Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1454922
REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2022 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 7 Finding sufficient st affing, of cour se, rela tes directly to how this industry must respond to meet the super cycle opportunity. Now is the time to scale up with efficiencies and capac- ity. Where we once could throw people at the growing demand, now we must use pragmatic factory automation to make more product with the staff we have. In my interview with Matt Kelly, he made the point that automation is no longer just an option, and that Europe and Asia are both 5–10 years ahead of the U.S. in implementing smart only partly because of pandemic- related urgencies. We are back in the sense that we're in a super cycle. At the Monday EMS Leadership Summit, infor- mation was presented that sug- gests electronics manufacturing is in the beginning years of a 20-year super cycle. ey compare this to the 20-year microprocessor super cycle in the 1970s and 1980s, pre- dicting that the electronics manu- facturing industry will see growth and prosper- ity similar to the go-go microprocessor days. Factory of the Future was more of a show- case at this conference. Sensors and data acqui- sition to enable smarter processes were every- where—in the new machinery, as retrofits to older machinery, in soware systems to collect and manage all this data. Factory of the Future now also includes supply chain intelligence. e pandemic taught us about the importance of a ready set of alternates (components, sup- pliers, shipping methods).