Manufacturing is getting tougher all the time. Competitive pressures from product innovation, raising labor costs, regulatory burdens and new technologies all conspire to make successful, profitable manufacturing operations more difficult.
At the same time, manufacturers must respond to rapidly changing customer expectations. Buyers increasingly expect customized products, shorter delivery cycles, and more responsive service. These expectations introduce significant operational complexity, especially when companies must focus on managing complex product configurations while maintaining consistent production performance.
Successful manufacturers have learned to compete effectively through a collection of new techniques, technologies, and new methods of execution to attain success. At Cincom, we call this Advanced Manufacturing.
Advanced manufacturing represents a shift in how companies plan, manage, and execute production activities. It is all about keeping your customers’ needs in focus and in the center of your own planning.
What Is Advanced Manufacturing?
Advanced manufacturing is not limited to automation or robotics. Instead, it represents a broader operational approach that integrates digital technologies, flexible production processes, and data-driven decision making to improve manufacturing performance.
Organizations that adopt advanced manufacturing practices typically focus on:
- Improving manufacturing process optimization across production operations
- Supporting the management of complex product configurations
- Aligning sales, engineering, and manufacturing teams
- Strengthening manufacturing margin protection through better cost visibility
- Responding faster to customer-specific product requirements
5 Signs That Your Organization May Need Advanced Manufacturing
How do you know if advanced manufacturing is for you? Here are five signs that advanced manufacturing can help you turn things around.
- Your customers are always interrupting your production planning with special needs and special products.
- Your sales force ignores your product sales goals and sells what they want to sell.
- Your competitors beat you in bid requests because your prospects won’t accept alternative-solution bids.
- Your suppliers frequently fail to meet delivery deadlines.
- Your overhead expenses continue to climb, and your margins are proving to be difficult to maintain.
These situations are more common than many manufacturers realize. In fact, they often appear in organizations that are growing, expanding their product offerings, or responding to evolving customer expectations.
To better understand what these situations mean in practice, it is helpful to look at each one more closely and examine why it occurs and what it reveals about the way manufacturing operations are currently managed.
Turning Manufacturing Challenges into Opportunities
If your company is facing any or all of these situations, the time has come for you to give Advanced Manufacturing a look. First, the good news is that each of these is actually an opportunity and not a failure on the part of your operation. But turning each of these into success will require effort and willingness to change. Let’s look at each one:
- Customers interrupting your production planning with special requests – Are you kidding? This is not a problem, this is a strong vote of confidence in your company and its ability to respond to the customer’s needs. These are the jobs that should get the highest-priority attention and the highest level of scrutiny to ensure that your efforts effectively “hit one out of the park” as far as addressing exactly what the customer wants. Many companies would kill for this business. This is really the business you are in.
- Sales ignores your annual sales goals, selling what they want to sell. Sorry, that doesn’t wash; Sales sells what customers are willing to buy. If you find yourself in this position, it has little to do with Sales ignoring you and everything to do with you being out of touch with your market and what it wants to buy.
- Competitors ace you out of RFQs because your products aren’t accepted as alternatives. Well, there you are again; customers want what they want, not what you think they should have. If you are not even making it to the dance in RFQs, you need to get in touch with your market.
- Your suppliers are failing you. If you are relying on old established traditional relationships to overcome supply-chain challenges, you need to look hard at who your suppliers are. Double or triple redundancy is required. You should be able to source anything you need from different geographies and companies. You can’t afford to be without parts and supplies while the coup is settled, or the hurricane blows itself out in your primary source’s host country.
- You run up higher and higher overhead costs, and you can’t link these to specific causes. The reason why you can’t account for the increased costs is because you run your production operation as if it only makes one thing all year long. You have to see production jobs as projects in order to see where your profit is and where your costs are.
Conclusion
Like many manufacturers, you face these situations on a regular basis. Advanced manufacturing will help you turn these problems into opportunities. By adopting advanced manufacturing practices, companies can improve manufacturing process optimization, strengthen manufacturing margin protection, and respond more effectively to the challenges associated with managing complex product configurations.
Organizations that embrace this approach are better positioned to compete in modern manufacturing markets while building more resilient and customer-focused operations.
FAQs
1. What is advanced manufacturing?
Advanced manufacturing refers to the use of modern technologies, data-driven processes, and improved operational strategies to enhance manufacturing performance.
2. How does advanced manufacturing improve manufacturing process optimization?
Advanced manufacturing improves manufacturing process optimization by integrating production planning, engineering, supply chain management, and sales operations.
3. Why is managing complex product configurations important in manufacturing?
Managing complex product configurations is critical because customers increasingly demand products tailored to their specific requirements. Manufacturers that can efficiently handle multiple product variations can respond faster to customer needs.
4. What challenges do manufacturers face without advanced manufacturing practices?
Without advanced manufacturing practices, organizations often struggle with disconnected processes, inefficient production planning, and limited visibility into operational costs.
5. How can manufacturers begin adopting advanced manufacturing?
Manufacturers can begin adopting advanced manufacturing by evaluating their current operational processes, identifying areas where technology can increase efficiency, and implement systems that support better management of complex product configurations.
