OPINION
LINE OF DEFENCE 3: IN-HOUSE TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER Years of outsourcing have suddenly been reversed where many Irish players have invested in technology and processes to set up critical supply processes in-house. In particular for time critical processes and high frequency deliveries the risks and management time is too high to spend on expediting parts.
LINE OF DEFENCE 4: RECONFIGURATION OF SUPPLY CHAINS Years of just-in-time, efficiency targets and rapid globalisation has pushed the agenda of best cost country or best landed cost in deciding the source of manufacturing components. Now uncertain and excessively long supply
routes from Asia as a result of the fragility of supply chains being exposed are been abandoned. Anecdotal evidence of exit from China supply bases is growing and businesses now are motivated to on-shore or multi-shore their supply chains. The other major driver, of course, in this shift is of course the ESG agenda and associated decarbonisation targets.
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LINE OF DEFENCE 5: ACCELERATION OF TECHNOLOGY AND AUTOMATION No longer seen as longer term agenda item, manufacturing has stepped up its game in terms of automation, greater online presence and real time data-driven logistic systems. Recent research from Accenture shows that driven by the shock of the pandemic technology adoption leaders are growing at rate five times that of adoption laggards. The other motivators are safety and labour
shortages. Safety as in social distancing, higher workplace cleanliness are great reasons to automate.
“WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER” Friedrich Nietzche, the German philosopher, is credited with this aphorism when he wrote in 1888 in his book Twilight of the Idols “Aus der Kriegsschule des Lebens. Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker,” which can be translated as “Out of life’s school of war, what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” Nietzsche expanded further on this, referring to select individuals as “nature’s lucky strokes… among men,” and says of such a person, “He divines remedies for injuries; he knows how to turn serious accidents to his own advantage; that which does not
kill him makes him stronger.” The same attitude and mindset is true of
manufacturing. Confronted with endless supply chain pain, new surprises every day, Irish manufacturing has taken step change measures to build and strengthen its supply chains. Every crisis brings enormous learning and
development dividends and COVID-19 is no exception. When things are going swimmingly well, human nature being what it is, tend to become complacent, slow to act and avoid difficult decisions. Things move slowly with less sense of urgency. Now suddenly we have concrete changes which would have otherwise stayed on the long finger. Vaccines have come about in under a year, cycle lanes popped up overnight, home working is now widely accepted, more resilient supply chains and the ESG agenda has gained in focus and urgency. We now better appreciate the global impact of climate change and from our pandemic experience that everyone has a massive part to play. We see a major shift to a hybrid of financial and binding green targets; going green must and will become part of every business’s DNA. In many ways, the impacts and learnings from the pandemic and the actions taken by manufacturing can be seen as a forerunner to achieving 2030 and 2050 carbon goals.
Irish Manufacturing January 2022 13
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