HAMILTON, Ontario (CU)_As healthcare, communication, transport, education and some of the most critical industries experience a digital transformation, so does the global manufacturing sector, with its ‘industrial revolution’ having taken place about 30 years ago. Yet, the sector continues to be depicted as lacking progress and advancement, thereby restricting its growth and evolution. “Manufacturing has evolved, but perceptions of the industry have not,” the chief executive of Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), Jayson Myers, said. “Much of the sector has been high-tech for a long time, but media are still representing the industry with smokestacks belting out emissions.”
However, this is not the case even in the most tradition-bound industry. For instance, Hamilton-based ArcelorMittal Dofasco, is currently working on digitalising the process of steel production, which is expected to minimise energy requirements and wasted raw materials and slash greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2,500 tonnes each year.
According to Myers, government policy which regulates the manufacturing sector is also behind the times. “Governments are still making assumptions and collecting statistics based in the sixties and seventies,” he said. “They don’t take into account how important manufacturing is to the economy, the links the sector has to business services, and the technologies that revolve around the industry.”
Meanwhile, concerns have also arisen regarding the future workforce of the manufacturing industry, as many young people have been identified as being 40 to 50 years behind the times in their ideas about the sector. NGen, which the advanced manufacturing supercluster of the federal government’s Innovation Superclusters Initiative, describes the views of the young as “repetitive,” “boring” and “dangerous”.
“That’s really too bad because the face of advanced manufacturing, which uses innovative technologies and techniques to make things, is so significantly different from these images,” Linda Hasenfratz, chief executive of Canada’s second-largest auto parts manufacturer Linamar Corporation, said. “Nowadays, it’s more about tech and innovation than anything else.”
According to recent figures, 25 per cent of Canada’s manufacturing workers are due to retire by 2030. However, it unclear who will replace them, since individuals under the age of 25 only make up 6 per cent of the industry’s workforce. In order to address this shortfall, a youth initiative themed ‘Careers of the Future’ has been launched by NGen to enable younger generations to envision “dynamic, innovative and fulfilling” careers in advanced manufacturing. The programme seeks to educate younger Canadians on the industry and to provide guidance on how to kick-start career journeys.
