Five Megatrends of Digital Transformation in Manufacturing

How do you incorporate voice of customers to design customer-oriented manufacturing process?

Until the turn of the century, the manufacturing industry generally focused on developing, mass-producing and unilaterally delivering products. However, the Internet gave customers access to significantly more information about products and wider choices of them. This change led manufacturers, including those engaged in B2B, to incorporate customer feedback more proactively into their product development processes.

We believe manufacturers need to seriously consider building end-to-end digitalized operations and integrating internal and external processes across industries to provide rapid response to changing customer demands in these days.

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Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened both health and economies throughout the world. It has also exposed weaknesses in existing manufacturing operations and manufacturers faced huge challenge in continuity of normal business operations.

Digitalization is now key to creating resilient manufacturing systems that allow manufacturers to react in an uncertain future.

In this page Fujitsu introduces five megatrends and digital transformation in manufacturing as your digital transformation partner.

Fujitsu's vision for the future of manufacturing

No single organization will be able to deliver all the value that customers want. The required value will be created only when suppliers, channel partners and other customer touch points become connected ecosystems. It is not enough to digitalize internal processes and link them with data.

Moreover COVID-19 has highlighted the need to rebuild more distributed supply chains with closer proximity to the market, in order to provide resilience against similar crises in the future.

We expect this approach will eventually enable manufacturing processes to work as integrated systems, delivering fully customized value in a timely manner. It is becoming a business priority for manufacturing companies to actively participate in such data-driven ecosystems, in order to exploit the potential of future manufacturing.

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Five Mega Trends in Manufacturing

How will manufacturing change in the future? Fujitsu has identified five key factors that have huge impact on the industry’s future.

Manufacturing based on the value from experience
Customer needs are rapidly diversified, and customers are increasingly looking for personalized experiences. Manufactures are increasingly using customer feedback so that they can develop a better understanding of their customers by connecting with them on an ongoing basis and creating insights from the data.
Leveraging ecosystems for manufacturing
There are three main categories of companies within an ecosystem. The first category is made up of ‘platformers’. The second category comprises companies that specialize in very specific functions and roles. The third category comprises digital technology companies. Companies in each category need to collaborate to create value that customers want.
Software-driven manufacturing
The value for customers has radically shifted from hardware products to software and digital information. Manufacturers have to embrace open innovation approach by collaborating with a variety of companies, startups and research institutions to realize the value that customers want by using software in a fast-changing market.
Changes in human roles in manufacturing
We have already seen that digital technology and robots are increasingly used to automate manufacturing processes. This could lead to minimizing the scope of people’s work in the entire process. The unique capabilities that only people possess, such as creativity, imagination and empathy, will be in high demand in the future business environment where people and computers will collaborate more extensively.
Contributing to the achievement of SDGs through manufacturing
Manufacturers need to respond to the growing demands of their various stakeholders for sustainable products and services that take social and environmental aspects into account. Manufacturers need to formulate strategy to support the SDGs by exploiting their manufacturing excellence.

Fujitsu will create a sustainable future together with our customers by providing consulting services and platforms through digital transformation and by engaging in environmentally conscious activities. For details, see "Digital Transformation in Manufacturing".

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