With Industry 4.0 right around the corner (or maybe it’s already here) manufacturing is about to make an exponential
leap forward. We’ve seen industrial revolutions before—three of them, in
fact—but somehow the fourth industrial revolution seems different.
Michelle Drew
Rodriguez, manufacturing leader for Deloitte’s Center for Industry
Insights, believes the
key difference between this industrial revolution and the past three is the
pace of change. “The last three industrial revolutions have essentially taken
place on a linear path,” she said in a keynote at the second annual Robotiq User
Conference (RUC). “But the pace at which technology is advancing—particularly
in the last few decades—isn’t linear; it’s exponential.”
These exponential
changes are inherently disruptive, and they’re just beginning to be felt in
manufacturing. “Bottom line: it’s a great time to be in manufacturing,”
Rodriguez said. “We’re seeing very strong output globally.”
The data for that
insight comes from Deloitte’s Global Manufacturing Competitiveness
Index (GMCI), which
surveys more than 500 manufacturing executives to “take the pulse” of the
sector, particularly regarding which countries the respondents see as most
competitive.
Another insight in the
GMCI is the close link between a country’s ranking and the prevalence of its
high-tech manufacturing. “Nations that have more than 50 percent of their
exports coming from high-skill, high-tech manufacturing exports are correlated
very significantly to manufacturing executives feeling that they’re going to be
more competitive in the future.”
Rodriguez suggested
that this is part of the reason the U.S. is predicted to overtake China at the
top of the GMCI by 2020. “This is the first time ever that global manufacturing
executives are ranking the U.S. in the number one spot.”
The impact of new
technology notwithstanding, the biggest driver of manufacturing competitiveness
is still talent. “Talent is going to be the key differentiator moving forward,”
said Rodriguez. The issue there, of course, is the skills gap: another reason manufacturers are so focused
on the future. “Manufacturing executives indicate that six out of ten of their
current openings are due to that skills shortage,” Rodriguez added.
A potential solution
to this issue fit well with the RUC theme of deploying more robots, faster.
“Collaborative robots are a great way to address that need,” said Rodriguez,
“Because you’re not replacing workers, but helping them by taking what they do
today and automating the mundane or routine jobs that people don’t want. That
frees up their intellectual power to advance your manufacturing operation in
other ways.”
After her keynote, I
asked Rodriguez if she sees a connection between the rapid pace of change
associated with Industry 4.0 and the impending skills gap in manufacturing.
“Absolutely,” she said. “I think there are two elements to the skills issue.
One is fundamentally a matter of supply, in that we simply don’t have enough
talent. But that’s amplified by the fact that, because things are changing so
quickly, it’s increasingly more difficult to reskill or upskill your workers to
keep pace with technology.”
For more information,
visit the Deloitte website. Stay tuned for updates from RUC 2017.