Since past few decades, globalization has brought tremendous change in the manufacturing industry. Omitting the geographical barriers, many companies have shifted their production elsewhere just to reduce labour cost. This has resulted in developed countries losing their manufacturing industry and in turn their share of jobs as well. However, this trend has begun to reverse recently.
The reason behind this is the increased labour costs in many developing economies leading manufacturers to shift to their original location.
Benefits of shifting manufacturing locations
Analysts are suggesting that manufacturing would be playing a leading role in building a healthy economy in coming years. Location of production unit has become vital. Manufacturing industry can create jobs, economic health, and growth at a level such that the services industry will never be able to do.
Therefore, business is now playing on the basis of agility, responsiveness, and innovation, with the fundamental support of technology and people skills.
Well-prepared and informed workers would be the center of the business of the future. Their flexibility will be a churning point in increasing demand for customized products.
In today’s world, the big trends of the technological evolution are being identified with the terms like the Internet of Things, Big Data, cloud, mobility and analytics are the most commonly used ones.
However, there are a lot of misunderstandings surrounding these terms. Consider the following to avoid any such misconceptions at all.
- Internet of Things: Internet of Things are things that can communicate their status, needs and problems using smart sensors and that transmit this information over the Internet through wired or wireless networks.
- Big Data: As the name suggests, they are large volumes of highly variable data types that need to be processed at high speeds with innovative and economic systems. They can produce crucial information to support decision-making.
- Cloud: There is no need to establish and maintain their infrastructure. They are centralized and scalable IT structures that can be easily made available as needed
- Mobility: Anytime, anywhere easy availability of the information, regardless of the device used.
- Analytics: Information derived from statistical models or mathematical algorithms applied to the available data to create information otherwise not immediately available. Such information is highly necessary for predicting scenarios or manual decision making or for implementing automated decision-making.
These trends respond to the organization’s need to update production operations and, at the same time, determine the direction in which the technological evolution heads. These technological evolutions form a unique system. They are flexible and can manage and coordinate the whole manufacturing supply chain efficiently and competitively.
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