"The world is about to change again. We have three enormous challenges facing us. The first is demographics. The US Department of Commerce rated the infrastructure of North America a 'D'. The second is that our technology is underutilized: loops are in manual, advanced process control systems aren't updated and the operators turn them off... The third is also demographic: the change of personnel. A recent article in the Economist pointed out that 50% of senior technical help in manufacturing will be retiring in the next five years, and that 70% of all the institutional knowledge in manufacturing wil go with them and be lost in the next seven years. The most difficult challenge of the next fifteen years is that we must cooperate, trust, and work together so that our knowledge must increase."
