A paisagem vai estar menos ocupada

Nestes tempos em que se fala de Industria 4.0 (aqui e aqui):

"We’re at a critical time for the digital economy. Digital is no longer the shiny front end of the organization – it’s integrated into every aspect of today’s companies. As digital technologies continue to transform the economy, many leaders are struggling to set a digital strategy, shift organizational structures, and remove the barriers that are keeping them from maximizing the potential impact of new digital technologies."

O que pensar ao olhar para a figura?
.
Ai os dirigentes da área industrial são os que menos receiam a disrupção digital? Talvez porque a manufactura nos Estados Unidos está pelas ruas da amargura e, as mentes mais brilhantes não vão para o sector?
.
A minha mente contrarian olhou para a figura e pensou:
- É na Indústria que haverá mais retorno do que se fizer a nível de "é meter código nisso". Porquê? Por que pouca gente está a apostar nisso. Logo, a paisagem vai estar menos ocupada.

Imagem e trecho retirado de "The Industries That Are Being Disrupted the Most by Digital"

Quantas vezes?

Um exemplo concreto deste postal "Prisioneiros das rotinas..." neste artigo "The story of the invention that could revolutionize batteries—and maybe American manufacturing as well". Meio incrédulo dei comigo a ler:

"The reason battery factories are so huge ... goes back to a chance event at the birth of lithium ion.
...
But Sony also had to quickly figure out how to manufacture this new kind of battery on a commercial scale. Providence stepped in: As it happened, increasingly popular compact discs were beginning to erode the market for cassette tapes, of which Sony was also a major manufacturer. The tapes were made on long manufacturing lines that coated a film with a magnetic slurry, dried it, cut it into long strips, and rolled it up. Looking around the company, Sony’s lithium-ion managers now noticed much of this equipment, and its technicians, standing idle.
.
It turned out that the very same equipment could also be used for making lithium-ion batteries. These too could be made by coating a slurry on to a film, then drying and cutting it. In this case the result isn’t magnetic tape, but battery electrodes.
.
This equipment, and those technicians, became the backbone of the world’s first lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant, and the model for how they have been made ever since. Today, factories operating on identical principles are turning out every commercial lithium-ion battery on the planet."

Interessante como nunca ninguém questionou a dimensão das fábricas, os pressupostos, apesar das centenas de milhões de dólares, até arrepia.
.
Quantas vezes isto acontece na vida das empresas?
.
BTW, ao ler a parte final do artigo:

"In a new report, McKinsey describes a broad new age of manufacturing that it calls Industry 4.0. The consulting firm says the changes under way are affecting most businesses. They are probably not “another industrial revolution,” it says, but together, there is “strong potential to change the way factories work.”
.
For decades, the US has watched its bedrock manufacturing industries wither  away, as they’ve instead grown thick in Japan, in South Korea, in China, Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the US lost about 5 million manufacturing jobs just from 1997 to 2014. This includes the production of lithium-ion batteries, which, though invented by Americans, were commercialized in Japan and later South Korea and China.
.
So Chiang’s innovation could be a poster-child for a new strain of thinking in the US. This says that, while such industries are not likely to return from Asia, the US can possibly reinvent how they manufacture. The country wouldn’t take back nearly as many jobs as it has lost. But there could be large profits, as the country once again moves a step ahead in crucial areas of technology."

Não pude deixar de recordar "Mais especulações"

Mais especulações

Num postal recente, "Especulações", escrevi, acerca da febre de aquisições americanas sobre empresas europeias:

"Admitamos que Mongo se está a entranhar na economia mundial. O que acontecerá aos rendimentos dos Golias com o advento do Estranhistão? Cada vez terão um menor crescimento orgânico porque o mercado de massas, que conhecem e dominam como ninguém, está em retrocesso no Ocidente. Assim, para satisfazer os accionistas impacientes, há que crescer por aquisições.
.
Era interessante que os Golias americanos comprassem os Golias europeus e o capital transaccionado fosse aplicado no desenvolvimento da multidão de pequenas empresas que o futuro no Estranhistão vai requerer."

