Manufacturing’s 6 biggest challenges & how digitalization can be a solution

Feb 28, 2023

There are many challenges facing manufacturing companies today. Here are 6 of the biggest, and how digitalization can be used as a solution.

1. High costs

There is often great pressure to contain costs in order to increase the profitability of production. This is a challenge in many places, as they have to balance keeping costs down while investing in technology and equipment to increase efficiency and quality in production.

2. Competitiveness

As a manufacturing company, you often face strong competition from companies both at home and abroad. A lack of development in production can make it difficult to maintain a good market position and remain competitive.

Manufacturing
Manufacturing challenges and digitalisation as a solution

3. Demand

It can often be difficult to predict the demand for your own products, and therefore to plan your production, and this can lead to both surplus and deficit on the bottom line. This can be particularly challenging as manufacturing companies often need to invest in large amounts of raw materials and equipment prior to production.

4. Recruitment and retention of staff

The employee is one of the most important factors when it comes to keeping a production efficient. But it can be difficult for companies to recruit and retain skilled staff, as there is often pressure to keep wages down.

5. Sustainability

There is an increasing focus on sustainability and manufacturing companies are therefore facing pressure to reduce their impact on the environment. This can be a challenge as it may require investment in new technology and changes in production processes.

6. Adaptive production

In production companies, they’re often faced with changes in customers’ needs and therefore the products, for which production machines and employees must be ready to adapt. With non-digital solutions, manual changeover can often delay the process in production, and often leads to red figures on the bottom line.

Blog posts about the manufacturing industry

Digitalization as a solution

If you recognise any of the above 6 challenges in production, here is an explanation of how digitisation can be used as a solution.

One of the most promising solutions for manufacturing companies is the conversion to digital. By harnessing the power of technology, manufacturing companies can improve their process, reduce costs and increase efficiency. Digitalisation can help manufacturing companies improve their accuracy in production planning, forecasting and tracking production in real time. This can lead to a reduction in waste and downtime and an increase in production speed and quality.

In addition, digitalisation can help communication and collaboration across production, facilitating dealers and customers, as well as improving traceability and visibility in production.

The digitisation of production will also make a difference to competitiveness by being a tool for new business models, such as customization of processes, which was never possible in a traditional production.

If you’re in manufacturing and want to be more competitive, it’s worth considering digitalisation in production.

Trendlog.io is a member of the Food & Bio Cluster, which writes interesting blog posts about, for example, digitalisation as a solution to production’s biggest challenges. Read more here.

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