SWOT overview sees future for manufacturing industry in Europe
Scale-intensive and science-based firms are the best prepared to benefit from participation in the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) international R&D cooperation scheme, according to a study report prepared for the European IMS Secretariat of the European Commission. "SWOT Overview of Manufacturing Industry in Europe: Background to a European Strategy for IMS" concluded: "The question remains whether or not to make this part of the European strategy, or whether to couple this dimension with attempts to facilitate the participation of firms that stand to benefit, but naturally might not be inclined to get involved (or should this latter best be left to other cooperation schemes?)." The overall situation in the European manufacturing industry presents a mixed picture, according to the report. "In high-technology sectors, Europe has a range of potential opportunities but its performance to date in keeping abreast of the US and Japan has been weak," it stated. "Europe has not entered the same level of strategic alliances with Japanese or US companies as the other two groups have with each other. "The technological base in Europe, founded on high-quality basic research, remains strong but a shortfall in investment is preventing the gaps, particularly with Japan, being closed. However, not all the difficulties faced by Europe can be resolved with additional investment in R&D. Much of the lack of strength in European manufacturing lies in the failure to adopt new techniques and technologies with an attention to detail at the implementation stage, which would involve ensuring that new principles and concepts are tailored to the precise conditions prevailing," said the report. Salient points of the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis indicated: - Strengths. Generally, a solid science base in Europe, with technical excellence in many domains (for example German textiles, UK electronics suppliers, and so on); and, a wide range of universities and research organisations are being connected at EU, national and regional levels; - Weaknesses. Relatively weak industrial application of key technologies (only 21% of European applications are rated as "strong"). Falling numbers of graduates in technical courses, fragmentation of university technology research, slow responsiveness by universities to rapidly-evolving technologies and poor articulation of industry research needs; - Opportunities. Need to develop an effective R&D infrastructure. Stimulate strong links between research institutions and industry, focusing on industry clusters or cross-cutting technologies and providing explicit dissemination mechanisms; - Threats. Insufficient long-range planning and coordination of technology policy, lack of flexibility and slowness to adapt new manufacturing practices. The big information gap in pertinent areas meant that it was impossible to make more categorical statements on the current and emerging state of affairs in the manufacturing industry in Europe and to derive options for a European IMS strategy.