Reinventing Manufacturing

Reinventing Manufacturing
1
Major Drivers of Change
Manufacturing is undergoing a significant transformation
as new technologies begin to enable new consumer
expectations. The resulting wave of change will create
both opportunities and competitive challenges comparable
to those brought about by the invention of the
steam engine and the Internet, and a third industrial
revolution is already being triggered.
Simultaneously, manufacturing is increasingly becoming
a hot topic in both public debate and in private boardrooms.
For the past several years, US policy makers have
been speaking of a manufacturing renaissance, promoting
its potential for increased output and job creation
while looking for ways to attract further investment from
US and foreign manufacturers. As an example, President
Obama’s administration, through its “Make It In
America” campaign, is actively encouraging companies
to move manufacturing from overseas locations back
to the United States, hoping to create more jobs and
increase the country’s international competitiveness.
Manufacturing company executives constantly wrestle
with strategic and interrelated questions that affect
what, where, and how they make their products. Where
should we add capacity? How can we incorporate big
data to improve productivity and customer satisfaction?
Given how quickly products and technologies change,
what is the level of automation that we should employ?
What skill sets should we acquire or develop? To answer
these questions, they increasingly need to look beyond
their immediate activities and take into account the total
picture of forces that impact manufacturing.
Figure 1: Forces Impacting Manufacturing
Source: A.T. Kearney
Seven major forces are driving the global change in
manufacturing.
Consumer Requirements: The prime driver of
change is the ever-rising level of consumer expectations.
The always-connected consumer expects a
highly personalized product available in short order.
Enabled by transformations in online retail and omnichannel
fulfillment, these expectations are rapidly
making their way back upstream to product design.
The same high expectation dynamic is present in
B2B settings.
7