. The way we work needs to change. The way we need to reskill and upskill our employees. Work is changing. 12:55 Tomorrow's production employers, uh, will need to be different and need to bring different skills than yesterday's production employees. 13:05 Future workers will need to develop skills in creative pr- to be creative problem-solving, data analysis, and computer programming, just to name a few, I think is really important. 13:17 As I always say, the only pace of change is only going to speed up. That pace of change is only going to speed up. Manufacturing needs to catch up to the pace of change and stick with it, and we're seeing that they are. 13:30 That's what's really exciting. We're seeing manufacturing change. And, and are they changing because of COVID? Were they changing be- before the pandemic? 13:38 Whatever the reason, we're seeing manufacturing make some amazing tech changes, and that's exciting. So here's my tip. Be open to change. Embrace it. Embrace technology. 13:49 This is going beyond the leveraging of new technology. Go on and see the future of change. This is important, too. Be open to change means being open to new processes and procedures. 14:01 It means not doing things because it is the way we have always done it, but do new things. Embrace new things. 14:08 For example, many manufacturers are still using the same job description to recruit employees as they did 20 years ago. No, you have to think differently. 14:18 We just talked about how the worker is changing, so the job descriptions, the business needs to change, too. It's about people, process, and technology. That's what we need to think about. 14:29 We need everything working together in harmony if we're going to be moved to a full automation in manufacturing. So think about all these things. 14:39 As always, if you have thoughts on what I've talked about today, please send me your thoughts. Tweet at me. Continue this discussion on social media, 'cause we're out of time. So tweet at me @connectedwmag. 14:51 All right, listeners, that's all the time we have for this first segment. Check out our website at connectedworld.com, our show website at thepeggySmedleyShow.com. And we're gonna take a quick commercial break. 15:01 This is The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. Go get that quick cup of coffee, 'cause we'll be right back. 15:12 [upbeat music]
