In our consulting work, the development of the economy can be seen in the changing priorities of our projects. If the economy is poor, the aim is to reduce inventories. If the economy is doing well, the focus is on ensuring delivery readiness for our project orders. If the project runs well for a long time, detailed capacity planning and inventory reduction become more important again. Capacity planning is important in order to utilize the last reserves of an increasingly congested production and inventory management in order to provide the liquidity required for new investments.
In this economic cycle, which has now been running for almost 10 years in Germany, many companies have left themselves plenty of time to make new investments, and so both inventory reduction and capacity optimization are currently in demand, although many companies are increasingly struggling with delivery readiness. We can no longer deliver ourselves, suppliers are struggling with supplies and some capital goods manufacturers can no longer keep up.
In 2017, the challenges have intensified; let’s look forward to 2018 and to all of us, you and us, moving forward with expanded capacities. In politically uncertain times, it helps Germany and Europe to be economically strong.
With this in mind, best wishes for 2018!
