How will we Produce Tomorrow? Companies and the Challenge of Technical and Socio-Organizational Innovations

After decades of industrial decline, offshoring of production units and, indeed, a shift of investment from the secondary to the tertiary sector (most observers having taken the view that the future was in services, particularly in Europe), industry would seem to be attracting renewed interest within modern economies. A surge of technical, social and organizational innovations prompted by the explosion of digital technology have changed the landscape, and new perspectives for production are opening up for those companies that are able to adapt to these and make the best of them. In this context, how will we produce tomorrow, asks André-Yves Portnoff? After reviewing European industrial decline, this article examines four mistaken ideas that played a part in it: (i) industry is outmoded; (ii) services are separable from industry; (iii) companies can be fragmented; (iv) digital technology can be exploited without abolishing compartmentalized, pyramidal organizations. Showing how wrong-headed these views are, Portnoff stresses the cultural and organizational challenge that confronts industrial companies today and the crucial role of the human factor in meeting it. He then outlines the major programmes under way in France, Europe and beyond, on the future of industry and what the profile of the factory of the future might be (more collaborative, nimbler, optimizing new materials, using robotics, the cloud and cyber-physical systems etc.). What is needed is a genuine “smart” revolution, based on participatory methods inspired by value-analysis models. It is thanks to such a revolution that European industrial companies can hope to return to the path of innovation and success.