If you’re a member of the Baby Boomer generation or Generation X, chances are you have a markedly different view of the U.S. manufacturing industry than Millennials, according to the findings of a recent Manufacturing Index survey by Leading2Lean, a manufacturing software technology company and creator of CloudDISPATCH software. The survey found that generation significantly affected how Americans view manufacturing careers, the role of manufacturing in the U.S. economy, and the industry’s growth.

Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed that manufacturing jobs are important to the U.S. economy. Older generations, particularly those born between 1946 and 1964 (Baby Boomers), and those born between 1965 and 1980 (Generation X), appeared better informed about the significance of these jobs to the U.S.

Eighty-six percent of Baby Boomers and Gen X respondents agreed that manufacturing jobs are important to the economy, while only 68% of Millennials, those born between 1981 and 1998, agreed.

“We were surprised by how the responses varied by generation,” said Keith Barr, CEO and President of Leading2Lean. “We are seeing some of the highest demand for skilled manufacturing jobs in recent history, yet it seems the industry has failed to keep younger generations informed about the skills gap or availability of great jobs.”

This difference in generational perspective was also reflected in a question about whether respondents agreed that manufacturing offers fulfilling careers. Only 49% of Millennials agreed, while 59% of both Baby Boomers and Generation X agreed. This underscores that Millennials are less convinced that manufacturing offers desirable career paths.

It is estimated that approximately 3.5 million manufacturing jobs will need to be filled over the next ten years, and 2 million of those jobs will go unfilled, according to recent data from The Manufacturing Institute. Despite this urgent industry need, half of Millennials indicated that they do not believe there is a shortage of skilled workers in the U.S. In comparison, 63% of Gen X and 60% of Baby Boomers indicated that they did understand there is a current shortage of skilled workers.

“We see from this data that we need to do better as an industry to show the younger generation how the industry has changed,” said Barr. “Manufacturing is more dynamic than ever before. Jobs in the industry involve complex problem solving and interesting technology. They’re not mind-numbing jobs that take place at dilapidated factories. And they offer competitive pay, benefits and opportunities for advancement.”

Millennials may not be aware that manufacturing jobs pay on average nearly three times the federal minimum wage for production and nonsupervisory employees, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For managerial roles, manufacturing offers pay competitive with tech sector jobs, according to 2018 data from Glassdoor.

As part of the Leading2Lean Manufacturing Index survey series, Leading2Lean seeks to measure and report on the American public’s perception of manufacturing in the U.S. by looking at key metrics and tracking trends over time so, as the manufacturing sector evolves, the public’s understanding of it can be assessed. Leading2Lean commissioned survey provider ENGINE to conduct the national survey at a 95% confidence level, surveying 1,002 respondents representative of U.S. demographics.

To view the results of the survey, visit www.leading2lean.com/leading2lean-manufacturing-index/.

About Leading2Lean | Leading2Lean improves manufacturing operations through digital transformation by providing a suite of software solutions that resolve production, quality and maintenance abnormalities and manage shop floor processes. The company’s Lean Execution System software, CloudDISPATCH, provides critical real-time and actionable data to create a problem-solving, engaged workforce. To learn more about Leading2Lean, visit www.Leading2Lean.com.

When was the last time you used your smartphone to actually reach out and touch someone verbally, that is, to make a phone call? Chances are, not much.

Research from a variety of sources says voice calls are made far less often on smartphones than texting, sending and receiving e-mail, and in-app messaging. What’s more, employees are bringing their personal devices to work, either at the encouragement of their employers to BYOD (bring your own device), or in addition to a work-issued smartphone. And they’re using them FOR work, accessing cloud-based corporate apps and more.

However, greater workforce mobility and increased access to corporate networks via smartphones also raises the risk of enterprise-wide exposure to cybersecurity threats, including those that originate within the supply chain. In a recent article in MHI Solutions’ Q1 2019 issue, “Smartphones and the New Cybersecurity Threat They Pose,” six different experts share insights into both the risks and the measures that can be taken to minimize them.

Chris Morales, head of security analytics at Vectra, a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of automated threat management solutions, says the biggest risk posed by mobile devices to a corporate network is malicious apps gaining access to enterprise information.

