Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2023.  Read them in this 15th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

What Lies Ahead for the Manufacturing Sector in 2023

By Henrik Reif Andersen, co-founder and chief strategy officer, Configit

Predictions are more than a gimmick pulled out and dusted off at the end of each year. Looking ahead helps companies set priorities as they anticipate the market, both in terms of challenges and opportunities. In that spirit, I offer my 2023 predictions for the manufacturing sector.

Sustainability takes on more importance, and manufacturers will build this into their operations.

The push toward greater sustainability will undoubtedly influence how manufacturing is conducted. This is the direction of business, and organizations must prepare for it. As a result, we expect that businesses will keep trying to include more sustainable strategies into their processes. That means more companies will try to integrate sustainable practices into their operations. This has been a struggle so far, but it's something that customers are asking for and need guidance on in terms of how to make sustainable choices. Implementing software that can guide you through this process is key, and we expect to see higher demand for it. 

The digital employee experience will become an integral component in manufacturers' business processes.

When speaking about digitalization, most people automatically think of the customer experience, but it's equally important to consider digital employee experience. 

If you're an employee of a manufacturing company who is responsible for part of the value chain and bringing products to market, then you're most effective if you also have a solid digital experience. Having digital access to the next version of products, what the new features are and what options you can offer to the market creates a better experience for customers in terms of what they are interested in, what they are buying, what you end up delivering and perhaps what went wrong in the process.

The digital employee experience concept is a similar concept to digital customer experience, but from the employee perspective. Manufacturers will put more emphasis on the digital employee experience and make greater strides toward it.

The digital employee experience will play a role in addressing supply chain issues

In the face of disruption, you want to be able to react quickly. If you don't have well-connected systems where you can see the effects of adapting to the changes in the supply chain, then you will have issues. Manufacturers who implement configuration tools will see benefit from a greater customer experience due to their ability to react very quickly and confidently because they know that when they make a change, they will know what the effect will be on downstream systems. The digital employee experience will gain popularity as supply chain issues persist.

Modular architectures will become more common as manufacturers look to capitalize on new technologies seek to maximize the advantages of new technologies.

Companies are looking for platforms for their IT, and the reason for that is rapidly changing technology. How do you reap the benefit of new technologies coming out like 3D visualization, augmented reality and so on, without having to repeatedly reinvest in your IT? 

You need a platform, a solid backbone where you'll have product data and customer data available. As new technologies emerge, a solid platform will make it much faster and cheaper to tap into them and generate value. You need your data in a spot where you can have a shared view on the product data and use it from different channels and access points- getting to this platform thinking will be necessary going forward.  

The acceptance of servitization will grow within this sector.

We're seeing a trend in more and more products being sold as a service. In fact, most of the software we buy, and probably what you use in your company these days, is bought as a subscription, where you pay a monthly fee to get access to it. That's what SaaS is.

We're seeing a similar trend happening with physical products, and we expect this will continue at a faster rate in the coming year.

Prepare for impact

These five predictions have the overarching theme of transformation. Manufacturers will continue to transform their processes for greater sustainability and supply chain stability. The industry will emphasize the digital experience of employees and the as-a-Service model as they seek to transform how work gets done and how it's delivered. Consider how these predictions might affect your business and start planning for their impact now.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Henrik Reif Andersen is the chief strategy officer and co-founder of Configit, the global leader in Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions and a supplier of business-critical software for the configuration of complex products. He holds a doctorate in computer science from the University of Aarhus and has more than 25 years of experience in IT development and research.