Sustainability, Skill Shortages, Complexity…How Can Automation Technologies Help OEMs Address These New Challenges?

Sustainability, Skill Shortages, Complexity…How Can Automation Technologies Help OEMs Address These New Challenges?

By EOH(CHRIS) WOOJIJN

Sustainability, Skill Shortages, Complexity…How Can Automation Technologies Help OEMs Address These New Challenges?

The world has changed since the pandemic, forcing the manufacturing world to shift as well. New challenges have emerged including skill shortages and new industry needs have surfaced such as simplification and sustainability

December 1, 202218 minsUpdated on December 5, 2022

The last in-person edition was in 2019, before COVID-19. The world has changed since the pandemic, forcing the manufacturing world to shift as well. New challenges have emerged including skill shortages and new industry needs have surfaced such as simplification and sustainability. These new stakes and how manufacturers and OEM will respond to them will determine their future in the next few years. How can automation technologies help the sector throughout its unavoidable digital journey?

It has only been 3 years, but the world as we knew it before the pandemic no longer exists. In 2020, a mysterious virus forced the world to go into lockdown, factories to close, production to shut down and people to work from home.

Then, as the crisis in many countries was getting worse and we were facing a mask and ventilator shortage, several automotive and aerospace firms retooled their productions in order to manufacture medical equipment such as ventilators to help healthcare workers. 

People working from home started using cloud-based solutions to keep factories operating remotely. Augmented reality ensured continuity of service and helped conduct maintenance routines with the few workers on site, when most of the operators were home.

Automation technology certainly helped manufacturing companies that were already engaged in their digital transformation cope with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. And it will definitely help them deal with the new challenges that have emerged. But for those who haven’t started their digital journey yet, it is now a matter of life and death.

We’ve outlined below the critical issues at stake for the future of manufacturing companies as well as how advanced tools can help address them.

1/ How to Mitigate Skill Shortages?

One of the most preoccupying challenges the manufacturing sector is facing today is labor and skill shortages. According to various studies, this lack of manufacturing skills could prevent manufacturers from achieving their true digital transformation.

“Customers want new products. They want different types of packaging and sizes, and they want as much personalization as you can give them. And this is impacting all consumer-facing industries, from packaged food to even personalized medicines. The packaged goods market averages 30,000 new products launched each year.”

“What’s keeping us from getting there? It’s the workforce. We don’t have enough manpower.”

There are currently 800,000 unfilled domestic manufacturing jobs in the USA. Research from consulting firm Deloitte estimates that by 2030, 2 million manufacturing jobs will go unfilled in the country, potentially costing the US economy 1 trillion dollars. In another study, consulting firm McKinsey reported that unfilled jobs were a primary reason that 7 out of 10 industrial companies fell behind in their scheduled production.