Future trends in manufacturing: Interview with McKinsey's Lou Rassey

"Advances in materials, advances in process technology, advances in how organizations can connect using big data – all of these things are creating new ways to compete and interact on a global scale," says Lou Rassey, Principal at McKinsey & Company. These trends, coupled with macroeconomic trends – such as the rise of the new economic powerhouses – will have major impacts on the future of the manufacturing industry globally.

In this PEXNetwork.com video interview, Rassey discusses what's ahead for the manufacturing sector and how manufacturing companies will need to compete in the brave new world that confronts them.

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Questions discussed in this interview:

• Why do you feel it was important to look at the future of the manufacturing sector globally?
• In developed economies we've seen several decades of declining manufacturing capacity and the growth of an increasingly service-based economy - do you see that trend continuing?
• What would it take to tip the balance to start to see more companies re-shoring their manufacturing capacity?
• One of the things your report looked at was along term view on how manufacturing would change. By 2025 - what would are the key characteristics you expect in the manufacturing sector?
• Process excellence techniques were really honed in the manufacturing environment - to what extent do you see process improvement continuing to play a key role in help manufacturing companies achieve performance improvements?

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