Thoughts on Lean, communication, and social media
While still taking fledgling steps, reshoring seems to be bringing manufacturing and related jobs back to the USA. However, the phenomenon does not seem to be taking place in the rest of the developed world. This raises the question, why does it happen in the US? What is the difference? In this post, I will seek answers to these questions.
Continue reading “Why is reshoring happening in the USA, but not elsewhere?”
Recent McKinsey reports (1, 2) have predicted a disruptive revolution in technology that will change the landscape of manufacturing. According to McKinsey, it is vital that the technology strategy of companies extends beyond product innovation into process innovation and the ways those technologies can be used to improve their supply chains and manufacturing.
In this post, I will examine the nature of process innovation, the role of technology in it, and the technologies McKinsey predicts will bring about the next disruption.
Continue reading “On process innovation and technology disruption”
It is a grim time to be working in manufacturing in Finland. Then again, it’s been grim times for more than 30 years already: Finland lost around 240,000 manufacturing jobs between 1980 and 2011, of which 100,000 between 2000 and 2011, and BCG expects Finland to lose a further 42,000 manufacturing jobs by 2020, which would bring the number of remaining manufacturing jobs to around one half of the 1980 level.
In this post, I will examine the situation more closely from the framework of McKinsey’s next-shoring perspective. The next-shoring perspective stipulates that there are two main drivers for selecting manufacturing location: proximity to demand and proximity to innovation. Their relative importance can differ from field to field.
Continue reading “Is the Finnish manufacturing industry at a dead end?”