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improving END-TO-END PERFORMANCE

The “Shaping the Future 2025” study by Staufen USA offers insights into how U.S. industrial companies are transforming through innovation and digital technologies.
For this study, a total of 280 industrial companies in the USA were surveyed in November 2024. The extra chapter in the “Shaping the Future 2025” study provides a comparison between the ASG region (Austria, Switzerland, and Germany) and the USA.

Successful companies are future-oriented and anticipate major upheavals of tomorrow. With our magazine, we offer orientation and show how companies can overcome the challenges of widely diversified supply chains or the establishment of sustainable processes.

How managers, those responsible for personnel development, and employees work together to ensure effective training and development

The Staufen 2023 study “The Future of Training” reveals that employees, managers, and those responsible for professional development must work together to design a continuous learning process and advance further training and development effectively. 

GROW. PERFORM. TRANSFORM to peak performance

In today’s competitive environment, continuous learning and training have become essential for personal and professional development. Our white paper examines the importance of developing skills and how training programs can help people reach their full potential while helping the company remain ready for the future.

THE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF COMPETITIVENESS

Becoming digital, efficient, sustainable, and resilient all at once is a major challenge for many companies today.

However, the Staufen “Future Industry” study shows that boards and management teams in industry have clearly set their strategic compass. The foundation for a sustainable, change-ready and resilient business is and will remain operational and digital excellence. When set up in this way, a multi-faceted challenge for a company can become a multi-faceted opportunity.

COMPETITIVENESS AND FUTURE ASSURANCE

Heat records, forest fires, dried-up rivers and lakes — climate change caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can no longer be ignored. In Germany, industry is responsible for around one-fifth of GHG emissions. According to the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, two-thirds of these emissions are generated during energy production, while one-third is released during the manufacture of products in the metal and chemical industries, for example.

While such process-related emissions – methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases in addition to carbon dioxide (CO2) – are mostly unavoidable, the CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and heat can very well be reduced or even completely avoided. This is the reason why the German government is pushing for the conversion to a climate-neutral industrialized country – across the entire value chain.

How to make the future happen

The question currently arises as to why the topic of strategy is just now gaining renewed attention among many companies. In our opinion, this is due to two developments: First, external influences such as political decisions or shorter technology cycles on companies and their market environment have significantly increased in strength and speed in recent years. As a result, the added value that companies create for their customers is coming under much more rapid and sustained pressure than it was a few years ago. Second, many companies are increasingly struggling to implement strategic initiatives. According to recent studies, the rate of ineffective strategic initiatives is around 50%. This represents a waste of resources that companies can no longer afford.

For companies, it follows from these two developments that they must implement excellent strategy development and deployment processes to ensure their long-term success in the marketplace.

Staufen AG has compiled the German Industry 4.0 Index every year since 2014. Thus, the metric is nearly as old as the term Industry 4.0 itself. The 2022 index indicates that the German economy is threatening to split down the middle. 2, the German Industry 4.0 Index was compiled as part of the study “Companies in Transformation.”

For this, we surveyed a total of 363 companies in Germany in the fall of 2021, a good two-thirds of whom are from the mechanical and plant engineering industry, the electrical industry, and the automotive sector.

In mechanical engineering, experts currently see three megatrends, which must be combined at companies. Sustainability, digitalization, and systems engineering. According to expert opinions, in order to be able to guarantee comprehensive sustainability, mechanical engineering must work symbiotically with its customers. It is only possible to tackle systematic tasks such as the circular economy by uniting system builders and operators.

So that the green transformation succeeds, companies and their suppliers must cooperate more closely and increase their readiness for transformation. As the results of the study show, it’s likely that not all companies will succeed.

Financial investments are in demand – now more than ever.

When it comes to analyzing a company’s numbers, financial investors are unreservedly among the professionals. But that doesn’t mean they also have a profound understanding of what is happening on the factory floor. The opinion of the companies surveyed in this private equity study clearly shows: financial investors are valued for their important role and are readily chosen as partners.

At the same time, however, companies would like to see more dialogue at eye level and a better understanding of the peculiarities of their respective industries. Yet, only if partners are on equal footing with mutual respect can the mix of entrepreneurial creativity and financial expertise with a strong capital base realize its full potential.  – to the benefit of all involved.

Change Readiness Index 2022

The German economy is under continuing pressure to transform. Yet, the current Change Readiness Index shows that companies have only been able to increase their ability to change slightly in recent years, despite turbulent times. Many measures that had to be implemented at speed during the COVID-19 pandemic have so far quite obviously had no deep impact.

Processes, structures, employee qualifications, leadership and corporate culture – everything that has shaped companies to date continues to be put to the test. If companies want to emerge successfully from the transformation, they must look beyond acute challenges and work intensively on their ability to change.

Looking back from today’s perspective, the banking crisis of 2008/2009 was harmless. What’s more: After that crisis, the only way for the German economy was up. Yet, towards the end of the boom phase, we were already seeing an increase in crisis symptoms. The huge emerging trends digitalization, e-mobility and sustainability
were setting the stage in many market segments for impending up heaval – a risk cocktail was being whipped up.

HOW COMPANIES ARE REALIZING THE BENEFITS OF DIGITIZATION

For companies, the focus of most digitization measures is on performance. Modern digital technologies for process automation help achieve this goal.

Increasing efficiency, achieving greater transparency and reducing costs – according to the Industry 4.0 Index surveyed by Staufen AG, the majority of companies primarily pursue these three goals with digitization. The means to achieve this are modern technologies that focus on simple implementation and application.

Lean Development reduces lead times in the product creation process through the elimination of waste. A Lean Development System uses lean principles, based on organisational and operational methods with the aim of takt-timing development projects efficiently and securing their results. Mentor-mentee dialogue instead of hierarchy and micromanagement Frontloading instead.

Shop Floor Management supports the consistent and sustainable development of processes and procedures at the point of origin. The presence of management in the production areas and their focus upon standard deviations enable decisions to be sped up and employees to be developed into improvement managers.

Many traditional companies find themselves in a period of transformation. They have to adapt their organizations and processes to changing market and competitive conditions. Their managers and employees have to be empowered to take an active part in helping to shape this transformation sustainably.

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OUR GLOSSARY OF LEAN TERMS.
Here you find all terms and explanations of the Lean World. The glossary is also available for download.

Staufen is a Lean Management consulting service and academy. We believe that inside every company, there is an even better one. Our passion is helping you discover the better version of your company and working with you to stablish a sustainable culture of change. This will make your business lean, clever and able to optimize.