Michael UngarCEO of the Industry 4.0 Club

Repair is the Future: Smarter, Faster, More Resilient

29 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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In this monologue, the speaker argues that sourcing more finished goods and components, then repairing them in the smartest way—especially close to the point of use—boosts profit margins, shortens lead times, and enhances supply‑chain resilience. By moving items less and repairing locally, companies become more agile. The speaker notes that while this approach has long been used in industry, right‑to‑repair legislation is now entering the consumer market, reflecting a growing consumer desire to fix their own products, illustrated with a personal anecdote about a broken‑zipper pair of jeans.

Chapters

So if we can source more finished goods, finished components, and then repair that and do that in the smartest way that we can, our margins get better, our lead times get better. We are more resilient because we can do that closer to point of use. So we're moving around less often. So repair really is the future, I think. And we've been doing this in industry for a long time, and we're starting to see right-to-repair laws come into the consumer world where I really think consumers want the chance to repair their items. And we've all had a favorite pair of jeans that we've really perfectly gotten broken in, and then the zipper breaks and it becomes really expensive somehow to fix it.