Despite current uncertainty about how the political battles raging in Washington will ultimately shape sectors, including healthcare and education, Greater Philadelphia’s manufacturing leaders remain optimistic about the economy.

This optimism stems in part from a belief that the new presidential administration will lessen regulations and that recent positive market trends will continue, Horsham-based Kreischer Miller’s 2017 Greater Philadelphia Manufacturing Survey finds.

While the majority of manufacturers surveyed predict growth in 2017, they also report hurdles in the way of achieving it.

These industry leaders, from middle market companies across many sectors, are on the frontlines of a manufacturing renaissance fueled by innovations in automation and technology.

The 2017 survey spotted a modern manufacturing challenge to which survey respondents may want to pay more attention: cyber security. The machines on the plant floor are more often connected to the Internet.

But while nearly half of respondents’ companies provided information security training for employees last year, the majority did not conduct any type of vulnerability assessments of their information security capabilities.

And 80 percent did not conduct any disaster recovery or business continuity reviews or testing.

This new type of manufacturing requires a new type of labor force, and there is increasing concern about the lack of qualified workers – 41 percent versus 28 percent in last year’s survey.

“We are in a period of great change in manufacturing, and that comes with previously inconceivable possibilities and opportunities, but also significant unanticipated challenges,” said Michael A. Coakley, Kreischer Miller’s Audit and Accounting Director and Manufacturing Industry Group Leader.

Click here to access the survey’s results.

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