“The easiest way to compromise a mobile device is for a user to install a malicious app hiding in app stores,” he explains. “Malicious apps pose as apps serving a legitimate function, like a calculator or the latest release of a popular mobile game, but leverage the app permissions to gain access to information and resources on the mobile device that they should not have access to.”

Two other areas of potential risk are connecting to unsecured public Wi-Fi or plugging into a contaminated USB port for charging and receiving malware in addition to powering up. Says Joseph Carson, chief security scientist at Thycotic, a Washington D.C. based provider of privileged account management (PAM) solutions: “Some malware could remain hidden, infecting the customers of these device users. Other malware could steal intellectual property, thereby allowing other companies to gain a competitive edge. In the worst case, it could poison the data with ransomware bringing the entire supply chain to a complete halt.”

The increasingly interconnected world of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) gives cyber attackers multiple entry points to access, cautions Uri Kreisman, chief operating officer of Bluechip Systems, a provider of mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) cybersecurity solutions headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif.

“If a phone has an enterprise app that controls machinery remotely—and ten separate managers who are authorized to approve certain process changes all have this app on their phones—if one device is compromised and the app hacked into, someone can take over and change the machinery’s operation,” he notes.

And don’t assume suppliers within your supply chain are following smartphone cybersecurity protocols either, adds Mukul Kumar, chief information security officer and vice president of cyber practice at Cavirin, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based provider of cybersecurity risk posture and compliance for the enterprise hybrid cloud.

“As with any device under control of a supply chain vendor, the lead company may have implemented best-in-class processes and technology, but their vendors may have not,” he warns. “Though a larger organization may have controls on their employees’ smartphones precluding downloads from untrusted sources, a smaller organization may not.”

The experts recommend a range of mitigation strategies as a means to protect smartphones against cybersecurity breaches—and they don’t include expecting your IT department to handle it. There are just too many BYOD devices, brands, operating system versions, and so on to be manageable, says Kreisman.

“For that reason, I think BYOD is on the way out for the majority of employees. Perhaps IT will still manage personal phones for top executives—initially fortifying the device and monitoring it routinely to ensure it is clean and secure—but more than that becomes too challenging,” he explains.

So, what’s a company to do? Here are a few ways to reduce the risks, as recommended by the experts:

• Morales recommends monitoring network traffic between devices to identify malicious activity or unauthorized access to critical infrastructure and important resources by unapproved devices.
• Limit use cases to least privileged access, says Frank Dickson, research vice president for worldwide security products at Framingham, Mass.-headquartered IDC, a market intelligence firm. He notes: “It’s critical to examine the use case for employees’ mobile devices and implement what’s called ‘least privileged access’ permissions. That means being sure that the applications and data a given user has access to is something they need in order to do their job effectively. The flip side is making sure that if a user does not need access to certain data, they don’t have it.”
• Isolate mobile devices to minimize the potential overlap between employees’ smartphones and the production systems used within the supply chain, advises Carson.
• Avoid the need to power up via public USB connection by supplying employees with portable chargers, says Seattle-based digital consultant Stephen Pao of Hillwork. “When it comes to connecting to the Internet via public-access Wi-Fi hotspots, it’s a good policy to forbid employees to do it or to require them to use virtual private network (VPN) service that utilizes encryption to provide secure connectivity through a public network,” he adds.
• Require separate phones for personal and work use, or issue one phone that can work in two different modes, recommends Kreisman.
• Conduct routine health checks on all devices, Dickson says. This ensures apps are valid and the device’s operating system has not been modified, making it more vulnerable to attack by malicious apps, hackers or viruses.
• Define corporate policies for smartphone security, inform employees and vendors about those policies, and audit regularly to verify compliance, says Kumar.

To read the entire article and learn more about the cybersecurity risks posed by smartphones to your organization—and for greater detail about mitigating those risks—click here.

Research has implications for how firms message their efforts to target customers

Companies from Patagonia to Nike to Levi’s are leading the charge on social responsibility and supply chain transparency and they’ve encouraged their competitors to follow suit. But getting better visibility into a supply chain is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor for apparel makers. What’s more, its benefits are not entirely clear. Do customers really care? And if they do, are they willing to reward a company for its efforts?

