Industry 5.0 promises a more humanistic approach to production.

It has been over a year since governments began lifting restrictions on citizens’ movements to resuscitate their economies, and some 18 months since the Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal in March 2021, sending global shipping activities into spasm.

But supply chains today are in critical condition. Assets and materials are in the wrong places around the world, factories are struggling to resume normal activities, and large numbers of people are simply not working, having either not returned to work after the pandemic or become part of what is now termed the Great Resignation, or the Big Quit. Some 20 million workers around the world, in the largest and most advanced economies, have left their posts, citing factors such as burnout, pressures at home and isolation, and feeling unvalued by their companies.

The horizontal report provides a supply vs. demand “map” showing where shortages will hit.

At its foundation, Lean manufacturing philosophy is designed to eliminate waste and the associated chaos that inefficiency creates. Many of the core elements that improve factory efficiency, such as visible flow of work-in-process, small lot sizes, a strong focus on minimizing variation and poka-yokes to eliminate defect opportunities, have parallels that can increase efficiency in support organization tasks.

One of the most challenging tasks in the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) world is program management. This normally complex job has been made even more difficult by electronic component shortages that have been endemic since January 2021. As experts are predicting that component supply/demand imbalances are likely to continue through 2023, finding ways to eliminate inefficiency and waste is as important in program management as it is in production.

Knowing your limits is no casual thing.

Because they interpret, manipulate and are acclimated to numbers, many engineers fancy themselves superior to the rest. The “rest” are lumped into the catchall contemptuous categories of “salesmen” or worse, “accountants.” No room for improvisation; a certain analytical mindset likes it that way. Stay out of sales as a career option.

Pity those same engineers don’t look up more from their algorithms, develop a firm handshake, maintain eye contact, read the room, and discern clients’ actual intent. Supply doesn’t ensure demand; sometimes you must stir it up in English rather than second derivatives. A skill largely born, not bred. That’s also why there will always be a need for good sales folks; the best, most adventurous of whom are at ease technically, thus better equipped to know whereof they speak, and why, and make commitments on the spot, without appealing to the Mothership.

For context, consider this striking lesson from 2012.

What's Your Solution to the Juniority Problem?

Anyone who has boarded a plane in the past several months knows this all too well: the near-term operations of airlines are up in the air.

From smallest to largest, all the carriers have been dramatically affected by the post-Covid rebound in passenger air travel. How could it not? After all, Delta and United Airlines each cut 30% of their respective staff in 2020, for instance.

And while many observers point to the attractive buyouts the carriers dangled before critical employees (read: pilots) as a means to cut costs amid the mass groundings during the pandemic, employment has shot up over the past 18 months.