There’s no doubt millennials are changing the look and feel of the current work culture across industries — taking over leadership roles and set to enter the c-suite in the next seven years.

1. Is sustainable growth the key to
manufacturing’s millennial future?
The manufacturing sector needs to prioritize sustainable
innovation to attract the millennial workforce

2. There’s no doubt millennials are changing the look and
feel of the current work culture across industries —
taking over leadership roles and set to enter the c-suite
in the next seven years.

3. However, success with this generation is not uniform. A
2019 survey shows there’s one sector the millennial
workforce is reluctant to experiment in and finds rather
boring: Manufacturing.
Compared to just 68% of millennials, the survey found
that 86% of baby boomers and Gen-X agreed that
manufacturing jobs make a difference to the economy.

4. Millennial and workforce concerns
Skills, rigidness with the older generation, the kid-glove
treatment, generational dichotomy, pay, sustainable ways of
working and being open to change — especially, automation
and ways to act with new skills — are some of the key areas
that need to be addressed to attract millennials.

5. With the change of perception and a shift in the industrial culture
that’s forging a sustainable path forward, Forbes reported that DayGlo
— the world's largest manufacturer of daylight fluorescent pigments —
now allows flexible, remote work for administrative positions, with
many at the plant opting to four 10-hour shifts as well.
This helps to create a better work-life balance, which is what
millennials want in the workplace, according to a CBRE survey. This
contradicts the millennial view of the manufacturing sector as
“tedious” and “boring.”

6. Tedious, you know now. But how can boredom be removed?
Millennials are tech-savvy and this is where AI-powered new-age
and transformative and sustainable jobs are gradually taking over
the manufacturing sector, making it much more efficient and with
better control quality.

7. The survey also found that 62% of millennials would ideally prefer
“changing jobs as infrequently as possible,” provided roles
challenge them, show significant career growth and provide
opportunities to upskill and reskill.

8. However, these sets of priorities do not bind their loyalty to any
organization. Finding better opportunities in this digital age,
especially if a new role — where AI plays a major role in a
sustainable way — allows a remote working environment and a
free space to be creative, away from the collaborative
workspace or workplace clamor, is also much desired.

9. Millennials can’t be blamed after all. Technology has proven
in the last five years that a collaborative work environment
can even be created while working remotely and connecting
through collaboration tools, extended reality or a digital twin
presenting a replica of the shop floor of a factory.

10. In such a smart factory, now AI is changing the production
processes with analytical capabilities of humungous data, real-
time decisions and automation. Mostly, AI is being used in
predictive maintenance, quality control, process optimization,
supply chain management, better decision-making and
collaboration between humans and robots.

11. By 2030, there will be at least 300 million more people aged 65.
According to a McKinsey report, this is set against the backdrop
of the upcoming workforce transition with AI automation taking
over many areas, requiring 75-375 million people who are likely
to switch occupations and learn new skills.

12. Interestingly, the report added that factors like development of
technologies, renewable energy, energy efficiency and climate
adaptation, would give rise to new jobs that require new skills.

13. Some of the new skills are giving rise to a variety of jobs across
industries including the manufacturing sector. Here AI product
managers, AI research scientists, robotic engineers, big data
engineers, business intelligence developers, computer vision
engineers, software engineers, data scientists, machine learning
experts and natural language processing engineers are creating
the differences in a much more sustainable way if compared to
the past.

14. Is sustainable growth the answer?
“From the earliest days of the pandemic, consumers around the world
said that they planned to make more sustainable choices about how they
spend their time and their money. Many people are willing to pay more for
products and services that reflect their specific beliefs. We found
consulting data and preliminary research in this domain that shows
consumers are looking beyond the brand to consider sustainability across
an organization’s full value chain,” says Shevy Magen, Corporate
Innovation Leader & Partner - Digital Re-Invention, Avasant at the
Tech2Sustain discussion on sustainable consumerism.

15. “We think this opens the doors for many companies to create
products or solutions that reflect the nuanced concerns of their
target customers. The demand is not yet there with millennials,
but we expect it to grow exponentially over the coming
generations,” adds Magen.
It’s estimated that the global manufacturing sector accounts for
one-fifth of global carbon emissions and 54% of the world’s
energy usage.

16. Building a more sustainable business — a key priority for
millennials — through sustainable engineering for
manufacturers offers a path forward.

17. “A few of the imperatives that sustainable engineering practices
can impact include bringing out energy-efficient products,
product optimization, recyclable materials, circular design,
sustainable packaging, optimal usage of resources for
manufacturing and operations, sustainable supply chain and
ecosystem, product lifecycle assessments, including less CO2
emissions and supporting a greener planet,” says Prasanna
Oruganti, Associate Vice President, Industrial Manufacturing,
ERS, at HCLTech.

18. Industry NeXT
While millennials are concerned about climate change and the
way the planet is deteriorating every day due to manmade
disasters and the use of fossil fuels, they look forward to
utilizing new technologies to drive sustainability initiatives in
industries like manufacturing.

19. Industry NeXT
At this juncture, Industry NeXT — HCLTech’s forward-looking
industry framework — is helping customers become expansive,
adaptive and future-proof, irrespective of their industries or
technology adoption maturity.

20. This is because Industry NeXT enables businesses, including
those where millennials are at decision-making positions, to
experiment beyond just operational efficiency at scale with
accelerated speed. The framework takes the Industry 4.0
capabilities as its baseline to enable enterprises to transform
industrial operations into resilient, sustainable and experience-
driven, create new revenue models and value streams by
evolving products and services and eliminate the digital silos
through security and network convergence.

21. Sustainable engineering keeps the environment in mind, while
latest technologies, including IoT, AI, digital twin and cloud, are
stitched in such a way that stakeholders are well-informed of
the benefits from shop floor to top floor.

22. “The Digital Manufacturing pillar of HCLTech Industry NeXT
brings many opportunities for the manufacturing industry to
meet evolving business needs. Leveraging digital thread, digital
twins, intelligent sensors, cobots and 5G will enable next-
generation manufacturing enterprises to create a data-driven
connected factory backed by a solid IT/OT architecture with
complete autonomy over manufacturing equipment, operations
and product attributes,” says Ralf Schulze, Associate Vice
President, Manufacturing (IoT WoRKS™), at HCLTech.

23. For example, a global manufacturer of machine parts and tools
with more than 150 connected manufacturing factories
worldwide needed them to seamlessly work together and be
integrated into a global physical supply chain and a digital
ecosystem.

24. Leveraging cloud as a technology and Industry NeXT’s
capabilities, the benefits the customer received included a 30%
reduction in operation costs, 40% reduction in major incidents,
99% adherence to major KPI’s and SPI’s and 40% reduction in
TCO with AI/ML base automation.

25. The customer was also able to achieve 10% reduction in water
and electricity consumption for its core manufacturing
operations as well as data centers. The real-time data powered
intelligence powered by AI also helped the customer advance
on their sustainability aspirations.

26. As manufacturing companies strive for resilience, this
sustainably transformed digital ecosystem — with smart
manufacturing services powered by AI — can enable modern
manufacturing companies to discover transformational business
potential through this cognitive and secured ecosystem.

27. Thanks