Hoje, durante a caminhada da manhã, enquanto via cenas destas:

Lia o artigo "industry 4.0 - The new industrial revolution - How Europe will succeed" da consultora Roland Berger. Muito há para dizer sobre o referido artigo, para já, contudo, sublinho só isto, retirado do final:

"There are two ways to move into Industry 4.0: transforming existing (legacy) plants or making greenfield investments. Both require a strong change management approach. Industry 4.0 [Moi ici: Uma vertente de Mongo, como veremos em postal futuro] will probably penetrate the quickest through greenfield investments, coming either from new business opportunities. Also repatriation of manufacturing from developing countries to Europe could be a trend in Industry 4.0. But it will require a different setup. Fostering relocation of activities is a good lever to enhance transition to 4.0, create value added in Europe and develop qualified jobs. This may require investment programs or incentives..The other approach is to progressively adapt the legacy manufacturing footprint. Transforming a legacy plant into a modern 4.0 factory has a significant social impact and requires a competency shift and new ways of working and manufacturing. Numerous actions are possible, but have to take social aspects into account.
…Companies will also have to allocate special investment for the transition, for example, by setting up phased programs to facilitate site reconfiguration.It will also be necessary to build up new skills, possibly by initiating special recruiting actions and training programs. Companies may want to consider incentivizing the launch of pilots as well.”

Seria interessante, pois, deixar os americanos ficarem com os Golias e especializarem-se nos poucos Golias de Mongo e, o dinheiro fresco ser investido nas unidades da Industria 4.0 de Mongo.
.
Os europeus livravam-se dos custos afundados e empurravam-nos para os braços dos americanos junto com os Golias do passado.
.
Não passa de especulação de anónimo engenheiro de província.

Curiosidade do dia

"Reino Unido activa la reidustrialización: la enseña Rapanui traslada su producción de India"

"La compañía, fundada en 2008 por los hermanos Rob y Martin Drake-Knight, continuará comprando el algodón en India, pero traerá a Reino Unido la confección, además de la estampación y los acabados."

Turn, turn, turn

A revolução em curso

"Welcome to the New Industrial Revolution—a wave of technologies and ideas that are creating a computer-driven manufacturing environment that bears little resemblance to the gritty and grimy shop floors of the past. The revolution threatens to shatter long-standing business models, upend global trade patterns and revive American industry.
...
"Manufacturing is undergoing a change that is every bit as significant as the introduction of interchangeable parts or the production line, maybe even more so," says Michael Idelchik, who heads up advanced technologies at GE's global research lab, located about 15 minutes away from the battery plant. "The future is not going to be about stretched-out global supply chains connected to a web of distant giant factories. It's about small, nimble manufacturing operations using highly sophisticated new tools and new materials." (Moi ici: Chamem-me bruxo!!! É isto que escrevemos aqui há tanto tempo! O modelo do século XX a dar lugar ao modelo do século XXI. Esta é a corrente de fundo que os estrategas deveriam aproveitar, fazer batota)
...
At the same time, technological advances now allow manufacturers to invent new ways of fabricating things that represent an extreme departure from the classic production-line model. By far the most significant of these steps forward is additive manufacturing—a process of making a three-dimensional object of virtually any shape from a digital model.
.
These exotic machines can use a range of materials—everything from wood pulp to cobalt—and create things as varied as sneakers, fuel nozzles for airplanes and, ultimately, even human organs. And a single piece of manufacturing equipment, rather than being custom-designed to perform a single function, can be programed to fabricate a virtually limitless array of objects. (Moi ici: Flexibilidade, baixos custos para produções unitárias, explosão da variedade)
...
Almost certainly, it won't mean creating jobs the old way—building large factories that employ thousands of people. (Moi ici: Cuidado com os sonhos de re-industrialização com base no paradigma do século XX) The real opportunity is in the growth of highly specialized, highly advanced microfactories and in legions of small entrepreneurial ventures making old things in new ways, as well as producing new products and custom-made items.
...
Still, this new environment leaves manufacturers facing big new challenges, as digital files of physical objects show up in huge numbers on websites like Thingiverse and Physibles, and manufacturing instructions appear online, too.
"I give a lot of speeches about this topic to manufacturing groups, and people are usually quiet during the Q&A," says Christine Furstoss, who oversees a staff of 450 engineers and scientists working on materials, energy strategy and processing technology at GE's research center. "But afterward, they come up to me in private and want to talk about how frightened they are. People get a glimpse of how this could change the game in their business, and they are just not sure what to do about it."" (Moi ici: O fim das fábricas como as concebemos e dos empregos como os concebemos - em linha com o que escrevemos aqui há anos!!!)

