Manufacturing predictions for 2022 from OpenText, IFS, & Themanufacturer.
IFS's PREDICTION
1. Prediction 1: 65% of Manufacturing companies will move to a single instance - Software and applications are developing and improving at a rapid rate – with the speed of change increasing, so is the threat of malicious attacks. Organizations must constantly maintain and update their security.
2. Naturally manufacturers want the latest features and enhancements to stay competitive. But with so many software platforms involved in running the business, this is complex, labour intensive and costly – making it difficult to adhere to a ‘Best of Breed’ approach to business systems.
3. Manufacturers should look for providers and partners who can offer a solution for all their business processes in one place, with security updates and innovation embedded into the core product. Having users in one database simplifies control of permissions and access. Improved system security is one of the main advantages of cloud computing.
4. Prediction 2: 40% of Manufacturing companies will connect to production machines and critical systems- Manufacturers know that their production machines and systems generate vast quantities of data. But creating a “single source of the truth”, so they can access, interpret, and make informed business decisions, remains a serious challenge.
5. Working with solution providers who can help join up the disparate systems will be key. Next year more manufacturers will be linking manufacturing machines and connected tools into their business systems, so they’ll be able analyze the data within their business solution software. This will give parts of the business access to machine data that they couldn’t see before. Robot orders increasing 67% in Q2 2021 is an indication that connectivity to productions machines is high on manufacturers’ agenda.
6. Prediction 3: 50% of Manufacturing companies will move away from “just in time” to remain agile - The supply chain has been hit hard and manufacturers who relied on critical single sourced raw materials have been forced to change their business models to cope and remain in business.
7. If they’re working to Just in Time (JIT), they’ll have to consider buffering inventory critical components to cover erratic supply. This must be done carefully as the size of the buffer needs to move with forecast and demand, to minimize the impact on cashflow where margins are tight.
8. The use of safety stocks and reorder point planning are now not flexible enough to cope, so manufacturers will need more advanced calculations based on predicted demand and proven capacity. Manufacturers need to look at their supply chains to make them more resilient with all the tools they have at their disposal.
9. Prediction 4: 80% of Manufacturers will reduce their dependence on long-haul container shipping - The once fast, efficient, reliable and cheap shipping network (accounting for 90% of global trade, 70% of it in containers) was thrown into disarray in 2021. This led to “container-geddon” pushing freight rates to a record high and prompting some exporters to raise prices or simply cancel shipments altogether.
10 In 2022 manufacturers will look for greater diversity and flexibility in supplier partnerships, as well as where, and perhaps more importantly, how they source materials, goods and services.
11. In food and beverage, we’ll see manufacturers focus on building stronger relationships with more local suppliers and those specializing in fresh foods, where shelf-life is particularly short, will invest in small-print vertical farming.
12. Prediction 5: 60% of Manufacturers will prioritize carbon footprint reduction as part of their overall sustainability efforts and speed up their reporting capabilities - 2022 will be the year of decarbonization and sustainability will gain a new sense of urgency. Regulatory pressures, customers’ demands, investors and other stakeholders have forced sustainability to the top of business priorities and made it an operating principle going forward.
13. Governments and the financial community are making significant investments into combatting climate change – The European Commission for instance, has set a ‘net zero emission by 2050’ goal, putting legally binding pressure on companies to reduce their carbon footprint.
14. One thing is for sure, sustainability will require measurability, both up and downstream, and manufacturers will need to leverage technology strategically, to not only drive end-to-end data transparency, but also report on it as and when needed.
15. Prediction 6: 70% of Manufacturers will regain control of their forecasting, building on 2020 and 2021 data, and increase their resilience - Some manufacturers think that 2020 and 2021 data is too skewed to be of much use in 2022. If they struggled during that period, they might consider ignoring it and argue that it was simply too “random” to include.
16. Conversely if they saw orders skyrocket (as in food & beverage) they may choose to disregard the unusual data patterns, so they don’t produce overly optimistic, and therefore unreliable forecasts for the upcoming 18 to 24 months.
OPENTEXT'S PREDICTION
1. Manufacturing in the time of pandemic - Almost two years into the pandemic, the manufacturing industry has undergone significant disruption and transformation. This is especially true when it comes to the workforce. 2021 saw employees return to the workplace in major numbers but manufacturers have to work especially hard to make this a safe environment where employees want to spend time.
