Dreams of future factories

Despite efforts by the Flemish government, the Flanders economy remains sluggish. According to Agoria, the federation for the technology industry, this is due to “stagnating productivity against ever increasing wage costs”. Joining hands with the Flemish government, the government has now launched ‘Made Different’ to support a more competitive production sector in Flanders. With their “seven transformations” they hope to “strengthen the Flemish manufacturing industry and position it among the world’s top”, with participating companies being given the opportunity to grow into “factories of the future”. This, in essence, is what Agoria and the Flemish government try to achieve in the Flemish manufacturing industry.
With Flemish workers ranking amongst the most productive in Europe, Agoria wants to introduce the “seven transformations” as a key to even higher efficiency. There is nothing new about this idea. The ‘White paper on a new industrial policy’ which the Flemish government launched in 2011 also mentioned that “the Flemish factory of the future is flexible, modular, reusable, intelligent, digital, virtual, affordable, easily adaptable, sustainable and highly trustworthy”. Significantly, yesterday’s presentation in the Flemish Parliament made considerable mention of modernisation, automisation and more intelligent production methods, but equally crucial transformations within the framework of a future factory, such as factory networking, staff participation and eco-production methods were hardly mentioned. Made Different nevertheless underlines the fact that “focusing on only one or two domains will not result in the desired synergy”.
Last year Agoria nominated the Philips factory in Turnhout ‘Factory of the Future’. Barely two months later, however, the company incurred serious cutbacks, mostly in their research and development division.