After the pandemic period, industries will be facing uncertainty. A lot of changes have shaped the business world to a whole different landscape. Some manufacturing industries will remain relevant such as electric heater production. Others will most likely recover with time and others may close down.
These are the Common Trends in Manufacturing this Year.
Digital Trends
Most industries have progressed with increased digitization of most activities, shifting from human labor to more machine labor in the factories. With uncertainties that have been common this year, most industries have opted for digital production and automation. Most businesses have invested in digital companies where most of the products are digital in nature, these include programs and software, which don’t go bad over time.
Portfolio Optimization
Most companies have faced a lot of hardship in this period, hence have opted to merge main operations that work well with markets and customers to improve output. Some companies that involve themselves with similar activities have turned into acquisitions, shares acquisition, and mergers to improve the quality of output.
Social Responsibility
There have been increased activities by companies to improve the quality of human living standards based on the levels of industries they are involved in. A good example is, during the lockdown period, most sports car makers were involved in the development of the breathing machine to help COVID patients breathe properly.
Companies have also picked up interest in ESG issues. This has led to the cutting down of fossil fuel use in favor of more clean fuel such as electricity and solar energy. Renewable clean energy is expensive at the moment but there are plans to develop better means of getting energy to run factories.
This means companies must fund development and research into new cleaner sources of energy to have environmental sustainability goals, satisfying the needs of the governments with the policies implemented, and getting new technology that they may end up supplying to other competitors for business.
Supply Chain Ecosystem
Most companies have turned to partnerships to improve agility and scalability within their industries. This means most companies are building up ecosystems where companies that need to work together form alliances to help each other in its process of manufacturing. This is done using specific methods.
- Mobilizing partnerships between related companies that have similar business targets while improving on the quality of the product and service produced.
- The leading manufactures are expected to aid and support other manufacturers as they keep growing the ecosystem to improve on the output using the right resources
- Encouraging information sharing to which helps both established and developing manufacturers on new trends that are more efficient and reliable in the long run.
The Other Things that Have Been Noted in the New Trends Are:
Manufacturers are exploring digitization in addressing supply chain weaknesses. This is trying to connect to the consumer directly through the offering of options such as ordering goods and having them delivered. This has also led to better courier services that have goods delivered safer and faster, even across continents.
Manufacturers have also started re-evaluating their business strategies after the long pandemic period. The main priorities are making sure that the businesses stay afloat through the tough economic times. This means most have opted for several options
- Merger with other struggling manufacturers to improve on cost-saving
- Acquiring long term loans to aid on the financial front
- Seeking bailouts from the related governments to ease up on the losses and prevent job losses for the civilians. The bailouts would happen if the government has quantified that the number of people who would lose jobs would be high hence the bailout would be needed to save their livelihoods
Conducting retrenchment and sacking of workers to reduce the amount of money needed to pay the workers. Since most businesses are trying to stay afloat, they do end up laying off most of their workers. This is bad, but then they have to understand what the economic times bring.
Manufacturers are also seeking to manage risks more effectively while having targets of growth to ensure most of the regional hubs expand and bring in profit. This can also include diversification of activities to test out which products work well with customers and which products do not.
There is also the reimagining of global supply chains. Most of the companies around the world have been heavily relying on the eastern bloc countries such as sourcing of electronic parts. The lockdown showed that the disruption in ship movements also limited the supply of parts and goods back to companies.
This has sparked an interest in getting various different suppliers or personally setting up factories to replicate the development of parts to ensure the continued supply of parts to manufacturers. This will have an impact on the original suppliers who will feel their economy might be affected as they lose most of their main customers.
