Tech-led Trends Transforming Manufacturing

Held annually on the First Friday of October, MFG Day 2021 was officially observed on October 1. The occasion, however, usually extends into a month-long affair, marked by a series of programs and events organized by the Manufacturing Institute, and held throughout October.

These programs and events help showcase emerging career opportunities in modern manufacturing, and promote the skillsets required by those who seek to leverage them.

We believe it is fitting that we spark conversations among stakeholders within our value chain on the latest trends and shifting paradigms in manufacturing in general, and their influence on the production of plastics and plastic derivatives in particular.

The COVID-induced upheavals the world experienced all through 2020, have inevitably dominated the narrative across all facets of human endeavor.

For the manufacturing industry, it has only accelerated what were already growing tech-led trends such as automation, digitization, remote viewing, and analytics – all instrumental in circumventing large-scale disruptions of the type we’ve witnessed in recent times.

The emphasis on automation and digitization has been just as pronounced in PVC manufacturing as it has been across the rest of the manufacturing sector.

Other existing trends that continue to gain prominence in manufacturing in general – but apply equally to vinyl manufacturing too – include measures taken to enhance worker safety and promote environmental sustainability.

But according to a recent Deloitte report entitled 2021 Manufacturing Industry Outlook, this year’s top four sectoral trends, which predictably and overwhelmingly seem to be a direct response to the crippling effect the pandemic has had on manufacturing and read almost like key imperatives for recovery, are as follows:

1. Navigating Disruptions
Solving forecasting challenges using digital technologies that provide greater visibility into pandemic-induced disruptions of the sort we are facing, to effectively navigate them.

2. Increasing Digital Investment
Virtually recreating the product and the production line, and simulating real-world product performance using ‘digital twinning’, to achieve new levels of resilience and flexibility.

3. Building supply-chain resilience
Evaluating and recalibrating our global production footprint and driving digitization to enhance supply-chain visibility, thereby reducing our exposure to trade disruptions

4. Adapting to the new workplace
Re-architecting the way we work and the deployment of the workforce, and adapting to a real-virtual hybrid model, to optimally manage uncertainty and disruption in the workplace.

Click here to access the full report.

You’ll hear more about the megatrends transforming the vinyl industry at this year’s Vinyl360 annual conference.