The manufacturing industry, a key sector of the global economy, 12% volume drop (INSEE) in its added value in France and Europe in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a historic decline since the post-war period.
After the pandemic, the Ukrainian conflict started on 24 February 2022 hampered the economic recovery. However, these two events also revealed the vulnerabilities of our economy and underlined the importance for European countries to regain their industrial autonomy. Two challenges are therefore coming into sharper focus: reindustrialisation and improving the competitiveness of products and processes.
Current challenges
At a time when industrial companies are navigating in a complex environment of changing markets and accelerating sales cycles, and when they are under considerable pressure from limited availability of raw material and rising energy costs, they need to become more efficient and sustainable in order to develop their competitiveness, particularly in the face of Asian manufacturers who do not have the same wage and tax constraints.
How can we successfully reconcile:
- Uncertainty of demand and fluctuations in sales.
- Reducing lead times, which are often considered too long.
- Heavy investment and operating costs.
- Productivity plans.
- Increasingly frequent shortages of skilled staff.
- Domination and modernisation of information systems.
- Increasing environmental and regulatory requirements.
The reliability and flexibility of industrial facilities, combined with the human skills required to exploit their full potential, are key elements of performance that need to be at the heart of manufacturers’ strategies, so that they can intervene at the right time, take appropriate decisions and be able to react quickly to any new context.
Our expertise
