versation among a large number of people
using the power of a net work.
In business, too, our expectations about
the speed and pace of change are undergoing a transformation. We want real-time
information about operations and supply
chains. We want a greater understanding
of consumer buying habits. We expect to
be able to do business faster, more efficiently, and to be able to satisfy individual
requirements more completely than ever
before.
Driven by advancements in information technology and communications, our
expectations about business change have
clearly been re-set, at least on a conceptual level. In manufacturing, we can see
the promised land of Manufacturing 4.0
– with its cyber-physical systems, information-driven factories, and analytic-based
decision making, among other characteristics – but the path to get there is strewn
with obstacles.
That’s because the journey to M4.0 is
only partly based on technology change.
Its larger and more complex aspects have
to do with culture, leadership, and organization, factors that are now provoking
a sober re-assessment of just how fast the
industry is going to be able to complete
its journey to this next state of industrial
progress.
The latest Manufacturing Leadership
Council survey on Next-Generation Lead-
ership, one of the Council’s six “Critical Is-
sues” this year, underscores the challenge,
and reveals difficult-to-bridge gaps. The
survey reveals, on one hand, a near univer-
sal belief that Manufacturing 4.0 requires
a substantially different approach and
set of skills on the part of manufacturing
company leaderships (chart 3.) On the
other hand, there is an acknowledgement
among manufacturers that only a fraction
of current leaders understand what M4.0
is all about (chart 4).
So, rather than expecting that the journey to M4.0 will resemble a modern bullet train, speeding to its digital destination,
manufacturing leaders see the transition as
more like an old-fashioned horse-drawn
wagon train -- slowly, sometimes haltingly,
slogging its way to a better life in a different
place.
At this point in time, most leadership
teams have only some familiarity with
what M4.0 is going to take. When asked
how prepared their executive management
teams are to undertake the trip to M4.0,
55% of survey respondents indicated that
their teams were “somewhat prepared,”
36% said “not at all prepared,” and only
9% said “very prepared” (chart 6.)
The most-cited reason for the lack of
preparedness, according to 57% of survey
respondents, is that manufacturing company leaders are simply focused on other
issues, like the day-to-day running of the
business. But, importantly, two other factors stand out as well – uncertainty about
how M4.0 applies to their particular businesses, cited by 32% of respondents, and
a lack of understanding of what M4.0 is,
indicated by 28% of respondents (chart 7).
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“The journey
to M4.0 is
only partly
based on
technology
change. It’s
larger and
more complex
aspects have
to do with cul-
ture, leader-
ship, and or-
ganization.”
MANUFACTURING
LEADERSHIP JOURNAL
Daved R. Brousell is
the Co-Founder of the
Manufacturing Leadership Council.