For manufacturers around the world, the future is one of global customers, global networks, and the potential to source from the best companies, the best technologies, and the best skills from on a global basis.
It will be driven by customer needs and innovation. It will be built on sophisticated technologies with powerful capabilities to revolutionize products, businesses, and production processes. It will require greater and greater degrees of flexibility and precision. And, it will need new knowledge and highly skilled people to make it work. It is impossible to foresee all the changes that will characterize manufacturing in the future, but many trends are already apparent and technological capabilities already exist.
Manufacturers will restructure their operations, production systems, and supply chains to serve global customers.
They will continue to move where the money is – to the rapidly expanding markets of emerging economies. But, production and services will become more integrated worldwide to take advantage of the best in terms of skills, technologies, and cost structures, allowing companies to boost their profit margins while offering customers higher value at lower price. E-business technologies will allow manufacturers to connect anywhere at anytime with customers around the world. And, the world of manufacturing itself will be characterized by global operations, global competition, global business networks, and competing global supply chains. We are already well on the way there.
The real value created in the business of manufacturing will reside less in production processes – which will become more and more highly automated – and more in those knowledge-intensive activities associated with product research and development, design, modification, and service.
For manufacturers, the money will be made in knowledge capture. It will depend on their ability to control intellectual property, anticipate customer requirements, and design innovative solutions to meet their needs.
Manufacturers will continue to compete on delivering customer value at lower and lower costs.
That will require individual products to be designed and manufactured for individual customers to meet individual needs. Competitive advantage will be determined by production to individual specifications. But, competitive cost structures will have to be put in place in order to ensure that customization is commercially feasible. The ultimate goal will be the competitive batch of one.