Trechos retirado de "A Revolution in the Making"

Acerca da re-industrialização da Europa

Relativamente ao tema da re-industrialização e ao que penso dela (não acredito num regresso ao modelo do século XX) encontrei esta reflexão de Geoffrey Moore, "Middle Class Job Creation in the Digital Era":

"First, let me note that the U.S. may not in fact be a postmanufacturing economy. Pendulums swing in both directions, and one can imagine the manufacturing pendulum swinging back onshore.
But there is no guarantee this will happen, and even if it does, it may not happen in a time frame soon enough to solve for the core of our middle class concerns. So for the purposes of this paper, let us assume that we cannot rely on manufacturing for the foreseeable future and work out what course of action to take in that case.
.
The core of a postmanufacturing economy evolves from migrating to a digital or information economy.
...
To survey the landscape of work from a 50,000 foot perspective, consider the following diagram:
...
Given this rationale, there are 36 zones of employment in business enterprises that, due to theimpact of migrating from a manufacturing to a digital economy, have been or could be impacted. To get the conversation started, I have represented my hypothesis about each zone by one of four states:
   ● More jobs in the new economy (15 of 36)
   ● Fewer jobs in the new economy (4 of 36)
   ● Unchanged in the new economy (7 of 36)
   ● Disrupted by the new economy (10 of 36)
Let me emphasize, this is a hypothesis."

E considerando esta hipótese, o futuro não está no produto à la século XX, o futuro passa pelo intangível, pelo serviço misturado com o produto.

Acerca da re-industrialização

Um artigo interessante, "Is U.S. manufacturing making a comeback — or is it just hype?", equilibrado e com muita informação:

"Lenovo, a Beijing-based computer maker, opened a new manufacturing line in Whitsett, N.C., to handle assembly of PCs, tablets, workstations and servers.
.
The rationale? The company is expanding into the U.S. market and needs the flexibility to assemble units for speedy delivery across the country
...
Besides the shrinking wage gap between China and the United States, the productivity of the American worker keeps rising. Shipping costs are rising, making outsourcing more costly. And the surge in shale gas drilling gives the United States a wealth of cheap domestic energy to bolster industries such as petrochemicals.
.
All that could combine to make U.S. factories more competitive in the years ahead, not just with Europe and Japan, but with the manufacturing behemoth in China. This shift likely won’t mean the United States will have 19 million manufacturing workers again, the way it did in the 1980s. For one thing, automation is still a powerful force. And the types of jobs that come back will be very different from the ones that vanished. (Moi ici: Também aqui se faz sentir o efeito de Mongo, o Estranhistão, a re-industrialização não se fará com base num retorno à produção do século XX. É um outro campeonato!)
...
China has been getting wealthier, and its factory workers are demanding ever-higher wages. Whereas the gap in labor costs between the two countries was about $17 per hour in 2006, that could shrink to as little as $7 per hour by 2015, says Dan North, an economist with Euler Hermes, a credit insurer that works with manufacturers.
.
“If you’re a U.S. company and the advantage is only $7 per hour, suddenly it may be worth staying home,” North says. “If I stay here, I have lower inventory costs, lower transportation costs. I’m closer to my market, I can have higher-quality production and I can keep my technology.”
This notion appears to be catching on."

 Entretanto, o Aranha, enviou-me um e-mail com uma referência a este postal, onde sublinhou:

“…Álvaro Santos Pereira. Sempre que o oiço falar de re-industrialização, desconfio que ele sonha com a indústria do século XX.”

E, depois, acrescentou da sua lavra:

"Of course, mas mais ainda. Ele afirmou ontem mesmo que o que falta às empresas portuguesas para se afirmarem na exportação é escala.
.
Donde, grande é que é bom, e grande é que tem que ser ajudado subsidiado."

