manufacturing
Overcoming manufacturing industry challenges with BPM services
Did you hear of the cyber-attack on Norsk Hydro, a large manufacturer of lightweight metal, that cost the business $52 million? Or are you aware of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 in the U.S. to generate clean energy? The manufacturing industry is witnessing an evolving landscape that pressures manufacturers to adapt and reinvent themselves to win market share. The new normal, economic uncertainties and volatile market conditions pose a significant challenge to the manufacturing industry, pivoting to Industry 4.0. From ensuring strict quality control and handling cybersecurity risks to sustainability, the modern manufacturing industry must address multiple challenges.
This article will explain the top challenges of the manufacturing industry and the solutions to handle them.
Top challenges of the manufacturing industry
The modern manufacturing industry focuses on efficiency with flexibility, energy efficiency, and environmental sustainability. Along with these, supply chain advancement, judging consumer needs, economic resilience, and engineering design are crucial factors. However, some fundamental challenges continue to haunt the industry.
Supply chain disruptions
While global industries are just now recovering from the jolting halt of the pandemic, a considerable amount of trade has been suffering due to geopolitical issues as well. We have realised the fragility of the supply chain models. This has delayed deliveries and processing due to a lack of raw materials and stalled production lines running businesses into a loss.
BPM services can help manufacturers mitigate the impact of supply chain disruptions by identifying alternative suppliers, optimising inventory levels, and improving communication with suppliers.
Inflationary pressure
Manufacturers are under constant pressure to reduce costs while maintaining quality. Simultaneously, the costs of many raw materials like oil and metal, among others, have been on the rise. Accommodating the rising supply chain and production costs and ensuring viable margins is a mammoth task. Businesses could lose customers when they cannot profit without raising prices above their competitors.
Streamlining operations and reducing waste could help businesses bridge this gap. Manufacturers can leverage BPM services to pinpoint and eliminate inefficient processes, minimise inventory levels, and boost production efficiency.
Implementing strict quality control
Quality control can be inconsistent and unpredictable without automation and monitoring systems. It can be a labour-intensive task and can severely slow down the manufacturing process if you do not have the necessary systems.
Machine vision scanners learn how the final product should look and use robotics to achieve accuracy, even if the product is in large quantities. Industrial scanners scan the product as it travels down the production line and analyse any flaws. This ensures that you get the best quality product in time.
Innovation
Manufacturers must continuously adapt to changing market requirements to remain competitive. Nearly 49% of manufacturers have delayed the transition to smart manufacturing due to the pandemic. Automation with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) helps manufacturers achieve high quality and efficiency. They can match the production with market demand and reduce wastage to meet technical and environmental standards. *
BPM services can help manufacturers streamline their innovation processes. The manufacturing industry can safely rely on BPM services for innovative business ideas, better collaboration, workflow automation, data analysis, product development and launch, etc.
Compliance and environmental concerns
Manufacturers must comply with several regulations, including environmental, health and safety, and labour laws. BPM services can help manufacturers ensure compliance by automating compliance checks, maintaining accurate records, and monitoring for regulatory changes. Businesses could use BPM services to comply with environmental regulations and stay afloat in an increasingly environment-conscious market. Reliable external BPM partners can help businesses with renewable energy utilisation, carbon neutrality, waste reduction, etc.
Cybersecurity risks
With increased automation using AI, ML, IoT, and robotics, there is a higher risk of cyber-attacks that can disrupt manufacturing and cause financial loss. If you are working with third-party vendors for manufacturing, cybersecurity can be a significant risk that you need to handle. Third-party vendors usually access your company’s systems for operational technology, software, and other product details. This is where hackers find an entry into your systems and network to cause damage.
Your manufacturing automation partner should run a security gap analysis and regulation penetration tests to check security controls. The security policies of the partner and your business should comply with industry standards. With a solid cybersecurity strategy, next-generation firewalls, endpoint security tools, and virtual private networks (VPNs), you can authorise who accesses the data within the company.
How can Infosys BPM help?
Infosys BPM aligns your manufacturing bpo services with Industry 4.0, the evolution towards digitisation. The end-to-end business solutions develop new service offerings through business strategy, organisational strategy, and organisational change management.
Read more about the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry at Infosys BPM.
* For organisations on the digital transformation journey, agility is key in responding to a rapidly changing technology and business landscape. Now more than ever, it is crucial to deliver and exceed organisational expectations with a robust digital mindset backed by innovation. Enabling businesses to sense, learn, respond, and evolve like living organisms will be imperative for business excellence. A comprehensive yet modular suite of services is doing precisely that. Equipping organisations with intuitive decision-making automatically at scale, actionable insights based on real-time solutions, anytime/anywhere experience, and in-depth data visibility across functions leading to hyper-productivity, Live Enterprise is building connected organisations that are innovating collaboratively for the future.
