What you should know about innovation in manufacturing
Innovation is one of Morgan’s founding principles and at the heart of everything we do. Our ethos is to ensure that all our products improve society in some way through an innovative approach to solving problems.
In practical terms this often means less reinventing the wheel, but being more aligned to making the best wheel possible. Innovation is something we see as fundamental to how we run our business, not only in the products we’re designing and helping to make, but in the day to day activity and ethos we encourage in our staff. Every team member is encouraged to think of new ways to do things; from ways to become more environmentally sustainable, to improvements for our existing processes or better ways to help our local community.
For me personally, innovation means applying our skills, knowledge and experience to making things more efficient and more cost effective.
What impact does innovation actually have on the UK manufacturing industry?
If the UK is to compete effectively in global markets it’s essential for us to be at the forefront of innovation. We lead the way in many industries and are often a byword for top quality products. Having a ‘Made in Britain’ accreditation is still seen as an indicator of excellence in manufacturing.
However, it is still alarming to note how many start-ups and young businesses either fail to get off the ground or survive their formative years because they lack access to the critical private or public funding that enables early stage growth. This is an area where the UK falls behind the US as we appear to be naturally more risk averse when it comes to believing in and investing in young, innovative businesses. This cultural difference risks stifling innovation and growth in our home market and needs to be addressed; things are improving but we still have a long way to go.
What does this mean for consumers?
The theory of innovation in manufacturing is that the more efficient manufacturing can become, the lower the final cost of goods should be to the consumer. Unfortunately this is only one factor that drives consumer cost which is currently being affected by a number of external factors which are more influential; for example, within the UK manufacturing industry we are seeing how the global component shortages, shipping costs and availability are having a massive impact on the costs to the end user.
The secret to innovation in manufacturing – as in so many other industries – is really trying to keep the price rises as low as possible whilst still providing quality goods for the consumer.
My thoughts on the most impactful innovations of recent years
In terms of development of products, I think 3D printing has been absolutely revolutionary. It’s enabled us to produce cheap and rapid prototyping which has hugely aided product development and sped up the process from start to finish. The advent of video conferencing, which was accelerated through covid, has minimised travel which is hugely beneficial to the environment and has allowed global expertise to be applied to both entire projects as well as product development. It’s bizarre to me to see how fast people are already reverting to their old ways of travelling – the flexibility that technology provides and the massive time and cost savings associated with working remotely have made international travel largely unnecessary, especially in business terms.
Personally I prefer to invest these savings in improvements to our business and processes, and continuing our flexible working practices which are proven to improve team productivity and happiness.
And my predictions for innovation in manufacturing in the future…
On the plus side, it’s fantastic to see so many pioneers of innovation in our industry. In addition to the work that Morgan has always done to support young innovators, I was recently honoured to be involved in the just IMAGINE if programme, an annual international social enterprise and innovation competition supporting ideas that tackle our global challenges open to anyone across the globe who has a business idea which tackles at least one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It was fantastic to see so many young people hugely driven to develop innovations that will help to solve the issues which underpin these goals.
With this mentality and sufficient support I’m confident that innovation and the next generation of innovators really can change the world for the better.