Page 39 - BusinessWest February 7, 2022
P. 39

Innovation and Adaptation
Manufacturing Leaders Ponder the State of Their Industry
By Joseph Bednar
Manufacturing is a healthy industry, Bill Bither days, and demand for manufactured goods is soaring across
all sectors. Meeting that demand is ... well, a challenge.
“The first half of 2021 was quite strong; we were actually averaging around 30% higher than we’ve ever seen since we’ve been collecting
“Our customers are reporting three to six months of backlogged orders just waiting to be fulfilled, waiting for raw materials or the workers to do that work.”
this data,” said Bither, co-founder and CEO of MachineMetrics, a Northampton company that specializes in predictive analytics for manufac- turers and serves hundreds of customers all over the globe.
“Then, after the July 4 holiday, we saw this tick down ... it was almost like a shift change. That was likely due to the supply-chain issues that occurred over the summer, and we’re continuing to see that in our data through the second half
of the year,” he went on. “But if you look into the
beginning of 2022, we’re starting to see some of that come back.”
Jerry Foster, chief technology officer at Plex Systems Inc., a software company based in Michigan, saw a similar trend in 2021. He noted a steady, 18% decline in production from the end of the first quarter to the end of the third quarter, when companies were feeling the pinch of labor shortages (see story on page 36) and supply-
Bill Bither says employee- retention efforts should consider wages and culture, but also how cutting-edge the company’s technology is.
chain issues.
“This was not due to the economy shrink-
ing or decreased demand; it’s just the opposite. Our customers are reporting three to six months of backlogged orders just waiting to be fulfilled, waiting for raw materials or the workers to do that work. So this downturn is definitely due
to those two main issues of labor and supply chain.”
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