Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1265351
76 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2020 that, and carry on while we get that machine repaired. All those things—with the right sen- sors and data and smart AI and technology— can allow that to happen very quickly. We see this a lot, especially in the high-volume, low- mix industries, such as automotive and appli- ances; many of those organizations are much more connected than we are in aerospace and defense, where our supply chains are more low-volume, high-mix, and that's providing a lot of good lessons. There's a lot of work going on in South Korea, for example, where they have a wonder- ful effort being driven by the government that is doing a great job of embracing smart man- ufacturing with very quantifiable adoption metrics. They are subsidizing the cost of com- panies to implement different tools needed for smart manufacturing, like ERP systems and MDS systems, and starting to demonstrate the quantifiable benefits of that. We have a num- ber of initiatives in the U.S. doing the same thing, working out of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Some of the universities are look- ing at how we can pull these things together and manage a networked group of suppliers like we used to be able to do standing on the second floor, looking over the plant. Happy Holden: I don't want to say that we should give up the horizontal model and return to the vertical model of 40–50 years ago, but we may have extended the horizontal global supply chain too far by allowing the only metric to be about lowering cost. We didn't think about some of the secondary aspects, and some kind of correction is in order. I don't know what that is, but we need some leadership that directs how much of the supply chain should be corrected and how we go about retooling the industry so that we can maintain that crit- ical supply. We went to China because of the low cost, and now we're discovering China's costs are going up among other things we didn't consider in going there. Peters: That is a good point. Johnson: Where are the gaps currently in the U.S., or in North America for that matter, in being able to achieve this vision? Peters: I do some work with the National Insti- tute of Standards and Technology, and in one of my presentations for them, I talked about some of the challenges we have in the U.S. compared to supply chains in Europe and Asia. In the U.S., we have embraced outsourc- ing to such a great extent that we would typi- cally have more suppliers in our supply chain than they would in Europe or Asia to make the same item. We have a greater variety of dispa- rate tools that don't talk to each other. One of the biggest challenges we have is our culture. In Asia and Europe, it's much more about partnering to achieve something together to achieve a common good. In the U.S., most of our culture is on shareholder/stockholder value, so we tend not to partner as much as they do overseas. Some of those things need to have to a chance. Maybe we need some consol- idation so that we don't have as many dispa- rate nodes that we have to connect. We have to figure out how to make our tools talk to each other better, but we also have to figure out how to come together culturally to work collabora- tively for the common good. Those are some of the big challenges that we face. Matties: How optimistic are you that that will become a reality? Peters: I see it more and more, and the COVID- 19 crisis is going to have a significant impact on the nation's psyche and how we address things like that. If you look at what compa- nies like Calumet and others did to ramp up production and help their competitors produce things that were needed for the regional hospi- tals and the first responders, that was a shock South Korea is doing a great job of embracing smart manufacturing.