Editor's comment: Signal to noise

For me this mirrors what I sometimes hear going around the industry, with many conferences - or just lately, virtual webinars, invariably focusing on the industry’s standing, the challenges it faces and how it must maintain a competitive edge.

There’s always a collective sucking in of cheeks from any invited throng of delegates as guest presenters take it in turn to not exactly puncture the buoyant mood of the manufacturing sector, but provide it with a harsh reality check.

A flurry of industry consultants will blow in like the inclement weather we’re having and boast incredible market predictions on the compound growth that the sector can expect in future. There’s also some debate in establishing an even base of agreement on the accuracy of these figures, with some crazy swings between the highest and lowest estimates.

Forecasting facts and figures, like the weather, is changeable. It’s not always doom and gloom – more a case of the industry being prepared for anything that is thrown at it.

And it’s all too easy to get into crystal ball territory with the danger being that the industry will talk itself into expecting higher volumes of growth than will actually happen. Meeting capacity requirements to satisfy the predicted demands will require huge investment in automated manufacturing hardware and software within an extremely challenging timeframe.

A tad pessimistic perhaps, but we’re in an age where much attention is being paid to the future. The irony being that the way things are going, we may not have one.

Mike Richardson, Editor