Network resilience is more than just a singular supply chain, but an evolution in thinking within the value chain concept.  It matters greatly that EU systems are integrated and built for the wider value proposition on a societal level, creating new and improved commercial opportunities for the manufacturing sector.  This is particularly important in the current economic and political environment

A key component of the EU aspiration on autonomy is resilience of the manufacturing ecosystem.  

Europe (in general) is a higher cost economic region.  In a time of turbulence and global rising inflationary pressures, our historic growth strategy is growing through exports.  We cannot survive in a race to the bottom (based solely on price), but need to support our manufactured product proposition, via an increase in the innovation built into that manufactured product.  When people talk about the need to digitize, they are generally referring to either the production process or the resultant product.  The only reason you would wish to digitize a product (make it smarter) is to add value for the customer and/or sell an additional service.  These are by definition ‘high value added products’.  Its imperative to the future of manufacturing sector on this continent that we focus in that sector of the manufactured goods.

Europe does not have the raw materials to support the manufacturing sector, particularly in relation to precious metals needed in so many of the modern environmental systems.  We have an opportunity to lead the world in terms of recycling and circularity, both in terms of the right thing to do for the planet, but the logistical requirement to support manufacturing in Europe.  It is important to understand that there is NO circularity without manufacturing.

The use of trusted AI will transform many sectors and sections of our society.  Of no less importance in this journey is the experience of the manufacturing sector.  Technical and business decision systems will be transformed by this type of technology.  It is important to protect the worker in this transformation as well as using the power of this potential to the betterment of the manufacturing product and service within the wider community.  Much is made of the potential dangers of this technology but we should remain positive on the opportunities that it represents, particularly in a sector in such flux, as manufacturing is at this moment in time.

A critical element in the evolution of the manufacturing sector is tied up in the need to have a more completed link between the manufactured product (through its transformation in the manufacturing process) and the subsequent use and end of life considerations within the real world consumer environment.  We need safe, clear and agreed protocols between suppliers in a supply chain, to store relevant information, so that disassembly and re purposing of the raw materials and sub components can be effectively reused in other manufacturing chain, post use of the product in this life cycle.

Compliance and regulatory restrictions to changing heavily regulated manufacturing systems needs to be automated and digitally enabled in as an effective a manner as any other element of the manufacturing / design lifecycle.  Too often critical or innovative updates to a system are postponed or rejected because the regulatory framework is too onerous to adjust.  As we experienced through Covid, this can be amended whilst keeping the vital controls required by the pharma and medical device sectors (as an example)

We are running out of people, particularly skilled people.  All of the improvements we require of the digital and green twin transition are critical form a business perspective, from an integrated perspective and no less critically form a human capital perspective.  We need to upskill and reskill our people, as well as attracting more young propel to the STEM sectors.  But people are busy within their own jobs, and releasing them for training is a challenge.  Equally there is a difficulty in ascertaining the ‘right’ skills to upskill them on.  Too many SME owner managers claim to be upskilling their staff in data programs for example, but very few are training their staff in the fundamentals like ‘standard deviation’.  We also need to be open to non STEM people coming to this sector.  If we are to overcome the significant challenges we face as a society, we will need a significant input from the humanities and other specialist areas (e.g. the moral framework for AI in our society, may be better served by a humanities expertise, rather than the person who can code this up).

Of particular interest for those processes which are coming to the end of their limits from a physical and chemical parameters, such as the production of microchips, to keep aligned with Moore's law.  There are of course more examples of this opportunity and this represents an exciting future area of focus for the manufacturing sector.  There are also significant implications for the medical devices sector, where the development of solutions in this space will grow substantially in the coming decade.