WORKPLACE NOW E-ZINE
WorkPlace Now e-zine

 

The Future – Global Industrial Solutions

This chapter in our series on roadmapping looks at future trends with the potential to impact the global manufacturing industry. Roadmapping predicts future opportunities, trends and new demands that are likely to influence the way manufacturing companies do business.

 

Changes in consumer opinion and behavior, environmental issues and new technologies are having a massive impact on the manufacturing sector. This is matched by internal demand for new ways of working that deliver increased productivity with reduced cost and risk.

 

Our research suggests that there are three trends underlying this shift: individualism, experience society and neoecology. These trends will change the ways that companies in the industrial sector make products, source materials and market what they make.

 

Individualization

There is a growing desire among consumers to be different. This is evident in mass customization, a trend couples the principles of individualism and mass production. It sees volume products and services being offered in such a wide variety of concepts that each customer receives a product that’s tailored to his or her specific desire. Customized denims, smartphones, cars and smart TVs are all good examples of this.

 

The growth in three-dimensional printing is making it possible to produce single, customized items with a low cost to manufacture. This technology alters the way that products are made as it allows single products to be built up layer by layer, rather than created from a block of metal or from a mould. It has the advantage of minimizing waste materials, while enabling the creation of affordable, customized products - for example a pair of shoes specifically designed for someone’s feet, or even an artificial limb or medical implant for a patient.

 

The shift towards mass customization could mean that a giant factory manufacturing on a global scale is replaced by smaller, regionalized plants that deliver to local markets. This will lead manufacturers to seek outsourcing partners that have a comprehensive geographic reach, can deliver consistently, and provide universal metrics.

 

Experience society

Experience society

Consumers now place far more importance on how a brand makes them feel. Demand for ‘experience’ has fundamentally altered the way that consumers interact with products and thereforfe how organizations market to them. For example, to coincide with the Olympic Games in London, MINI opened a pop-up store to present some of its new cars, along with a range of MINI fashion and accessory products. The store had an interactive mirror that invited customers to “virtually” try on the MINI fashion accessories, while a MINI car configurator displayed various versions of the vehicles in three dimensions. Increasingly, workplace design that stimulates the senses will play an even more important role in fostering the consumer’s identification with a product.

 

Neoecology

Sustainability has become part of the mainstream. Corporate social responsibility is high on the political and business agenda.  Companies, consumers and governments are demanding cleaner, cheaper and more sustainable products, as they seek to meet their present needs without compromising future generations.

Increasingly shareholders and consumers favor companies that promote environmentally and socially responsible policies, and companies are prepared to go that extra distance in order to build and protect their reputation. Companies can no longer make products and then forget about them. Increasingly they are considering the ‘eco-impact’ and how their products could be recycled into something new. 

Neo ecology

For example, the washing powder brand Tide, which is part of the Procter & Gamble group, recently teamed up with the agency Leo Burnett in the United Arab Emirates to create the "Smart Bag". This reusable shopping bag can be written on and therefore doubles up as a shopping list. Shoppers simply wash the bag after each use and write on it again next time they go to the shops. With this campaign, Tide is hoping both to promote its product and reduce the country's consumption of more than 20 million plastic bags a year. 

 

There will be a drive for manufacturers to have more environmentally-friendly supply chains and become carbon neutral organizations. Again, this will influence their choice of outsourcing partners.

 

These trends have implications for industry around the world.  They will alter the way manufacturing companies work – how they make things and utilize resources as well as use, interact and manage their production facilities.

Back to top

 

WORKPLACE NOW LINKS
FIND ON THIS PAGE
ROADMAPPING SERIES
ROADMAPPING CONTACT
  • For further information on the Roadmapping project, please email Hannah Hahn. 
Industrial trends
Suppliers Contact Site map Social Media Privacy Terms of use Feedback
© 2013 Johnson Controls. All rights reserved.