Não ouvi mas infelizmente não me surpreende.
.
Relacionei logo esta crença num retorno à escala do século XX com este resultado irlandês:

"Os mercados de trabalho mais flexíveis tendem a reflectir mais rapidamente os choques, mas também a recuperar mais depressa. Aqui isso não está a acontecer. Porquê?.
O crescimento é muito baixo e está concentrado no sector exportador que não é tão trabalho-intensivo como o sector doméstico." (Moi ici: A empresa exportadora-tipo irlandesa pertence a uma multinacional que exporta grandes quantidades, que aposta no volume, e necessita de pouca mão de obra. Contribui de forma interessante para o PIB e para os números das exportações mas geram pouco emprego)

Os suspeitos do costume

O Público no seu sítio aderiu à moda do momento e resolveu publicar a opinião de personalidades sobre a reindustrialização.
.
Há anos que penso que a reindustrialização já está em curso neste país e no Ocidente. E está a ser alavancada pelas novas tecnologias, pelo advento de Mongo, pelo triunfo do "Estranhistão", e pela ascensão da classe média e a sociedade consumista na China, tudo a partir das bases, sem orientação de nenhum guru ou governo.
.
Agora, os políticos europeus resolveram aproveitar a boleia da reindustrialização e a corrente está a ter alguma atenção.
.
Ao abrir o sítio do Público "Visões sobre a industrialização", olhei para as várias caras e escolhi uma das que desconhecia (sim, confesso, sou um ignorante). E a que escolhi afinal chama-se José Rui Felizardo.
.
Quem é José Rui Felizardo?
.
O texto começa com a resposta a essa questão:

"Presidente da Inteli e da comissão executiva do Centro de Excelência e Inovação para a Indústria Automóvel (CEIIA)"

Inteli?
.
Eu conheço essa gente!
.
Por mais anos que passem, nunca vou esquecer a "encomenda" entregue pela Inteli que relatei neste postal "O meu baú de tesouros deprimentes (parte II)".
.
Esta gente que em 2007 defendia que era possível um novo modelo de desenvolvimento assente em bens e serviços não transaccionáveis vem agora, como se não houvesse memória saltar para a carruagem da moda:

"Um plano de reindustrialização do país deverá ter como ambição fazer evoluir Portugal para um país produtor e exportador de tecnologia associada a produtos transaccionáveis de elevado valor acrescentado."

Imagino o que estejam a pensar quando dizem:

"O projecto de reindustrialização do país não pode ser um projecto de um ministro, mas do país. Esta estratégia necessita da intervenção dos pólos de competitividade, clusters, empresas, universidades, parceiros sociais, entre outros actores."

Estão a pensar nos "suspeitos do costume" para a recepção de benesses, apoios, subsídios, pins...
.
O que esta gente não percebe é que quanto mais distantes do Estado, quanto mais abandonados e desprezados pelo Estado foram os sectores económicos, durante a primeira década do século XXI, mais dinâmicos e saudáveis estão esses sectores agora.
.
A indústria em Mongo vai ser assim.

É sobre estas mudanças que penso...

Quando uso a metáfora de Mongo, quando prevejo um futuro de grandes empresas pequenas, quando penso na re-industrialização do Ocidente e no regresso dos clientes, é sobre estas mudanças que penso:
.
"Let's think about the way that changes our modes of production. Size once gave organizations purchasing power. Being big used to enable high barriers-to-entry, keeping out potential competitors. Big had the dollars to buy the mass-market access to consumers back when mass media was the only way to reach an audience. But when the capital requirements to enter markets have declined, the marginal cost of reaching consumers is effectively zero, and one-off production is not hard to do... being big offers a much smaller advantage than it used to. Being big ain't enough, anymore. (Moi ici: Além da democratização da produção, temos a democratização da divulgação, do conhecimento e das relações)
...
People buy two categories of things: The distinct, and the generic. The distinct items are the things that have a limited quantity, that are artisanal in nature, and that are worth paying a premium for. The generic items are, well, the things you might find on Amazon.

...

Everything that is undifferentiated is going to be delivered in ever more efficient, low-cost ways.

...

But for organizations wanting to thrive in the social era, being distinct is key to both profitability and winning. (Moi ici: recordar Hilary Austen e Prahalad) While there has always been a market for bespoke, differentiated items, until very recently that market served a tiny fraction of the uber-rich. But today, both macroeconomic forces, and technological advances mean that customized products aren't just for the one percent. Instead, customized products and experiences can be for everybody, at least some of the time.

...

