The future is now for Canadian manufacturing

You don’t have to be Charles Darwin to see the evolution that is taking place in the metalworking industry.

As we enter a new decade, it’s time to look ahead to the future, not with a slow, careful, Darwinian-style study, but with some quickness of thought and action. We don’t need to look 20 years into the future, or even five for that matter, simply to the rest of this year and the next. For many Canadian shops, the future needs to be now.

It’s no secret what will enable the metalworking shops of the immediate future to be successful. In fact, it’s the same as today, yesterday, and the day before: people and technology.

Sure, the technology will be a little different than today, a little more advanced and automated. And soon the new currency of the shop will be data, specifically Big Data. Connectivity reduces human error, improves quality, and reduces order-to-delivery time. The reason the last item is important is that it translates into getting paid faster.

CAD/CAM, automation, machining, and QC systems are no longer four separate steps along the manufacturing pathway. With the advent and adoption of Wi-Fi, 5G, and cloud computing, they now are all a single entity that can be analyzed, adjusted, and perfected. Then re-analyzed and re-adjusted.

It’s not just manufacturing equipment that is evolving, either. Manufacturing workers are upskilling to be ready for the future, which will include some form of Industry 4.0 implementation, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality in shops both large and small.

While the existing roles of operator, machinist, designer, and programmer will remain, they are evolving to include IT and automation expertise. The addition of these skills is important to keep productivity high and shops profitable.

There are two hurdles to overcome to succeed in this shop of the not-too-distant future, however. A reluctance to invest in new technology, which has long been a negative trend in Canadian manufacturing, is one hurdle. The other is the omnipresent skilled-trades gap.

As manufacturing workers evolve, they will require more technical skills, not fewer, and this requirement has the ability to widen an already too wide skills gap.

Next-generation workers require the right skills, environment, and pay to fulfill their part in the equation. It’s up to ownership and management to make sure that happens now.