A new study, led by two MIT Sloan School of Management professors, provides answers. The research finds that customers do indeed value information related to a company’s supply chain—and many are prepared to pay a premium for greater supply chain visibility. The study, entitled “Supply Chain Visibility and Social Responsibility: Investigating Consumers’ Behaviors and Motives” and published in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, has implications for companies debating how transparent to make their supply chains and also how best to convey their social responsibility efforts to customers.

“Historically, many companies kept their supply chains as a closely guarded secret,” says Tim Kraft, Visiting Assistant Professor of Operations Management, one of the study’s authors. “But recent events, such as the Foxconn suicides in Shenzhen in 2010 and the Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013, have shifted the paradigm. Now, many companies realize an expectation is being set that they need to put this information out there for consumers to see. But even as they’ve increased their transparency, most weren’t sure that it made a difference to customers. Our study demonstrates that it does make a difference: Customers want to know more about where and how the products they purchase are made.”

Kraft and his coauthors—Yanchong Zheng, the Sloan School Career Development Professor, Associate Professor of Operations Management at MIT Sloan, and León Valdés, Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business—conducted a series of laboratory experiments which mimicked the dynamics of a supply chain with a three-player game where participants played the roles of a consumer, a seller, or a worker. The experiment examined whether and how visibility into the outcome of the seller’s effort to improve the treatment of the worker impacts the price premium that consumers are willing to pay to the seller. All players’ decisions were incentivized; i.e., their actions directly impacted their payments from the experiment.

The researchers varied the extent to which the company’s social responsibility efforts were known to participants. Sometimes both the company and the consumer could see the outcome of the company’s effort to increase the worker’s pay. Other times, even the company was uncertain of the outcome of its effort. (In practice, although companies have full knowledge about their own efforts, they do not necessarily have the same level of knowledge about their suppliers’ practices.)

“Our results show that social responsibility matters to customers,” says Zheng. “Yes, gaining supply chain visibility requires massive time and financial commitments. Many companies have hundreds of suppliers and those suppliers, in turn, have tens of hundreds of suppliers of their own. It is a massive undertaking to verify that everything is being done properly. And yet, our findings show that it can be worthwhile—not only for the social good, but also for a company’s market position.”

The study also highlights how a company’s messaging about its social responsibility initiatives resonates with different target customers. For instance, the researchers find that if consumers naturally care about others’ wellbeing, then they tend to be less interested in learning about the amount of effort that a company exerts and more interested in observing greater visibility into the outcomes of such effort. If instead, consumers are more driven by self-interests, then under high levels of supply chain visibility, they may be willing to reward a company for its social responsibility efforts. However, under lower levels of visibility, these same consumers may punish a company for low effort or even justify a lower willingness to pay by further shifting responsibility for the workers’ well-being onto the company.

“For companies that are trying to figure out how best to communicate their social responsibility efforts, the lesson is clear: know your customers,” says Kraft. “Understanding their needs, values, attitudes, and personality traits will help companies send the right messages to the right people.”

Click here to download the study, “Supply Chain Visibility and Social Responsibility: Investigating Consumers’ Behaviors and Motives.”

MHI recently published a new episode of MHIview, “Integrated Technology & Workforce Solutions.” In it, experts discuss the 11 emerging technologies that have the potential to disrupt the supply chain, as discussed in the 2018 Annual Industry Report. As for their individual impact on workforce, it is anticipated that solutions that are currently siloed—such as robotics—will be much more tightly integrated in the near future. This will give workers faster access to the most relevant, real-time, up-to-date information they need—when they need it.

In many past episodes, MHI has taken in-depth looks at many individual technologies and solutions for the NextGen supply chain. But these technologies should not be evaluated in a vacuum; instead, supply chain operations should examine how these technologies can work together to create a single solution. 

