Keynote: MHI’s Industry Report panel gives insights on addressing talent gaps

Today’s supply chains leaders should continue to apply multiple digital technologies as well as workforce education efforts to combat the top challenge of finding qualified workers, said panelists at Wednesday’s keynote discussion of MHI’s newly released Annual Industry Report.

The 2020 report, the seventh in a series of MHI Annual Industry Reports developed in collaboration with Deloitte, is titled “Embracing the Digital Mindset: Connecting Data, Talent and Technology in Digital Supply Chains.” When it comes to supply chain challenges, respondents continue to report that their organization’s greatest challenge is hiring and retaining qualified workers at 57%. The study also found that while adoption of digital technologies is increasing, firms are struggling to hire skilled workers to run them and extract actionable insights out of the mountains of data digital supply chains are generating.

Co-moderated by George W. Prest, CEO of MHI, and Thomas Boykin, Supply Chain Specialist Leader, Deloitte Consulting, the panel included Arpana Brahmbhatt, US Industry Solutions - Manufacturing, Microsoft; Randy V. Bradley, Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management, Haslam College of Business, The University of Tennessee; and Rick Faulk, CEO, Locus Robotics.

In a summary of report findings, Boykin told the keynote crowd that investments in digital technologies among those surveyed for the report are increasing “fairly heavily” but that issues like the talent shortage and ever-increasing customer requirements are top hurdles companies can hinder improved performance. “Expectations of faster, better, cheaper is also keeping these executives up at night,” said Boykin.

Rather than hard, inflexible skill sets, digital era supply chain workers need flexible talents in areas like project management and expertise and enjoyment in problem solving and using data, the panelists agreed. Bradley’s advice is to foster “malleable” talents rather than “pigeonhole” workers into skills that are static.

That panel was enthusiastic about the potential for technologies like predictive analytics, as well as robotics and automation, to advance supply chain efficiencies and free up scarce human talent to be redirected to higher value processes. With robots, for instance, the panel discussed how collaborative mobile robots can make human co-workers more efficient by drastically reducing the miles of empty walking involved in picking orders in warehouses. The robotic software also produces digital data on the pick paths and movements of the most efficient human workers, which can then be used for training, said Faulk. “Technology really is starting to make these jobs more efficient,” said Faulk.

Further information and a download form for the full report can be found at [url=http://www.mhi.org]http://www.mhi.org[/url].
 
Modex 2020 is scheduled to be held March 9-12 at Georgia’s World Congress Center in Atlanta. The tradeshow will showcase the latest manufacturing, distribution and supply chain solutions in the materials handling and logistics industry. Modern’s complete coverage of the show.