Professor Xu Xun, Director of LISMS, was recently interviewed by the news media outlet “Newsroom“. The following is the content of this interview:
“Manufacturing has always been playing second fiddle… it is a place where governments have not been very forthcoming with funding.”
– Professor Xu Xun, Auckland University
Auckland University Professor of Mechanical Engineering Xu Xun heads The Laboratory for Industry 4.0 Smart Manufacturing Systems – a think tank for “the fourth industrial revolution”, the emergence of smart technology and robotics.
Two years ago he wrote how manufacturers needed urgent change to survive post-Covid, including an end to reliance on “manual and archaic machinery” which made it difficult to compete internationally.
But investing in new technology is easier said than done. For starters, it’s expensive.
Xu said the diversity within the sector, and the fact it was mostly small and medium sized businesses, made targeted government help for investment difficult.
“They often don’t have their own products, they serve other big companies and they get contracts from other manufacturers. So this has not helped governments coming forward with big plans. Because these are smaller businesses, they don’t really see the real impact.
“Manufacturing has always been playing second fiddle… it is a place where governments have not been very forthcoming with funding.”
In addition to this the uncertainty of the last few years has made investment calculations even more difficult.
“The economic uncertainty yes, but even government uncertainty on the regulation side as well environmental regulations… they have perhaps held back about investments in certain areas and it’s just a wait and see.”
Despite this, he said recent measures of business performance in the sector may not be telling the full story.
He said a downturn in job listings could be as a result of investment in technology.
“Perhaps the need for people to work in the factory has dropped?”
“We still need people, but they’ve just changed their role. So that we don’t know. Maybe they now come under another job classification that’s not manufacturing.”