Reversing a decades-long trend in the U.S. jobs market, companies are now having a more difficult time finding blue-collar workers than white-collar workers. Conducted by The Conference Board, the new analysis forecasts that growing blue-collar labor shortages will continue in 2019 and beyond. Companies can expect growing shortages in sectors that include transportation, health care support, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and construction. In addition to increasing wages, companies may have to expand their pools of potential workers, which the report addresses by highlighting recent trends in recruiting.

As the report details, growing blue-collar labor shortages result from converging demographic, educational, and economic trends in the U.S. economy. As the U.S. population has attained more education, the group of working-age individuals with a bachelor’s degree has grown, while the number of those without one has shrunk. Moreover, the Baby Boom generation, a segment of the workforce that once held many blue-collar jobs, continues to retire in droves. Only adding to the challenge, since the mid-1990s millions of non-college graduates have left the labor force due to disability. And while the pool of blue-collar workers has shrunk, the demand for their services has continuously grown since the 2008 financial crisis. 

Tight labor markets are especially visible in the following blue-collar and low-pay service sectors:

• Transportation. As just one example, the rapid growth in online shopping is creating robust demand for delivery drivers. In addition, workers in transportation jobs tend to be older, a trend that has led to many retirements in recent years. 
• Production/Manufacturing. Between 2010-2018, fewer manufacturing jobs were offshored and less productivity growth from automation took place than in the previous decade. This combination has led to continuous demand for U.S. workers.
• Health Care Support. The demand for health care support jobs, such as nursing aides and home health aides, has skyrocketed due to the proliferation of retiring Baby Boomers needing health services.  

“In certain instances, companies looking to attract enough blue-collar workers will have to continue increasing wages and, as a result, possibly experience diminished profits,” said Gad Levanon, lead report author and Chief Economist of North America at The Conference Board. “But the picture looks very different for the workers themselves. Compared to a few years ago, blue-collar workers are now much more likely to have a job they are satisfied with and experience rapid wage growth.”

Over the next decade, the extent of the challenges caused by blue-collar labor shortages will depend largely on three factors: To what extent employers can further automate blue-collar jobs; how many additional individuals are brought back into the labor force; and, how many workers move into blue-collar jobs from other parts of the labor market. As the report discusses, companies should consider the following actions to help alleviate current or potential shortages in the future:

• Invest more in automation. Many blue-collar jobs have the potential to become automated in the next decade. Food preparation, manufacturing, and cleaning and maintenance occupations are particularly likely to be automated and, to some extent, already have been.
• For certain jobs, reduce education requirements. Amid tightening labor markets, many companies are expanding the supply of talent by lowering education requirements during recruitment and providing basic internal training. 
• Find locations with greater availability of blue-collar labor. In some occupations, most notably manufacturing, employers have more discretion on where to locate operations and can thus shift some of the work to areas with increased availability of blue-collar labor. 

About The Conference Board |The Conference Board is a member-focused think tank that provides trusted insights for what’s ahead. We are a non-partisan, not-for-profit entity holding 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt status in the United States. For more information, visit conference-board.org

Companies need to incorporate advanced technologies such as data analytics and cloud to attract new-age retailers, finds Frost & Sullivan

The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) has caused a sea change in the buying patterns of customers and, by extension, the market strategies of retailers. E-commerce and m-commerce have virtually transformed every store into a distribution center and retailers need to adopt technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID), videos, cameras, and data analytics to keep track of inventory in each outlet and, eventually, enhance customer experience management.

“Retailers are looking to empower their mobile workforce to enrich customers’ purchase experience, and this will augment investments in technologies such as handheld readers and smart point-of-sale (PoS) solutions,” said Ram Ravi, Industry Analyst for Industrials at Frost & Sullivan. “RFID sales will get a further boost from the intensifying focus on loss prevention, inventory management, and customer behavior analysis.”

Frost & Sullivan’s recent study, Analysis of Growth & Security of the Global RFID Market in Retail, Forecast to 2022, thoroughly examines the competitive structure and presents the market shares of the leading companies. The study includes forecasts, product analyses, market drivers and restraints, industry challenges, and key growth opportunities for the RFID tags, readers, and middleware segments.

