In 2019, Manufacturing gets Smarter
Here are five of the most helpful predictions you will see this year on the manufacturing industry.
Manufacturing predictions for 2019 will focus on Internet of Things adoption across the industry, and banks will begin to base loans on quality and output.
Fortunately, manufacturers are investing more in technology, gaining a clearer end-to-end view of their processes and speeding up IT adoption by using DevOps.
Here are my predictions for 2019:
- Scaling the IoT Edge
IoT adoption in 2019 will accelerate as Manufacturers understand not only how to implement but also how to meaningfully scale IoT adoption across the enterprise. Manufacturers will adopt IoT for more use cases as edge analytics capabilities have matured – as the ability to deploy and run complex algorithms on edge devices has significantly advanced.
- Flipping Financing & Sales
With the rise of outcome or usage based cost models, financing for fixed assets like machinery will change dramatically. Instead of loan payments being based on time, payments will increasingly be made based on the income stream generated by a piece of industrial equipment as measured by a sensor, and shared with the bank. Because banks are taking a more interested position in outcomes, this has a very interesting connotation for risk. How many pieces of equipment are needed to generate the same stream of cash as a single, high quality, well working piece of equipment? Manufacturers’ product quality becomes a key finance risk component, more so than ever before. This will also entail a re-alignment of sales forces and accompanying compensation plans along with more investments in CRM systems and their interoperability with IoT Platforms and ERP’s.
- You have to Spend Money to Make Money
Manufacturers will aggressively drive digital advancement – from the shop floor to the top floor – and investment will mirror these desires. This will result in investments in new production technologies, such as connected quality management systems and IIoT, and increasing the connectivity of those systems in the factory and across the manufacturing enterprise.
- Vision with Action can Change the World
Mergers, acquisitions and divestitures have caused portfolios, as well as go to market strategies and value chain activities, to become diverse and difficult to understand. A complete view of executed end-to-end value chain activities becomes paramount to redirect portfolios and maximize value from current and future strategies. With merger, acquisition and divestiture activities, manufacturers will seek to rationalize and redirect their portfolios for a focus on new growth strategies that include products as a service and software. Additionally, manufacturers will leverage this to free up capital to spend more on more R&D and “disruptive” products.
- There are no Speed Limits on the Road to Success
IT will focus on becoming faster in 2019, in order to continue to transform and keep up with business needs, by using a DevOps and digital-first approach. This will also unlock efficiencies and also enable companies to re-envision how they operate altogether. Strong API management will be critical in supporting business initiatives and IT will focus on producing, managing and integrating multiple complex API’s quickly and efficiently.
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