The great potential or the great depression
Author – Tim Smith
The “Great Depression” saw more millionaires created than any other time in history. While much of the business community like the general population hoarded their money trying to out–wait the depression, entrepreneurs set their minds to building their wealth based on a return to normal activities. They invested heavily because they knew the depression would end which would place them in a perfect position to benefit.
Insightful business owners have an opportunity today during the COVID-19 crisis to leverage their resources to position themselves for explosive expansion once restrictions are lifted. With massive slowdowns during COVID-19 many of your key human resources are not being utilized fully. When you are back to normal operations it’s almost impossible to take valuable team members from their overloaded schedules to commit them to pilot projects to validate emerging and beneficial technologies which can dramatically change operational throughout and resulting profitability. It’s understood that the most difficult aspect of running a successful project is having human resources available. There is no better time than while operations are slowed due to the crisis. Additionally, there is a widely held belief that medical and certain other key supply chains, will be re–shored to North America from China, furthering the need for preparing to handle the economic explosion that will undoubtedly occur.
MEMEX has several insightful customers running pilots and expanding technology on their shop floors today to capitalize on taking business from slow moving competitors by leveraging what they have learned from visibility of the shop floor. They are equipping the very same engineers, operations teams, operators with continuous improvement tools today, who would otherwise be too busy under normal circumstances to vastly improve throughput, drive down burdened costs and produce product at lower costs than the competition giving them the selling edge needed globally.
Many manufacturers may never survive the impact of COVID-19. But the visionaries of companies destined to be leaders will take this opportunity to put in place the tools for success. Industry 4.0 is here. You can be a strategic leader or a late adopter, missing opportunities. The investment is minimal, and you have resources today available which are normally committed.
The masses suffered during the “Great Depression” but the few with vision became captains of industry and world leaders for decades. Where are you?