People who don’t work in manufacturing often have little idea of the scale and complexity of the processes involved in the creation of the products which they use every day. It could be a sliding door keeping your home warm and dry while offering easy access to the garden or balcony. It could be a solar panel mounted on the roof of the family home and providing you with cheap or even free green energy. It could be a wheelchair you need when rehabbing a sports injury or a monitoring device used by your doctor during a consultation. It could be the railway carriage you board on your daily commute to the office. Whatever it is, if you’re not involved in manufacturing, there’s a good chance you don’t think about how it was made.
Although Tecma is working hard to tap into the local talent pool in our region, developed economies in Europe and elsewhere continue to face a skills shortage across the manufacturing sector. There are many reasons for this and numerous types of solution are needed too. But at Tecma, we can’t help thinking that if the wider public had a better idea of all the different processes involved in producing the things that we all rely on every day and all the skilled, satisfying jobs that are needed as a result, more young people would be attracted to careers in manufacturing.
We were therefore pleased to have the opportunity to share some related insights in a recent article picked up by a number of news outlets in Spain, including our local city newspaper Diari de Girona. We would recommend that other manufacturing companies of all types and sizes take any opportunity available to demystify the business for the general public and also address some of their concerns – sustainability; the greening of the economy; fears that new technologies such as AI represent a threat rather than a good thing when it comes to creating well-paid career jobs for young people.
OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY AND A DYNAMIC WORK ENVIRONMENT
In the article, our CEO Narcís Puigdemont was invited to talk about how the choice of Hoffmann Group as a key supplier of both industrial tools and PPE (personal protective equipment) benefits Tecma.
One area Narcís was keen to highlight was how Hoffmann’s highly automated stock ordering system “has revolutionised our management of cutting tools, offering us precise control over consumption and reducing the need for holding a lot of stock”. Narcís explained how this optimises operational efficiency, allowing employees quickly and easy access to the necessary tools, thus minimising downtime and increasing productivity.
Although our Girona region is home to a number of dynamic and forward-thinking manufacturing companies who have also made their employees’ roles more productive and therefore more enjoyable by using such technologies, we do get that sense that too many people still associate the idea of manufacturing industry with the outdated ideas of work that is somehow “heavy” or “dirty” rather than “modern” and “dynamic” and therefore less attractive than office-based roles in the services sector or public administration. Let’s hope that sharing simple details like these goes some way toward dispelling those notions!
This is the first short instalment of our English-language summary of ideas which came out of the interviews with Narcís and our friend Alejandro Mengual, General Director of
Hoffmann Group Iberia. Watch this space for future instalments covering the greening of the supply chain and the growing role of AI in manufacturing.