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It is no surprise that advanced technology is helping to push the US back toward being the most competitive manufacturing country in the world, according to a new Deloitte survey of global CEOs and other senior executives.

U.S. manufacturers and equipment makers are heavily investing in technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), smart factories, and predictive analytics that will be critical to becoming globally competitive in the next 4 years. Once atop the mountain, the US will be looking over our shoulder as Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom are making similar investments that will maintain or improve their competitive positions. It is interesting to note the survey ranks talent as another critical driver of competitiveness along with a high performing supply base.

While China is still the world’s preferred low cost country (LCC), according to the 2016 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index developed by Deloitte and the Council on Competitiveness, the U.S. has moved up from 4th to 2nd, and is expected to secure the top spot by 2020.

Fall from Grace

What has led to China’s anticipated drop to second in manufacturing competitiveness is not a secret; history is a great predictor of future behavior. We saw it first with Japan, then Taiwan, Korea and now China; as these countries economies become more “Westernized”, the cost gap closes up and the issue of freight and inventory risk become a dominant factor.

A recent report by U.K. consulting firm Oxford Economics said that rising wages in China and increasing productivity among U.S. workers led to only a 4 percent gap in costs between the world’s two largest economies; despite the nations’ currency values largely going in opposite directions recently.

Reshoring?

Does this mean work is coming back from China? Yes and no. While many OEMs have learned a hard lesson in terms of intellectual property breaches with outsourcing to Asia and continue to bring this business back, many others will just move to the “flavor-of-the-month” LCC. Current candidates such as Vietnam, Eastern Europe, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and India are vying for this spot.

Stay tuned; the next 4 years will be very, very interesting!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Requirement: Clause 7 is called Support, which is basically all of the resources required to support the organization’s primary business. This weeks final review is on Organizational knowledge, Competence, Awareness and Communication.

7.1.6 Organizational knowledge requires the organization to determine the knowledge necessary for the operation of its processes and to achieve conformity of products and services. It also requires that knowledge be maintained and made available to the extent necessary. When addressing changing needs and trends, the organization must consider its current knowledge and determine how to acquire or access any necessary additional knowledge and required updates. 

7.2 Competence requires the organization to determine the necessary competence of person(s) doing work under its control that affects the performance and effectiveness of the quality management system, to ensure that these persons are competent on the basis of appropriate education, training, or experience, to take actions (where applicable) to acquire the necessary competence, to evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken; and to retain appropriate documented information as evidence of competence.

7.3 Awareness requires the organization to ensure that persons doing work under the organization’s control are aware of the quality policy, relevant quality objectives, their contribution to the effectiveness of the quality management system, including the benefits of improved performance, and the implications of not conforming with the quality management system requirements.

7.4 Communication requires the organization to determine the internal and external communications relevant to the quality management system, including on what it will communicate, when to communicate, with whom to communicate, how to communicate, and who communicates.

 

 

Clause 7 is called Support, which is basically all of the resources required to support the organization’s primary business. Resources are broken down into a number of areas: General, People, Infrastructure, Environment, Monitoring/Measurement, Organizational Knowledge and Communication.

General refers to the resources needed for the establishment, implementation, maintenance and continual improvement of the quality management system. In simple terms, this is management’s commitment to provide people, time and systems to support the QMS.

People requires the organization to determine and provide the people necessary for effective implementation of QMS the operation and control of its processes.

Infrastructure requires the organization to determine, provide and maintain the infrastructure necessary for the operation of its processes and to achieve conformity of products and services. Maintenance is a primary aspect of infrastructure, including buildings, utilities, equipment, transportation, and information and communication technology.

Environment means the work environment and includes a combination of human and physical factors, such as social, psychological and physical (e.g. temperature, heat, humidity, light, airflow, hygiene, noise).

Contact me for my free ISO 9001:2015 Readiness Checklist and perform a quick self-assessment to gage your preparedness for the new standard. Then call to see how I can help.

920-841-3478

Steve@TheRightApproachConsulting.com

 

Inspection Is Evil

A wise man once said “Inspection is Evil”; …actually it was me and I didn’t say it just once, I say it every chance I get. Inspection is a non value-add activity and companies tend to use it to hide many sins. Traditionally, leaders of American industry have had a one-size fits all solution to just about any manufacturing problem they encounter; throw more inspectors at it. Customer returns increase … Read the entire white paper here:  http://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/649323-pcb-mar2016/11

Contact me for my free ISO 9001:2015 Readiness Checklist and perform a quick self-assessment to gage your preparedness for the new standard. Then call to see how I can help.

920-841-3478

Steve@TheRightApproachConsulting.com

 

Planning has always been required and buried in other areas, but is now a stand-alone requirement. The basic function of Planning is simply to meet customer requirements through the processes you have put in place to manufacture your product. This is where the standard really makes a major change by focusing on Risk Based Thinking.

In addition to this clause, the terms ‘risk’ and ‘opportunity’ are made throughout the standard. The path to Risk Based Thinking has three paths:

1. Actions taken to identify, analyze and address any potential risk:
   • Quoting
   • Up front engineering
   • pFMEAs
2. Quality objectives and planning to achieve them:
   • Requirements for objective planning had been very loose but are now greatly tightened up
   • An objective should include a description of who is responsible, what is the target, when is it planned to be achieved
   • Progress must be monitored
   • Objectives must be set for relevant processes
3. Planning of changes:
   • A very robust Change Management process is required
   • Revisions, Processes, Technology

 Contact me for my free ISO 9001:2015 Readiness Checklist and perform a quick self-assessment to gage your preparedness for the new standard. Then call to see how I can help.

920-841-3478

Steve@TheRightApproachConsulting.com