They could produce only what was ordered, and thus reverse their supply chain to produce only what is already sold.  (Moi ici: Apostar no "puxar" em vez do "empurrar", apostar em consultores de compra em vez de vendedores. Esta inversão exige cadeias de abastecimento mais curtas, exige parcerias entre quem fabrica e quem detém as prateleiras, exige rapidez e flexibilidade) They could even allow customers to request products in particular colors at premium prices. Social gives companies more control to operationally adjust their offers and create zealots by better collecting and amplifying even weak signals.

...

When companies figure out how to shape their design, production, and manufacturing cycle from rigid planning and production systems to unique customer-driven experiences, they'll design a way to respond in smaller bursts of more profitable cycles."

.

Trechos retirados de (btw, não liguem ao título, não concordo com ele mas isso é outra história) "Why Porter's Model No Longer Works"

Realmente, um mundo de oportunidades

Em Julho de 2008 abordei o tema aqui pela primeira vez, a importância crescente da proximidade em "Um mundo de oportunidades".
.
Interessante, até pelas referências que vêm documentar uns zunzuns que ao longo do tempo fui "ouvindo", este artigo "The New Geography of Trade: Globalization’s Decline May Stimulate Local Recovery":
.
"Global trade depends on cheap, long-distance freight transportation. Freight costs will rise with climate change, the end of cheap oil, and policies to mitigate these two challenges.
.
At first, the increase in freight costs will be bad news for developed and developing nations alike but, as adjustments in the patterns of trade occur, the result is likely to be decreased outsourcing with more manufacturing and food production jobs in North America and the European Union. The pattern of trade will change as increasing transportation costs outweigh traditional sources of comparative advantage, such as lower wages.

...

Many goods will be manufactured closer to where they are consumed, as supply chains become more regional and local. Petroleum- and transport-intensive products, such as imported food, clothing, appliances, and building supplies will become more expensive; lifestyles and consumer purchasing in developed nations will shift to reflect these changes. Export-oriented nations relying on a limited number of exports to pay for imported necessities will need to become more self-reliant in meeting basic needs.

...

In 2007–2008, the cost of trans-Pacific shipping of a standard container by sea went from $3,000 to $8,000. In 2010, with oil at half its 2008 price, the Danish shipping company Maersk cut its top cruising speeds in half to reduce fuel costs. According to economists Jeff Rubin and Benjamin Tal, every $1 per barrel increase in crude oil prices results in a 1 percent increase in freight transportation costs.

...

Electric power shortages and rising prices will also change the pattern of global trade and supply chains. Low-wage exporting economies are generally much less energy efficient than high-income industrial economies. As electricity rates rise with higher fuel costs for coal and oil, production costs will increase faster in low-wage countries than in developed industrial economies.

...

Reduced hydroelectric power has interrupted textile production in Pakistan, oil refining in Venezuela, and appliance production in China.

...

Clearly, increased fuel costs and higher transport risks will cause supply chains to shorten and long-distance trade to decline. Initially, there will be shifts in transport modes—truck to rail, air to water and rail—designed to preserve trade routes. But more fundamental adaptations are already starting to take place to reduce or replace long-distance trade.

...

Global trade will not disappear, but as it wanes and as supply chains shorten, the importance of regional and local economies will increase. Manufacturing and food production for domestic consumption in the United States and other developed nations (and regions within nations) will regain an importance not seen since the first half of the twentieth century. Security strategies will be adjusted to reflect the increased role of domestic production in national affairs. We should plan now for these inevitable changes. Crises bring more than trouble—they bring opportunities." (Moi ici: Interessante o uso da palavra oportunidade para terminar o artigo, tal como usei no título do postal de 2008)

Tentar descortinar futuros hipotéticos que não são continuações lineares do passado

