Top 10 Manufacturing Supply Chain Predictions
The past five years have brought dramatic change to the manufacturing supply chain — more so, perhaps, than any other five-year period in recent memory. From 2008 to 2011, IDC Manufacturing Insights has identified an annual theme that we felt would drive supply chain activity and IT investment for the year. Even if not all of the detailed predictions for each year under these themes have come to pass, the broad themes have proven to be instructive:
- 2008 — cost centric, but thinking about speed, flexibility, and service
- 2009 — financial crisis and manufacturing slump drive efficiency in assets, inventory … and supply chain modernization
- 2010 — evolving from fixed-cost-driven supply networks to variable-cost value networks
- 2011 — supply chain complexity, balanced with the need to simplify and segment
For 2012, IDC Manufacturing Insights sees a focus on speed and responsiveness across the demand and supply sides of the supply chain to support the intelligent economy. Based on this theme, and conversations IDC Manufacturing Insights has had with technology vendors, consultants, and buyers, here are our 10 predictions for 2012, reflecting a mixture of supply chain, IT, and emerging agenda topics:
- Manufacturers Will Focus on Clock-Speed Alignment Across the Supply and Demand Sides of Their Supply Chains
- The Requirement for Speed and the Ubiquity of Information Will Create a New Landscape for IT Support of the Supply Chain
- Big Data Will Create an Even Bigger Data Quality Problem for Manufacturing Supply Chains
- Supply Chain Organizations Will Rediscover the Need for Differentiation — What Does My Supply Chain Stand For?
- Risk Management Will Mature as a Focus Area for Supply Chain Segmentation
- As Manufacturers Adopt S&OP, Integrated Forecasting Capability Will Facilitate Progress in Responsiveness
- Manufacturers Will Continue to Look at Extended Lead Times as a Source of Cost and Rethink Sourcing Approaches Where Necessary
- Cloud Applications for Supply Chain Will Move from a Total-Cost-of-Ownership Focus to a Total-Value-in-Ownership Focus
- Manufacturing Supply Chain Organizations Will Focus on Fulfillment Excellence as Service Performance Grows in Importance in a Consumer-Centric Marketplace
- Supply Chain Organizations Will Get Serious About New Product Development and Introduction with the Adoption of PLM Tools and a Focus on Clear Internal Business Process
Supply chain organizations have been taking and will continue to take a targeted approach to IT investment priorities and capability development, while attempting to better manage the complexity inherent to their demand and supply structures. It has also become quite clear that companies must find ways to reconcile the cadence mismatches that exist between the supply side (supply complexity) and the demand side (demand volatility) of their supply chains if they are to successfully compete in the intelligent economy.