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VOICE BOX OPINIONS FROM ACROSS THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY
Leadership principles to drive manufacturing forward In the last issue of AMT, Jack Parr examined the history and evolution of manufacturing leadership. Now he looks at what the future holds and how manufacturing leaders can face the challenges to come. My previous article described the development of leadership principles in the 20th Century, ending with the question “What are the new principles to drive Australian Manufacturing to 2030?” With help and advice from several industry colleagues, I have sought to answer that question. First, howevever, it is important to contextualise today’s conditions compared with earlier halcyon times. While onshore manufacturing is currently front of mind, the sector is no longer the driver of Australia’s economic prosperity, accounting for just 6% of GDP. Neither political party seems to have the determination to create a more progressive industrial landscape to underpin and accelerate a decade-long rejuvenation plan.
productivity; innovation is the key, so the onus is now with the company to provide people with tomorrow’s skills and capabilities. The new question is how to train and develop. One colleague rightly pointed out that ‘attention spans are lower today’, so learning methods must adapt and utilise practical workplace applications. The challenge is to identify these capabilities, develop learning protocols and delivery methods, and integrate capability development into normal company practices. •
Principle 3: Everything is about innovation. It has always been my belief that manufacturing is like “walking up a down escalator – stand still and you go backwards!” Today, you must be looking to innovate, to use technology and people’s capability to maximise productivity. But innovation is not about invention! It is about continuous improvement, the use of the latest technologies and integrated computer systems to automate processes and provide better data to measure and manage. It is about the paperless factory. Electronic integration with the customer will become the service innovation for both process and product management. One colleague is already using electronic condition monitoring to improve product servicing. Industry 4.0 and even 5.0, while having high entry costs, will become ubiquitous. Innovation is also about empowerment of people; the distribution of information to aid capability, leading to distributed authority and more task autonomy for individuals or teams. Management should no longer be about control, but about motivational support and leading continuous improvement.
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Principle 4: Advocacy for the industry. Manufacturing encompasses a range of industries who all use things made from metal, supplied by manufacturing SMEs who provide everything from components to capital goods. Yet this sector and these companies lack a ‘collective voice’ – let alone a ‘collective mind’! Manufacturing is not only an essential economic sector, but one that can offer rewarding, challenging careers. The sector can only grow if more people appreciate its value and choose it as a career. The industry needs to advocate as both a collective body top-down, and at an individual company level upwards. It has to start ‘marketing’ itself to graduates, school students and the general public. How many companies offer open days to the local community, or even employees’ families? How many promote themselves and the industry to local schools? Do industry bodies really promote the attraction of manufacturing? How visible is their advocacy and how are they building the ‘collective voice’?
Technology has changed industry. Automation and technological integration are driving the replacement of manual work with ‘knowledge work’. Technological change has outpaced our education system, particularly tertiary. STEM is struggling for priority in an increasingly crowded school curriculum. Despite technology, peoples’ pace of life has increased – counterintuitively with longer working hours. Societal standards have also changed. Work-life balance is a growing factor in career choices, with service industries offering greater appeal, to manufacturing’s detriment. Harassment and bullying are no longer tolerated, and triggers for anxiety are much lower, demanding an innovative approach to people management and ‘social responsibility’. There are existential environmental and ecological threats to the planet. The net effect of these pressures means manufacturing can no longer be inert, insular and individualistic. Companies must become progressive, innovative, and more attractive. Management must evolve from controllers to people motivators and skill- and knowledge-providers. Companies must become collective and collaborative, while acting as advocates for the industry itself! Within that context, I offer four key principles for the future of manufacturing leadership: •
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Principle 1: Transition to ‘Collegiate Management’. Management needs to take a fresh approach to divisions of work; inflexible rules; fixed hours, salary or wages, on-site or off site working, differing ‘hygiene’ standards – all should be up for transition. It is time for a collegiate approach to people management. Enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs) epitomise the issue. A bargain is “agreement between two groups”. Should a company not be one team with benefit for all? This is not an analogue transition, but the place to start is with existing employees who demonstrate the attitude and skills the company values. Such people are also marketable, so they need be fully engaged by using a ‘flexibility toolkit’ – including, of course, total remuneration. The other issue is to recruit well. Several colleagues expressed the view that HR’s role in recruitment needs rethinking. The new social compliance processes can lead to ‘appropriate choice’ but ‘inappropriate fit’ to actual need. Principle 2: Capability is now your responsibility. The industry faces both manufacturing and engineering skills gaps. To meet technology-driven skills demands, some enlightened (and frustrated) companies have set up their own apprenticetraining schools or joint training ventures. One such visionary said “We send them for one day (for the TAFE Certificate) and the other four days, we retrain them!” Capability is a driver of
AMT APR 2022
Leadership and management over the next decade should be through a collegiate relationship rather than a subordinate one. It must be looking to use capability and empowerment as a driver of productivity. It should look to develop collective innovation through collaborative knowledge sharing. Finally, leaders must have a collective and individual purpose to ensure a growing and sustained future for the manufacturing sector. Jack Parr is the Coordinator for the Vernier Foundation, a charity aimed at funding and supporting, STEM education in schools. The Foundation is the charitable arm of the Vernier Society, an organisation that for nearly 80 years has worked to support Victorian Manufacturing. www.vernier.org.au
