Factories across the globe are showing signs of strain in keeping up with demand. China, Germany, France, Canada, the UK and the US all show that capacity might not be keeping up with supply.
Robots shouldn't be viewed as a hammer. Think about what you need to accomplish and evaluate robots as one tool / solution to a business issue.
Manufacturing isn't showing signs of slowing down.
My colleague and I led a Kaizen workshop on metrics last week with a process manufacturing client. It is always interesting to brainstorm which metrics are the most relevant in tracking a company's success. They are NOT always the same.
There has certainly been a lot of conversation about the potential tax law changes! Michael Kouyoumdjian, managing shareholder of RP&B CPAs did a great job of going through the potential changes and impacts in a discussion with trusted advisers to manufacturers and distributors.
Growth is a hot topic. Regardless of your industry, if your company isn't growing, it is dying.
Autonomous vehicles for all intensive purposes are "here". It will take some time with testing and regulations but there will be interesting impacts when considering some of the issues that plague transportation today.
In my ProVisors ODAM (Ontario-hosted Distributors and Manufacturers group – don’t you love the play on words?) meeting this month, we discussed business best practices we’ve seen with our manufacturing and distribution clients.
Where are you sourcing from currently? Don't just jump on the new bandwagon of reshoring but you should give your total cost of ownership a second look as well as dig into your customers' expectations and sourcing impacts.
Whether we have anything to do with electric cars, we should pay attention. Noticing where investments are flowing can be quite critical as it will impact your business in one way or another.
