Manufacturing technology investments that drive growth

Despite the unique circumstances of the last two years, the main challenges to manufacturing businesses today are much the same as they ever were.

A recent IndustryWeek survey identified growth and profitability (60%), changing customer demands (60%), and competitive pressure (40%) as the top three challenges identified by manufacturing firms.

The rapid shifts we have seen, in terms of customer demand, supply chains, and the costs and availability of parts and materials, has certainly added a new dynamic to the age-old challenges of the manufacturing industry. Manufacturers face greater complexity and urgency than ever before.

Manufacturers in the survey also identified a number of competitive challenges faced across the sector: cost control and maintaining competitive pricing, scaling to meet customer demands, and manufacturing flexibility to meet changing market demands.

Flexibly meeting the demands of customers (both on pricing and on goods), is now a top priority.

And the fastest way to rise to the challenge?

Investment in technology.

With technology investments, manufacturers are able to improve processes, increase visibility across operations, and enhance decision-making.

In fact, 93% of manufacturing executives who took part in the survey are already using technologies as part of their digital transformation – and another 59% plan to implement a technology platform that fully integrates their business systems.

Of course, the next question is:

“Which technologies can have the greatest impact on the business?”

Which manufacturing technology investments drive growth?

Our partner DELMIAWorks have identified four areas that provide the greatest return on investment (ROI) for manufacturers:

Control costs
Improve processes
Increase visibility and collaboration
Enhance decision-making

In order to see growth and successfully overcome today’s challenges, plant floor technology investments must have the most significant impact on your operations. This means investing in technologies, including:

End-to-end visibility – to understand how decisions made on the manufacturing shop floor can impact financial performance
Real-time production and process monitoring – get access to valuable real-time data to improve production efficiency and product quality
Demand-driven scheduling – enable greater flexibility in prioritising and scheduling orders with real-time visibility into shop floor productivity
Real-time reporting and analytics – understand how decisions made across production operations impact profits and get insights to improve shop floor efficiency.

In order to remain competitive, manufacturers must be able to compete on quality and superior customer experiences – while continuing to increase profitability and grow the business

The key technological investment to enable this is in getting applications to share a common database so you can gain end-to-end visibility throughout the business, understand how shop floor decisions drive financial results, and rapidly adapt to changing customer demands and market conditions.

Automated real-time production and process monitoring, demand-driven scheduling, and BI and analytics, also enable manufacturers to be ready to adapt their production, pricing and planning.

Download this whitepaper from our partner DELMIAWorks, reviewing how each of these four categories of technology investment provides the insights to optimise manufacturing operations and strategies, as well as rapidly adapt them as needed.

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DELMIAWorks manufacturing ERP software

DELMIAWorks (formerly IQMS) provides mid-market discrete and process manufacturers with an end-to-end ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) System and real-time production monitoring solution, to improve the efficiency and productivity of your manufacturing business.