Read the latest issue of the magazine dedicated to surface treatments and organic and inorganic finishes.
One of the terms used in several press releases published in this issue of ipcm® that particularly struck me is “holistic” – which, not surprisingly, is one of the trendiest words these days. But grasping its meaning when associated with the manufacturing industry is not an immediate process.
Holistic is the adjective related to the theory of holism. Derived from the Greek word ὅλος, meaning “total”, “whole”, or “everything”, it refers to seeing such “whole” as a unicum and not as the mere sum of its parts. A typical example of a holistic structure is the human body. Holism, therefore, is the tendency to use creativity and development to form wholes that are greater and more valuable than the sum of their parts.
Whereas associating the term “holistic” with disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, and medicine is commonplace, it is less so when applied to the industrial sector. Yet, for example, we have been talking for a few years about the importance of having a “holistic approach to Industry 4.0”, in the sense of starting from the digitalisation of processes to improve them and create new, higher value. Of “holism in corporate management”, in the sense of introducing a more human approach to a company’s vision and culture in order to bring back the attention to the importance of working together synergistically and harmoniously rather than competitively. Or of “holistic concepts” for industrial processes of various kinds, specifically coating processes.
What is exactly the meaning of what many businesses in both the chemical and mechanical fields of the surface treatment industry are promoting? It means that the coating systems of today must be able to combine all the advantages of each integrated technology in order to offer a different, greater advantage.
What needs to be disseminated is a holistic approach to production, which focuses on interconnected systems and pays great attention to man-machine interaction, but also to the basic and advanced training of the next generation of employees, namely those who will handle the future of production. This emphasis on technological aspects, however, should not be excessive and it should not overshadow other important approaches such as offer personalisation, flexibility to respond to peaks and troughs in volumes, and evolution of business and organisational models (see above).
These are just some of the ideas and technological concepts that the surface treatment industry will present, after four interminable years of absence, at the PaintExpo 2022 exhibition and that ipcm® has collected in its success stories, reports, in-depth analyses, and press releases dealing with the many companies that want to show their best at the most complete trade fair for industrial coating, the only exhibition always worth visiting in Europe.
If you are wondering why, you are holding a particularly heavy ipcm® issue in your hand, the answer is easily given: because marketing is also holistic, that is, it focuses on people and not products, using all available channels to reach them. And, whether digital or in print, technical magazines are still the best way to transfer the value of a product to one’s own potential or current customers.
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