Trend: The Future of Manufacturing Post-Covid – What Can You Expect?

The folks at Applied Software, a leading purveyor of manufacturing software, invited me in to be the launch person for their new Forging Manufacturing podcast. We had so much to talk about that they turned it into two episodes! You can access it here.

I spend a lot of time providing trends oriented keynotes in the world of manufacturing, as detailed on the page The Disruption, Transformation, and Reinvention of Manufacturing

I built the talk around the theme that is working for most of the keynotes I’m doing (via virtual) or scheduled in-person for this fall :

• what did our industry look like before Covid – what were the key trends, the disruption, and the future?
• how did Covid shift the axis of our universe – both in a general way, as well as an industry-specific perspective
• what does this mean going forward, both generally and specifically

It was a great conversation. I also recorded it locally and did a quick edit to cut out the key sections – sans their questions – where I took on these three issues. It’s a good, succinct summary of the future of manufacturing. Here’s a playlist by which you can access these sections.

The video mostly fell into the summary that I wrote prior to going to air, with some minor modifications:

Manufacturing – What we were talking about pre-Covid?

1. The rapid acceleration of new methodologies
2. Additive/3d
3. iiOT in the factory
4. Rapid product prototyping and design
5. Impact of crowdfunding/crowdsourcing on design/product
6. The rapid emergence of new competitors
7. Skills shortage; rapid acceleration of skills
8. New material science
9. Embedding intelligence/connectivity into a product
10. Managing the new Amazon dominance

How did Covid shift the axis of our universe?

1. A shift from just-in-time to just-in-case
2. Supply chain volatility
3. Price inflation
4. The rapid adoption of new methodologies (i.e. 3d printing for swabs, masks)
5. Robotics – emerging from the cage – distancing
6. Acceleration of production visibility initiatives
7. Rapid repurposing/reinvention of production
8. Greater focus on cost management (rapid acceleration of cost)
9. Faster alignment to external partnerships (pack and ship, etc)
10. Faster acceleration of big trends (electric cars, autonomy, virtual)

What Will We Be Talking About in Manufacturing Post-Covid?

1. Chief Resilience Officer
2. Potential de-globalization strategies
3. Redundancy and agility
4. Banking / how to keep what we learned in Covid
5. Accelerating robotics
6. 6. New workforce decisions/challenges (hesitancy etc)
7. A need for better supply chain insight
8. Accelerating direct to consumer strategies
9. Re-examination of logistics (shipping, airline)
10. The new emphasis on security (ransom attacks et