2. Initial ‘return to work playbooks’ are morphing into living documents that set out new forms of working and enforcing worker safety and health. Like the pandemic, the future of work in manufacturing is constantly evolving and adapting; playbooks become an excellent foundation for managing this constant change.
3. Supply chain woes are far from over - The continued disruptions and product shortages throughout 2021 have shown there is still some way to go for manufacturers to build the adaptive and resilient supply chains they need. For example, the global chip shortage saw car production fall by 40% or more. Creating a digital ecosystem that allows manufacturers to build a diverse community of suppliers and partners worldwide is a priority.
4. IDC suggests that by 2024, 50% of industrial manufacturing organizations will have invested in B2B digital commerce. Responding to the pandemic, manufacturers look to further streamline operations. Accounting processes are a focus for digitization, according to a recent survey. Manufacturers will look to e-Invoicing platforms, such as Compliant e-Invoicing for Global Manufacturing from OpenText, to trade effectively with partners around the world.
5. IIoT drives track and trace capabilities - The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated adoption of the Industrial Internet of things (IIoT). Manufacturers are looking to IIoT to track and improve production efficiency, product quality and business agility.
6. Asset track and trace is the fastest growing IIoT market, with research predicting more than 260 million IoT-enabled asset tracking devices will be deployed globally by 2027. In the next 12 months, manufacturers will look to IIoT-driven asset track and trace to ensure inventory is optimized at every stage of production.
7. The future of work is hybrid - In 2020 and 2021, manufacturers rapidly increased their investments in remote working. As workers return on-site in 2022, the flexibility and productivity gains from remote working will become a normal part of a hybrid approach with employees spreading their time between the shop floor and offsite.
8. In terms of technology, this means moving past collaborative tools to ensuring the information is securely provided to the right people at the right time. At the same time, the ‘great resignation’ has left manufacturers racing to fill skills gaps across their business. Focusing on the digital technologies that enrich the employee experience as well as automate many mundane tasks will be increasingly important.
9. Sustainability hits the top of the agenda - It’s difficult to say that manufacturers have not taken sustainability seriously, but perhaps they have not given it the full attention it deserves. This picture is changing quickly.
10. A survey from the Manufacturers Leadership Council found that 87% of respondents thought manufacturing had a special responsibility to society to change and 72% felt sustainability was essential or extremely important for future growth. The manufacturers surveyed felt that they were making good progress, but their supply chains and logistics lagged behind.
THEMANUFACTURER'S PREDICTION
1. Manufacturers will ramp up digital initiatives as remote working becomes the norm - “While some discrete manufacturers initially regarded remote working as a short-term reaction to the pandemic, this year it will become a more permanent shift. Having found a way to make distributed workforce structures succeed, and with it being impossible to ignore the risk of further social distancing measures being reintroduced at short notice. An increasing number of manufacturers will invest in new solutions to work this way in 2022.
2. “Remote-first operations empowers manufacturers to utilise a localised, less skilled workforce that can perform a wider scope of tasks under the remote guidance of trained professionals, helping to address the acute labour shortage facing manufacturers, among many other organisations.
3. Cloud adoption will unlock expanded access to analytics – driving a revolution in smarter decision support by manufacturers - “2022 will be the year discrete manufacturers start to unleash the full power of analytics. To date, some have been using analytics for quality inspection and security use cases, but it will increasingly be used across key areas of operations, such as overall production performance, customer experience, product traceability, and safety programs.
4. The pursuit of becoming a ‘digital-first’ enterprise will drive further cloud adoption - “Cloud in all its permutations will continue to play an ever greater, and even more dominant role as manufacturers pivot to a digital-first economy. Digital enablement is now a permanent, yet dynamic fixture in our world, particularly the manufacturing industry where it is helping to drive Industry 4.0 transformation in many ways.
5. This transformation can offload data centre costs, ease systems integration, and provide a cost-effective approach to scaling resources and infrastructure requirements. When some or all a company’s workforce is working remotely, supporting customers working from anywhere, the importance of your software being hosted locally in a corporate data centre matters less.
6. “The desire to become a ‘digital-first’ enterprise is increasingly sought after by smaller manufacturers that previously might not have considered robust operations management systems as part of an Industry 4.0 strategy. New cost saving breakthroughs are occurring that has lowered the entry cost of such programs, helping to accelerate adoption.”
Source:
https://blog.ifs.com/2022/01/industry-predictions-2022-manufacturing/
https://blogs.opentext.com/top-predictions-for-the-manufacturing-industry-in-2022/
https://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/manufacturing-predictions-for-2022/
