1. The manufacturing sector is undergoing a technological and sustainable revolution. Industry 4.0 technologies like AI, IoT, and digital twins are enhancing efficiency, resource optimization, and eco-friendly practices.
2. By 2025, software innovations will focus on carbon neutrality, energy efficiency, and cloud solutions, significantly reducing environmental impacts. AI drives smart production, while IoT transforms production lines into intelligent systems.
3. Decentralized manufacturing and microfactories increase supply chain agility, despite challenges. The electrification of vehicle fleets and the integration of digital ecosystems in cars highlight mobility sector trends. However, manufacturers must address cybersecurity and balance cost-efficiency with innovation to adapt to global challenges
4. Here are FORBES and Forrester’s prediction for manufacturing in 2025
FORBES’ 2025 PREDICTIONS : THE FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING
1. The manufacturing industry is entering a new era of transformation, driven by technological advancements and the need for greater adaptability. As businesses face evolving global challenges, software innovation is reshaping traditional processes, creating opportunities for enhanced efficiency, sustainability and resilience.
2. Sustainability in manufacturing is no longer limited to physical processes; software plays a pivotal role in driving eco-friendly practices. In 2025, the focus will be on developing and deploying software solutions that help manufacturers achieve carbon neutrality, reduce waste and optimize energy consumption.
3. Sustainability in manufacturing is no longer limited to physical processes; software plays a pivotal role in driving eco-friendly practices. In 2025, the focus will be on developing and deploying software solutions that help manufacturers achieve carbon neutrality, reduce waste and optimize energy consumption.
4. Cloud infrastructure is another great example of the potential of green software engineering. Accenture’s research suggests that the carbon impact of migrating to the public cloud could be equivalent to taking 22 million cars off the road. Thus, embracing cloud solutions enables manufacturers to greatly lower their environmental impact while optimizing data storage and processing, contributing to a more sustainable future.
5. Additionally, Gartner predicts that by 2027, 30% of large global enterprises will include software sustainability in their non-functional requirements, up from less than 10% in 2024. This shift reflects a growing recognition of the role that software can play in achieving broader environmental goals.
6. For example, digital twins—virtual replicas of physical assets, systems or processes—are becoming more common. These digital models allow manufacturers to simulate and analyze their operations in real time, testing new approaches and optimizing processes before making changes on the factory floor. By doing so, they can reduce resource consumption, minimize waste and make more sustainable, data-driven decisions.
7. AI Powering Innovation And Growth In Manufacturing - AI is transforming the manufacturing industry, with 93% of manufacturers acknowledging that AI will be a pivotal technology driving growth and innovation in 2025, according to a Deloitte survey. AI is being applied in various areas, including smart production, product and service enhancements and business model decision making. Currently, smart production accounts for 51% of AI deployments in manufacturing, as companies leverage the technology to automate workflows, improve quality control and reduce downtime.
8. Around the world, countries are embracing AI with different strategies. For example, many Japanese companies have outlined a phased development plan to integrate data-powered AI across industries, promote its adoption among the public and ultimately create a connected AI ecosystem across multiple sectors. This global embrace highlights the potential of AI to revolutionize the manufacturing sector for good.
9. IoT Paving The Way For Smarter, More Connected Manufacturing - As we enter the next phase of the digital revolution, the rise of IoT in manufacturing is transforming production lines into intelligent, responsive systems that can automate processes, optimize resource use and enhance overall efficiency.
10. For many manufacturers, IoT is no longer just a concept—it’s already reshaping the way they operate. Take Airbus as an example; they use IoT tracking to monitor critical assets during production, creating digital twins for real-time visibility across locations in France, Germany and the U.K. This technology helps eliminate blind spots, manage delays and track tools with precision, helping to improve inventory management and overall efficiency.
11. In 2025, digital factories will become the backbone for innovation initiatives, with 67% of industrial manufacturers already in the midst of such transformation. For manufacturers to fully embrace smart manufacturing, however, they’ll need to bridge the gap between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) systems. The integration is critical for benefiting from the full potential of these technologies, but it also expands the potential for cyber threats. As more devices become interconnected, protecting them from security breaches needs to be a top priority.
