Deloitte interviewed parents and asked for their perceptions on manufacturing and whether they would encourage their child to go into the profession . Results showed that , over the past four years , there has been an almost 50 % increase in the positive responses given by parents about the manufacturing profession .
SMART FACTORIES
Deloitte interviewed parents and asked for their perceptions on manufacturing and whether they would encourage their child to go into the profession . Results showed that , over the past four years , there has been an almost 50 % increase in the positive responses given by parents about the manufacturing profession .
“ We ' ve seen labour shortages , but we were thinking that they were spread like peanut butter across the board and impacting businesses in lots of different areas . Yet , I think we saw an outsized impact on the labour shortages in manufacturing and the supply chain .”
Traditional manufacturing supply chains are changing During Wellener ’ s time at Deloitte , the skills he learned over the past three decades have remained massively relevant .
“ If I reflect , I would say my biggest lesson is that the more things change , the more things stay the same ,” says Wellener . “ 30 years ago , what we were doing in the shop floor around lean manufacturing and eliminating waste is what we ' re doing today through the nearshoring work that ' s going to take place . We ' re still working to bring things closer together .”
While some things never change , Deloitte is implementing technology in a very different way than it did back when Wellener started in the 1980s .
“ We all have mobile devices that have the ability to connect anywhere and have any application on them . So there ' s a lot of things that are in place today that enable us to do many of those things we would have loved to do 35 years ago . But I ' d still say that ' s the lesson , that the more things change , the more they stay the same .”
Over the next 12 months , what else does Wellener anticipate will stay the same – or change ? “ We ' re very bullish on the opportunities for us to continue to support manufacturers ,” he says .
“ Deloitte is generally very bullish on the manufacturing part of the economy . There ' s so much pent-up demand in corporations for capital goods that they haven ' t been able to get their hands on in the last couple of years .
“ There ' s still pretty significant consumer demand for many types of products out there ,” Wellener says . “ Manufacturing is going to continue to be strong for the next six to twelve months .”
70 December 2022