Moving Forward
Technological
innovation
can it be
manufacturing’s
saviour?
The future of manufacturing will not be decided
in roundtable discussions between government,
labour and business – it is being decided globally
W
ithin a mere five to ten years, certain industries employing tens of thousands of people
– from clothing manufacturers to car dealerships – could start disappearing from the
every minute through new technologies such as
South African business landscape in the face of technological
3D printing, telematics, big data and analytics and
advances, a manufacturing forum in Sandton recently heard.
products such as driverless cars.
At a Frontier Forum seminar hosted jointly by the IDC and
Deloitte professional services group, Deloitte Africa manufacturing leader and director
Karthi Pillay said that the future
of manufacturing would see
numerous
disruptive
innova-
tions leading to low cost products being no longer manufactured in
low-wage countries
such as China and Bangladesh
but will be printed online and
delivered.
“There are massively exciting
developments on the horizon
in manufacturing, and these
changes will impact all supporting parts and service providers.
Given the scale of the impending change, I question whether
South
Africa
is
concentrat-
ing anywhere near enough on
where manufacturing is headed.