The Resilience Index Plant report, commissioned by RS, suggests that the biggest driver of gains in manufacturing resilience is Plant improvements, illustrated by business investment per hour spent in the sector increasing by 77% over the past two decades (more than any other sector) – even higher in Chemicals, and Engineering & Vehicle categories. However, growth hasn’t always been consistent – post the financial crash, manufacturing saw a bigger dip in investment in 2009 than any other sector and took five years to rebuild.

Moreover, manufacturing’s long term increases in this measure of investment, relative to the rest of the economy, are in part due to its workforce not increasing at the same rate as other sectors, such as services – where absolute levels of investment have been increasing but not as fast as the number of hours being worked.

This special panel discussion - hosted by Manufacturing Management and RS Components - will bring together experts from across industry to explore some of the latest thinking around Plant resilience and to examine some of the measures that can be taken to manage improvement and innovation strategies, and address challenges around maintenance.

You will learn:
• With the global pandemic and associated uncertainty (furlough etc.), how is this impacting your ability to plan and execute your reliability strategy? Have there been any significant consequences and are businesses now seeking any specific innovation in this area?
• The reasons behind dip in investment
• With Brexit, supply chain disruption and a higher resilience of goods being manufactured in the UK, is plant productivity and asset availability likely to become a bigger issue and what are businesses doing around to address this?
• With skills shortages in engineering, what challenges are businesses experiencing around executing their maintenance strategies?
• The broader opportunities for the UK