Jump to-
Recent key developments in MAKE│NZ
Often, Sundays are considered a day of rest. A day to think about relaxing, and if not then thinking about things to be done around the house, early morning sports practices, preparations for the week ahead. This past Sunday, for many the focus was on mothers day and whatever that may entail for you and your household. For a select few this past Sunday also offered disruption in the form of spam emails from yours truly- MAKE│NZ.
We would like to once again apologise if you were bombarded by these emails- as technologically advanced as we may get, a classic spam bot is still a powerful thing. Thankfully this spam bot was simply acting as a forum user, so no information will have gone to the bot and the usage statistics for the forum now look far more impressive than they did a few days ago.
To paint the picture for those of you who weren’t greeted early Sunday morning with several emails from “us”, imagine if you will an excessive amount of spam emails from the “MAKE│NZ Forum” all in Chinese.
After putting a few of these emails through Google translate, it would appear that as a community we’ve been presented the deal(s) of a life time. If you’re interested in buying fake bachelors and masters degrees in anything from accounting to geology, our kicked out spam bot would be your guy…
For a mountain of reasons, I’d highly suggest however maybe not trying to contact the bot.
Again, we’d like to offer a huge apology for those who were spammed, and please be assured we’ve locked everything down at the moment in order to secure the forum.
Now, if you were curious about the fake bachelors and masters degrees, why not gain some new knowledge without talking to dodgy Chinese spam bots? We can’t offer anything on geology but we can offer an opportunity for learning more about improving productivity in your manufacturing business…
Sounds good? Would it sweeten the deal if I said this is a one time event that’s only 15 days away? And that there’ll be expert speakers with case studies and Q&A sessions?
Well if that gets your motor running then best to get it tuned by attending-
Tuning your Production Engine – Manufacturing Industry Conference
Make sure to get your tickets here!
We’ve heard that the idea of attending a conference can be quite daunting to some, especially those new to the roles of team leader or operations manager, and we want to let you and your team know that there is no reason for them to ‘feel out of place’ when they attend. Presentations at the conference will focus on practical aspects of the topics, and hands-on experiences. And they will be among their own. So, no reason to hold off!
Recent key developments in New Zealand
• In keeping with the main theme of our conference – improving employee engagement levels – where do we stand in comparison? The latest annual Gallup Report provides data for a comparison between the situation in Zealand and Australia combined, against global averages:
… and the combined data for Australia and New Zealand below, with no difference in engagement levels between the two countries. This is the first bit of good news – we’re improving when the aggregated data across the rest of world shows a decline.
Does it matter? There is plenty of solid evidence to support the claim that – all other things being equal – raising employee engagement levels will result in improved labour productivity. A meta-analysis published by Gallup in 2020 is a good start to dig deeper into this relationship. Can it be done? Have a look at the graph below:
Life doesn’t stop when we leave work, though. Mental wellbeing, a key factor in the ability to engage at work, is influenced just as much by what happens (or doesn’t) outside of work. Among others, Gallup also asks people a simple ‘life evaluation’ question: are they Thriving’, Struggling, or Suffering?
What we can see is that – globally – the percentage of people describing themselves as Thriving has dropped after rising throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Keeping in mind that whether people themselves a striving or not will be influenced by both material and mental factors.
Closer to home, as well as in North America, levels have dropped consistently, and quite significantly, over the past decade-plus, albeit off a much higher level than global averages.
What about manufacturing? There is no solid data on engagement levels in manufacturing in either Australia or New Zealand. Even globally, there isn’t much. This table, from Gallup’s 2017 report, lists manufacturing as having the lowest engagement levels among the professions listed, but as a global average, it doesn’t’ really tell us much.
PWC published an in-depth study on employee engagement in the US manufacturing sector, but didn’t contain any cross-sector, or cross-country comparisons. It did show, however, a strong relationship between levels of engagement and rates of attrition among shopfloor workers. It also demonstrates that there are plenty of opportunities for improvement. First on that list is providing more flexibility, but that’s a story for another day …
Want to learn more about how to improve engagement levels in manufacturing?
We’ve still got a few places at our conference on the topic at the end of the month:
https://makenz.org/event/tuning-your-production-engine/
Recent key developments in the World
• What happens when political and commercial incentives clash? In June last year, John Deere announced plans to invest in new manufacturing capacity in Mexico. In September 2024, Donald Trump, at the time presidential candidate, threatened the company with a 200% tariff on all John Deere imports to the US, citing the negative impact on US jobs if the company went ahead with its plans
In response, John May, CEO & Chairman of Deere & Company, emphasised the company’s commitment to manufacturing in the US and pointed out that only about 5% of what John Deere sells in the US is made in Mexico
The company has since confirmed its plans and proceeded with the construction of what will be a US$55m new factory in Nuevo Leon, adding to its existing four factories in Mexico. In a move from Iowa, the new factory will build skid steer loaders and compact loaders, predominantly for the local market. The investment is a response to both growing demand for these products in Mexico and other Central and South American markets, and significantly lower labour cost in Mexico.
• We currently see quite a few examples of government policy trying to drive investment decisions in manufacturing. In June 2023, the German government announced a grant of €9.9b to intel to encourage the company to build a new semiconductor factory in Magdeburg. The grant was part of a government initiative to reduce Germany’s dependence on semiconductors made elsewhere. In September last year, Intel announced that it would not take advantage of the offer. intel is under financial stress and decided to build a new factory in the US instead, where government grants (and defence contracts) made it even more attractive to invest.
At the same time BASF, the world’s largest chemical company by sales, is reducing its operations in Germany and expanding investment overseas, first and foremost in in Zhanjiang, China. That is in spite of successive German governments having promised voters that they’ll do everything they can to stem the flow of investment in manufacturing going abroad. It will be interesting to see how successful the current US government will be with its plans to entice what would have to be massive investments in US manufacturing to “create the jobs back home”. Private investment will go where the opportunities are.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.