Ontem escrevi "Alimentar discussões sobre hipotéticos futuros" e "Uma investigação que precisava de ser feita - uma emergência que precisava de ser reconhecida" sobre um tema que me é muito caro, pôr as empresas e os empresários a pensar num futuro hipotético que não seja uma continuação linear do passado, para ganhar a vantagem de cavalgar a onda da mudança, em vez de correr atrás do prejuízo com as calças na mão.
.
Ontem descobri mais um artigo que merecia ser objecto de reflexão por parte dos empresários "China Manufacturing and Transport Cost Showing Sharp Rise – Trends and Implications for Business":
.
"China is becoming America – fast. Before we know it, we will be bringing jobs back here to the US. You might think that jobs would migrate to India or Southeast Asia next, and there will be some of that, but the inflation occurring in China will happen to those countries too as they move up the income and consumption curve."
.
Ontem o John escreveu num comentário "conheço alguns amigos meus que nunca fizeram uma análise swot e têm sucesso".
.
A minha resposta instintiva foi recordar uma entrevista a um bispo italiano em que o entrevistador lhe perguntou:
- Já reparou na quantidade de pessoas que vão à missa todos os Domingos e que, no entanto, são maus como as cobras?
Ao que o bispo lhe respondeu:
- Se não fossem à missa eram bem piores!
.
Pois bem, muito sinceramente, ainda bem para esses amigos do aluno. Mas será que não poderiam ainda ficar melhor se reflectissem sobre a sua situação e racionalizassem o porquê do seu sucesso? Será que poderiam ampliar ainda mais as vantagens competitivas de que desfrutam?
.
Voltando ao artigo sobre a evolução da sociedade de consumo chinesa, quais podem ser as implicações para a indústria na Europa e, sobretudo, em Portugal?
.
Os americanos queixam-se disto "Reminiscences Of An American Industrial Nation - How In A Few Short Years America Lost Its Manufacturing Sector" (BTW, ainda há dias escrevia sobre a facilidade de obter capital como uma forma de promover a deslocalização rápida de empresas e, como uma forma de atrasar ou evitar a subida na escala de valor).
.
Os empresários podem sofrer da falácia da centralidade:
.
"Researcher Ron Westrum, observing the diagnostic practices of pediatricians in the 1940s and 1950s, spotted what he has come to call the fallacy of centrality. The fallacy is this: under the assumption that you are in a central position, you presume that if something serious were happening, you would know about it. And since you don’t know about it, it isn’t happening. It is precisely this distortion that kept pediatricians from diagnosing child abuse until the early 1960s. Their reasoning? If parents were abusing their children, I’d know about it; since I don’t know about it, it isn’t happening." (daqui)
.
Assim sendo, quando é que podem tomar consciência de que algo de importante mudou, ou está a mudar, a nível dos factores abióticos que influenciam a paisagem competitiva enrugada em que competem? (O timing é fundamental como conta Soros "I'm only rich because I know when I'm wrong... I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes. I very often used to get backaches due to the fact that I was wrong. Whenever you are wrong you have to fight or [take] flight. When [I] make the decision, the backache goes away") (daqui)
.
James March e Barbara Levitt escreveram em 1988 o artigo "Organizational Learning". Chamo a atenção para o tema "Learning from the experience of others" e sobretudo para "Mechanisms for Diffusion". Não é fácil para uma organização aprender!
.
A coisa complica-se mais quando se lê o terceiro capítulo de "The Red Queen Among Organizations - How Competitiveness Evolves" de William Barnett:
.
"Organizational evolution is constrained in three ways. First, organizations are temporally constrained, sometimes “forgetting” valuable lessons and other times retaining the lessons of the past even when environmental change renders this outcome maladaptive. Second, the Red Queen describes a coevolutionary process among multiple organizations, but what is done in response to one competitor may constrain what can be done in response to another. This interdependence implies what might be thought of as a spatial constraint, affecting organizations that attempt to adapt to multiple, conflicting logics of competition simultaneously. Third, organizational learning is known to be constrained by the limitations of direct organizational experience, which often constitute biased samples of possible competitive realities."
.
Barnett e March & Levitt escrevem sobre a aprendizagem míope:
.
"Given that learning in Red Queen evolution is experiential, myopic learning might plague organizations as they develop through this process.
Myopic learning would arise if an organization were to experience a relatively narrow range of competitions, leaving it with a limited and biased understanding of the context’s logic of competition.
…
More generally, the myopia problem appears whenever an organization’s competitive experiences are focused too narrowly on a small range of all possible competitions. When this bias arises, an organization becomes poorly adapted to other possible competitions even as it learns."
.
Conversar sobre futuros hipotéticos, não para impor modelos ou respostas, mas para alertar as mentes que individualmente serão despertadas para realidades alternativas.