Mexican industrial pride: the factory floor that moves the country

Mexican industry is not sustained solely by large multinational corporations: it is moved, day after day, by thousands of industrial SMBs that manufacture, distribute and transport what the country needs. In these September days, when we celebrate who we are as a nation, it’s worth turning to look at those mid-sized plants of the Valley of Mexico that rarely make the headlines, but without which nothing would reach its destination.

This is a different kind of piece from the ones we usually publish. It isn’t a technical guide or a use case; it’s an acknowledgment. A pause to thank and celebrate the owners, managers and workers of industry who, through effort and craft, keep Mexico’s productive engine running.

Who really moves the country?

Behind every product you use there’s a chain of hands and machines you rarely see. Mexican industry is made of people who arrive early, who know their craft and who solve problems every day with what they have on hand.

Let’s think, for a moment, about who they are:

• The machine shop in Iztapalapa or Vallejo that makes the exact part a larger machine needed in order not to stop.
• The auto parts and tire distributor in Tlalnepantla that keeps the fleets moving that transport half the country.
• The plastics, packaging or chemical plant in Ecatepec or Cuautitlán that supplies inputs to dozens of other companies.
• The transport company that moves raw materials and staff along the industrial corridor before dawn.
• The distribution center that receives, organizes and ships thousands of products so they arrive on time.

Each of these companies is a small piece of an enormous machinery. And each is sustained, almost always, by a family, an owner who risked their livelihood and a team that gave it their all. That is the real Mexican industry: one of effort, craft and word.

Why is Mexican ingenuity its greatest strength?

There’s something that sets this country’s industry apart: the ability to figure things out. The famous Mexican ingenuity is not a cliché; it’s a real skill you see in every plant when something breaks down and production has to go out anyway. That creativity for improvising solutions has carried many companies through hard times.

But that same ingenuity, which is a strength, sometimes gets trapped in the urgent. The day-to-day is solved with a spreadsheet, a notebook, the memory of the person who “knows how everything is.” And so the talent that could be devoted to growing gets spent putting out fires.

It’s worth saying plainly: it isn’t a flaw in the people, but in the tools they work with. When that same team is given reliable information and orderly processes, ingenuity stops being used to survive the day and starts being used to think big. That’s where a mid-sized company makes the leap.

How does Mexican industry compete going forward?

Pride in who we are isn’t at odds with looking ahead. On the contrary: the best way to honor decades of work is to give it the tools to last decades more. Mexican industry today competes with companies from around the world, and technology is no longer a privilege of the large, but a condition for the mid-sized to stay in the game.

It’s not about ceasing to be who we are. Ingenuity, craft and word remain the heart of industry. It’s about giving that heart a nervous system: clear information, orderly processes and reliable data that free the talent to do what it does best, which is to solve and to grow.

The future of Mexican industry isn’t in ceasing to be ingenious, but in giving that ingenuity the tools it deserves.

What are we celebrating this patriotic month?

We celebrate the work. That of the person who rises early to open the plant, of the one who operates the machine with precision, of the one who loads the truck, of the one who keeps the books and of the one who risked everything to start a business. We celebrate that Mexico stands, in large part, on the shoulders of these mid-sized companies that work tirelessly and out of the spotlight.

And we also celebrate the possibility that these companies keep doing better and better. Because when an industrial SMB does well, so do the families that depend on it, its suppliers, its clients and, in the end, the entire country. That virtuous circle is what, deep down, is commemorated in these celebrations.

An acknowledgment, and an open hand

At Normandia Web we are a Mexican technology company, and our work has brought us close to many of these industrial plants of the Valley of Mexico. We have seen firsthand the effort, the craft and the pride with which they operate. That’s why, more than sell, in these days we want to acknowledge: thank you to those who move the country from the factory floor. When the time comes to take the next step and power that work with technology, we’ll be here, no rush; whenever you like, let’s talk. Happy Independence month.