Are our current set of managers up to the job?
I did an interview with Lord Bhattacharyya, of Warwick Manufacturing Group, a few weeks back and he was fiercely critical of the standard of bosses in the 1970s and 80s. But he was hugely complimentary of those currently running Jaguar and Land Rover.
And indeed big progress has been made. Sadly though there are still poor managers around.
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Last week I was chatting to a particularly well-respected manufacturing contact and he was bemoaning the state of affairs at Metalrax.
Metalrax is a mess.
Indeed the Birmingham-based engineering group recently relegated itself from the London Stock Exchange's main list to the Alternative Investment Market to reflect its smaller market capitalisation.
Its shares are languishing.
The company plans to dispose of poorly performing high volume automotive components businesses and focus on new hi-tech markets with higher margins.
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My source was utterly scathing of the way previous managements have run the group. He was particularly critical of its handling of the Bacol Fine Blanking business, which had customers such as Land Rover and General Motors, and has now been sold to Rical.
There are still one or two excellent blanking operations in the Midlands, said my man. If they could succeed, then why not Bacol?
Trouble is it had been allowed to drift too far and, he agreed, there was latterly no choice but for Metalrax to get rid of it.
He damns new chief executive Andrew Richardson with faint praise.
"He is a one-eyed man in the land of the blind," declared my source. But that was perhaps a bit strong because he believes Mr Richardson is on the right lines in sorting out the company.
But a measure of the previous top line strength was clear when five senior managers were cleared out of Metalrax soon after Mr Richardson took charge on October 15 last year.
He still has a big job to do.
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Next on the block will be the group's operations in Romania, after Mr Richardson decided to reverse the previous management's strategy of moving production to the low-cost country.
And indeed something has to be done. The group posted pre-tax profits before exceptional items of £2.26 million for the year to December 31, compared with £6.5 million a year earlier.
Mr Richardson, who used to work for MG Rover, noted recently that a lot of Metalrax businesses were "the traditional low-tech metal bashing which Birmingham used to be famous for".
And he added: "Unfortunately we have been overtaken by other countries and they can do this far better than us."
True to an extent.
But had Metalrax got to grips with such issues properly years ago there wouldn't be the depth of problems now.
There really is little excuse these days for poor management.
There is lots of help around particularly in manufacturing - Accelerate and the Manufacturing Advisory Service, for example.
Managers should not fear their limitations. They should put their hand up and ask teacher for help.