“To cater to the changing retail environment, system integrators need to develop partnerships with data analytics and cloud service vendors,” noted Ravi. “The growing interest in item-level tagging in the retail industry will further augment RFID demand.”

RFID vendors are leveraging the rise of IoT and pursuing opportunities addressing retailers’ pain points by:

• Investing in technology to enhance shopper experience by empowering the mobile workforce and incorporating big data analytics to analyze customer behavior patterns and enable targeted marketing. Retailers will also apply this technology to boost employee efficiency.
• Focusing on strengthening security to enhance privacy.
• Ensuring a successful implementation by focusing on performance-related parameters such as antenna design, chip size and storage size.
• Shifting focus from in-store inventory management to total stock visibility to meet the requirements of omni-channel retailing.

Analysis of Growth & Security of the Global RFID Market in Retail, Forecast to 2022 is part of Frost & Sullivan’s global Automatic Identification & Security Growth Partnership Service program.

About Frost & Sullivan | For over five decades, Frost & Sullivan has become world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. For more information, visit ww2.frost.com.

MHI recently published a new episode of MHIview, “Get Immediate ROI with Data Analysis,” that explores how multiple data management solutions provide digital analysis that contributes directly to the bottom line. The video offers a walk-through of how switching from manual to digital data management will bring immediate value in the analytics that are available.

Although it takes a lot of time to implement, the effort to put the predictive analytics infrastructure in place to yield better decisions about supply chain operations is more than worthwhile. With multiple data management solutions available, the industry is realizing almost immediate benefits from having all operational data on hand, allowing companies to make better decisions on inventory, staffing and operations. 

Strong growth opportunities exist for comprehensive, unified platforms that enable cross-organizational views

The rapid proliferation of service-based models, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and asset management, is attracting new market participants to the analytical instrumentation space. In just a few years, analytical SaaS instrumentation and cloud-based alternatives to legacy solutions will dominate the industrial sector due to the shift in customer focus from instrumentation features to the ways in which the technology can help enhance business outcomes.

“As the data collected from instruments can potentially deliver more value than the hardware, there is high demand for analytical instruments that mine data and convert it into actionable insights,” said Mariano Kimbara, Senior Industry Analyst, Industrial Group at Frost & Sullivan. “Consequently, service providers are delivering software solutions that help digitize lab operations by intelligently connecting people, processes, data, and instruments. These solutions will allow users to target services more strategically, better utilize assets, reduce downtime, and plan program schedules.”

Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Advanced Services in the Analytical Instrumentation Market, Forecast to 2022, identifies new areas of advanced services, including asset management services, radio frequency identification (RFID) inventory control services, laboratory intelligence services, consulting services, and compliance services. It also offers a deep dive into new data-driven business models.

“In the current connected era of continual business transformation, there is an intense need to consolidate all work order management activity into a unified, automated data platform to optimize costs,” noted Kimbara. “System vendors are, therefore, offering new, unified platforms that remove organizational silos and ensure connections among cross-functional divisions, linking sales, procurement, finance, logistics, suppliers, and scientists.”

In addition to developing integrated service capabilities, market vendors could explore the growth opportunities present in:

• Delivering an OPEX model. Create an asset management service that increases visibility into the condition of existing assets.
• Shifting from a reactive business model to a proactive business model. A central data platform with automated allocation of instruments and inventory based on project demand and timelines can help anticipate events and lower costs.
• Tapping opportunities to cross-sell. The growth of asset management services could lead to revenue opportunities from rental services.
• Delivering offline and online measurement services. They can expand service lines through partnerships with software analytics providers.
• Making available expert, multi-vendor instruments service support for instruments in the entire laboratory.

Advanced Services in the Analytical Instrumentation Market, Forecast to 2022 is part of Frost & Sullivan’s global Test & Measurement Growth Partnership Service program.

About Frost & Sullivan | For over five decades, Frost & Sullivan has become world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. For more information, visit ww2.frost.com.

Europe’s leading online retailer, Zalando, uses automation to drive business growth and operational success. As featured in MHI’s recently released episode of MHIview, the company has kept up with a decade of rapid growth by investing in the innovative application of automation technologies. The company shares the three key questions they ask themselves when considering the next innovation.