News

Manufacturing in Mexico: Ways to Grow

Guillermo Fernandez, FUMEC Noviembre 2012

 

Text published in the supplement research and development of the newspaper the day in November 2012.

 

Manufacturing in Mexico seems a very good health. Today we have an excellent infrastructure and qualified human resources for the growth of specialized manufacturing industries.

 

The economic development strategy that we have followed, based on promoting investment foreign in areas such as aeronautics, automotive, medical devices and electronics, has generated a very wide end and intermediate production infrastructure. This is, without doubt, an important achievement that we must recognize.

 

However, we have the great opportunity to move forward in the production of many of the parts and components that are required on the basis of manufacturing chains. This means that we can enter in the manufacture of advanced high-specification components that represent imports by tens of billions of dollars a year

 

For example, in the automotive industry, the basic supply generated in Mexico barely covers 20% of the necessary, and can reach more than 50%. These numbers indicate that we have been successful as assemblers and managers of end products, but we need to go a long way to become producers of basic components, which require the use of specific technologies and the existence of highly specialized staff.

 

What we need to do to strengthen these capabilities? I believe that we can pursue a strategy of three steps starting at needs assessment, identification of groups of buyers to continue and culminate with an integrated supplier development plan.

 

1. Needs assessment. The first thing we need is to point out what the intermediate producers buy. Companies such as Siemens have already detected a series of products that could be manufactured in Mexico and are beginning to identify companies that may provide such products. You have to understand the characteristics of the products, the technologies that are used to make them and how to develop databases that allow us to be effective in their manufacture.

2. Identification of groups of buyers. The next step is to integrate buyers of the same product or similar products, to then invest in development or attraction of suitable suppliers. Being highly specialised components, there may be buyers in various niches where the same technology and capacity allow to generate different components from a common base.

3. Alliance for the development of suppliers. In this partnership, they play a very important role the Secretariat of economy, Promexico, State Governments and the purchasing companies. They will look for and develop local, or if suppliers, it will look to companies from other countries so that they come to invest in Mexico, so they partner with Mexican companies or, ultimately, so they will transfer its technology to Mexican companies.

 

Investment in the development or attraction of companies should see a combination of funds from both the Government and the private sector because it is the advancement of strategic industries to the national economy.

Committed to the Advanced Manufacturing

Raúl Serrano Julio 2011

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Opportunities for development for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) Mexican are latent, especially for those that work in advanced manufacturing; metal forging, the design and manufacture of molds and dies are examples of this, which may represent important alternatives for business with multinational industries of the sectors automotive, metalworking and aeronautics, among others.

Support mechanisms are given, from incubators and accelerators of companies to the economic boost, as the FIT (Innovation Fund), a trust with concurrent resources created between the Secretariat for small and medium enterprise of the Ministry of the economy and the National Council of science and technology (Conacyt). This instance invites SMEs, as well as individuals with entrepreneurial activity, proposals of technological innovation to be economically supported.

Advanced manufacturing is the development of complex products of high specifications, which involves both the demand for materials raw and intermediary components, as in financial services, transportation, software and many others within a national economy. From the above, one can understand that it is one of the most important links for the development of the competitiveness of the industrial fabric of a nation.

Mexico has been a country with a great capacity for investment attraction in manufacturing because a convergence of different factors, from comparative to competitive. For the country, the manufacturing sector and the transformation represents one third of the GDP, hence the importance of generating economic impulses in this productive area.

It is so with this type of support to SME national not only seeks increase foreign investment in our country, but in general boost to different types of technological projects on global economic development. The FIT is one of the most important supports for this type of companies seeking to not lag behind in technological developments to be able to compete in the international market.

Manuel Sandoval-Ríos, director of strategy and innovation of Promexico, a trust of the Ministry of economy in charge of strengthening the participation of the country in the international market, explains that the Organization for cooperation and economic development measures the level of technological sophistication of the exports of its members, "and those made in Mexico are higher than those of the rest of Latin American countries what is an indication that country is producing goods of high technology and complexity; If we add to this that more engineers who, in any other country in the Americas, we can say that we have the ingredients to be a power in terms of innovation are graduating, what we lack is to deepen technological assimilation processes", says the expert in business intelligence.

This is why those areas that promotes the FIT among the advanced manufacturing; not only because they are relatively new areas of knowledge, but because they are also human and material resources for the development of the same.

Sandoval-Rios points out that Mexico has a very competitive position in an economy of innovation, which makes it attractive for certain types of investments. "The challenge is not to prepare more engineers, but that they fulfill the expectations of the Mexican and the foreign companies which are located in the country; it is one thing to produce goods of high complexity and another is for Mexican engineers and technicians to learn of this complexity and to create innovations on products that we now manufacture. Innovation has become the engine of growth of the countries", elaborates.

INNOVAPYME 2009
Luis Baeza Agosto 2010

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GEA SOFTWARE & AUTOMATIZATION  was winner of the INNOVAPYME program, which gives financial support to micro, small and medium-sized companies that have research projects and technological development affecting their competitiveness, linking preferably with research institutions and to consifer the creation of new jobs with high added value.

 

As part of its social objective in Mexico, this company seeks to create jobs and training Mexican personnel with the skills to work in any part of the world. In his presentation, the Engineering Manager, Luis Baeza, said that their objective is to enter into agreements with public schools in which preference is given to students to prepare them and hire them if passed the selection program.

 

Additionally it will promote the use of technology listed by our customers as technology at reasonable prices compared to the rest of the world and developed by Mexican engineers. Also the care of the environment will be promoted as the services offered are designed strategically for the benefit of nature.