I’ve have the opportunity to spend the last ten years working in the reliability engineering and predictive maintenance industry as a business advisor.  In that regard, I’ve been fortunate enough to watch the industry grow up and evolve into a very exciting and critical component of our nation’s manufacturing and processing industries success.  In as much as we’ve seen significant job losses to these sectors over the years, I shudder to think of what they would be if the methodologies and principles our industry provides were not being implemented at the level they are.

I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and work with some of our industry’s leading companies, many of whom are smaller/entrepreneurial companies that got started in the industry because they were passionate about reliability/maintenance and sensed an opportunity to not only make a difference but make some money. As a result, I believe that one of the primary drivers for the level of adaption and acceptance we’ve seen is directly related to the level of entrepreneurship that our industry seems to nurture.

Consequently, I was disheartened to see the recent report on entrepreneurship issued by the Kaufman Foundation and presented at their State of Entrepreneurship presentation last week.  Some of the key findings:

• 36 percent of entrepreneurs reported reductions in head count in the past year; only 8 percent have added employees.
• Nearly two-thirds have seen their sales volume and their profitability decrease.
• 71 percent of entrepreneurs do not expect to add any new jobs in 2010.
• 61 percent of entrepreneurs think the economy is on the wrong track.

As the report notes:

“Entrepreneurs are still the primary engine of job creation in the United States,” Schramm said. “In the last 30 years, literally all net job creation in this country has taken place in firms less than five years old.

With such a gloomy outlook for entrepreneurs, I am concerned about how these trends will impact the reliability engineering/PdM industry.  Entrepreneurship is a critical component of the innovation and adaption occurring in our industry and we need to do everything we can to promote it and ensure that our entrepreneurial culture is nurtured and promoted.  Around this time last year, I posted a blog on The Vann Group entitled “The Entrepreneurial Fix” that outlined some thinking on how to promote entrepreneurship and small business.  Given the Kaufman report, I think the post is as timely as ever.

What do you think of the state of entrepreneurship and what can be done to support it?