12. Decentralized Manufacturing: Increasing Agility And Resilience - Faced with inflationary pressures, geopolitical tensions and rising ESG concerns, manufacturers are increasingly turning to decentralized manufacturing to strengthen supply chains. By distributing production across multiple locations, companies can reduce transportation costs, respond faster to local market demands and increase supply chain resilience.
13. Microfactories—small, adaptable production units—are becoming more and more common and with wider applications. For example, an electric vehicle manufacturer can implement microfactories to produce vehicles closer to key markets, cutting logistics costs and improving responsiveness. However, decentralization comes with challenges, including the complexity of coordinating multiple production sites and balancing standardization with local customization.
14. Despite that, however, Industry 4.0 technologies like AI, IoT and 3D printing are making decentralized manufacturing more accessible by improving transparency, efficiency and risk management. While not without hurdles, early adopters of decentralized manufacturing can work to better ensure they're prepared, leveraging cutting-edge technologies to create more agile and responsive production models.
FORRESTER’S 2025 PREDICTIONS: SMART MANUFACTURING AND MOBILITY FIRMS ADAPT WITH TECH
1. Asset-intensive industries like manufacturing and transportation quickly feel the pain when energy prices rise, raw materials are harder to access, or borrowing money for capital projects becomes more expensive. They were hit by all of those and more in 2024, forcing leaders to focus even more than usual on managing costs and improving efficiency. In the mobility sector, the seemingly inevitable transition from fossil fuels to electrification slowed in many countries, as a combination of declining subsidies, high up-front costs, patchy infrastructure, and looming tariffs made buyers pause.
2. We don’t anticipate any dramatic improvement in the global macroeconomic situation in 2025, but we see plenty of opportunity for leaders across manufacturing and mobility to use technology to adapt to the tricky environment in which they and their customers find themselves. For 2025, we predict that:
3. Over 25% of big last-mile service and delivery fleets in Europe will be electric. It’s hard to miss frequent headlines about a dramatic fall in sales of electric vehicles during 2024, especially in Germany and some other European countries. There’s a lot to unpack about the short- and longer-term trends at play, but this wobble in the car market masks a good news story in the electrification of larger fleets of small vans. One-third of DPD’s last-mile fleet in the UK is fully electric, rising to 90% in cities like London. UK energy company British Gas aims to electrify its entire van fleet in 2025. Amazon operates more than 1,000 electric vans in Germany (and over 15,000 in the US). Across the continent, parcel delivery firms, utility companies, and local governments operating large fleets of small vans over relatively short distances see electrification as an opportunity to manage costs while lowering carbon emissions.
4. Less than 5% of the robots entering factories and warehouses will walk. Investors, analysts, journalists, bloggers, and random sci-fi fans just love geeking out about robots that walk, but the compelling use cases for their legs are less common — or obvious — than most of these individuals believe. ANYbotics and Boston Dynamics offer four-legged robotic dogs for inspection, safety, and mapping use cases; Agility Robotics’ bipedal robots can be seen in some Amazon warehouses; and Boston Dynamics, Figure, and Tesla have all tested their humanoid robots in automotive plants. These robots have a wow factor, but they may not have the best form factor for addressing industry’s dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks. We should all focus more on the task we’re trying to complete and less on how cool the robots look.
5. A major carmaker will make significant cuts to its digital team. The automotive sector is struggling to cope with electrification, fast-moving new entrants to the market, and the rise of the “software-defined vehicle,” which more tightly integrates hardware and software within the car. Established carmakers invested billions of dollars in building digital practices that were meant to help transform 20th-century excellence in physical engineering into 21st-century excellence in digital engineering. On balance, it’s not going particularly well. General Motors announced plans to cut 1,000 employees from its software and services division this year, and its competitors are likely to follow suit. Cars are becoming more connected and more digital, and they’re able to add new features with over-the-air updates. Ecosystems underpin the future of mobility, and today’s carmakers must adapt to a future in which they might not create — or even control — the digital experiences within their cars.
Source:
https://www.forrester.com/blogs/predictions-2025-smart-manufacturing/
https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2024/11/14/the-future-of-manufacturing-technology-trends-for-2025-and-beyond/
