Report uncovers infrastructural change required to drive digital transformation

Posted on 21 Sep 2022 by The Manufacturer
Partner Content

Priority, a cloud-based business management software provider, partnered with an independent survey company, Global Surveyz, and conducted a survey on how digital transformation is faring in the industrial manufacturing sector. The results are presented in a survey report that addresses the Key Challenges in the Manufacturing Process to help manufacturers gain insight into the digital foundations required to support digital advancement sustained through data-driven decision-making.

As the pandemic’s effects linger, and the economic outlook worsens with the threat of global recession, disruption in business operations becomes a dominant and permanent component of the new reality.

For many manufacturing businesses, the pandemic has been a wake-up call. Organisations started to realise that their tools were insufficient to face today’s global economy and had to reinvent themselves and implement digital applications to manage their business from a distance.

In today’s Supply chain industry, manufacturing, in particular, it is fair to say that the challenges outnumber the solutions. From dramatic cost increases, product shortages, fluctuating consumer behaviours, and mounting competition to the quest to become more flexible while minimising costs and maximising growth.

As today’s most manufacturing business operations lack the resilience to withstand disruptions, the world economic outlook made businesses realise their current systems are no longer sufficient when dealing with demand and supply variability. The realisation that accessing the entire network from a single, unified platform that shows a real-time overview of potential and actual disruptions is imperative, made manufacturers realise that they had to redesign processes and systems to survive and grow.

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Methodology

Priority Software decided to launch the 2022 Digital Transformation in Industrial Manufacturing survey to uncover the actual status of manufacturing companies’ digital transformation and help manufacturers explore how they can future-proof their organisation. Priority surveyed 300 C-suite executives in manufacturing companies working in Western Europe and North America.

The survey examines the average budget investment in ERP systems, conducts a digital tools benchmark, and reviews the necessary infrastructural change required to address these challenges and prepare the organisation for a future of disruption and aggressive competition. It covers many aspects of manufacturing capabilities and processes, including ERP flexibility, scalability and agility, the importance of real-time data, the use of mobile devices, and more.



The survey key findings

The survey reveals that a whopping 96% of today’s manufacturing leaders are experiencing challenges in the manufacturing processes, including limited planning capabilities and flexibility and time and resource-consuming manual processes.

Failure to address these challenges could lead to communication breakdowns, slow cash flow and operations, and the inability to meet aggressive time-to-market requirements.

The survey also showed that an open and connected ERP system is crucial to achieving innovation and growth. Without an open ERP system, data and processes exist in a silo, and business growth and innovation are stunted. Flexibility, agility, and scalability are essential components for ensuring a connected digital processes ecosystem to support various needs across the business, including fast response to market changes.

The ability to analyse, share and collaborate enables businesses to respond better to market conditions, improve strategic business management and ensure process synchronisation between different stakeholders.

Another aspect covered by the survey report is mobile ERP.

While Mobile ERP technology is still in its infancy, it is becoming an indispensable part of the production process for manufacturing leaders. The future of manufacturing is a connected factory where all elements can communicate, facilitating enhanced visibility and control. Mobile ERP functionalities allow manufacturers to insert, access and analyse data using mobile devices instead of workstations. By observing the adoption rates of mobile applications for a wide range of processes across the manufacturing industry, we can see that mobile technology will become a critical factor in accelerating the industrial digital revolution.

Sagive Greenspan, Priority CEO, shared: “We are witnessing the dawn of a new era in industrial manufacturing. Digital transformation creates smart factories. Most manufacturing companies in highly developed territories have implemented or are implementing new innovative technologies. However, this survey shows that many manufacturing companies are still in their infancy in terms of digital transformation with plenty of room for growth.

To stay relevant and competitive in a constantly changing landscape, companies must implement a network that powers predictive analytics, allowing them to draw on all available planning and performance data throughout the network to help them make better decisions and achieve resilience, continuity, and operational readiness.

Businesses must deploy a disruptive, network-based technology architecture that provides a single point of truth for all trading stakeholders’ ecosystems. With the power of network technology and open system architecture, organisations can create new, substantial roles that engage in collaborative problem solving – only then can disruptions be observed as they’re happening and quickly and proactively responded to.

As I see it, embracing an interconnected resource planning platform (rather than software) is the only way to overcome the challenges. Only by gathering all trading partners into a consolidated ecosystem, from tier 2 and 3 suppliers to end-consumers, and matching supply with real-time demand, companies could deliver suitable products at the right time while maintaining high customer service levels at the least landed cost.”

To learn more about companies’ ERP budget planning, faced challenges, market benchmarks, and more, download the full report here.