CRITICAL ISSUES

The Adaptive Organization

The increasingly dynamic nature of competition means that manufacturing enterprises must be able not only to quickly sense and respond to change but also to anticipate it. This will require collaborative organizational structures, the use of flexible technologies, and the empowerment of people at all levels of the enterprise to adapt quickly to change.

Global Value Chain Optimization

Most manufacturing plants, organizations, technologies, and people today are nodes in large, complex global supply and demand networks that also include global suppliers, offshore contract manufacturers, partners and customers as an integral part of the supply chain. In order to optimize these networks, manufacturers must construct mutually-beneficial relationships, increase operational visibility, and manage risk.

The Innovative Enterprise

Manufacturing executives can no longer limit their considerable ingenuity just to making the plant or even the supply chain operate more efficiently. If organizations are to respond to accelerating change faster and in a more coordinated fashion, the manufacturing function must also collaborate with all other parts of the enterprise and become a source of innovation for everything from new product development to the delivery of value-added services.

Factories of the Future

Even as complexity increases plants must be able to build the products that are needed, when they are needed, and in the quantities in which they are needed. In order to do that as efficiently as possible, manufacturing executives will need to continuously improve existing organizational structures, production methods, and technologies while also embracing new ones.

Next Generation Leadership and Culture

Transformational changes in the way manufacturing companies operate and deliver value require a new breed of enlightened and adaptive leader who can shape their organizations to respond to rapid market, business, and technological change. Tomorrow’s leaders will need to develop new skills to create the high-performance cultures that will succeed in a world of rising complexity, continuous innovation, global partnership networks, increasingly demanding consumers, and intense, disruptive competition.

The New Work Force

As much of the baby-boomer generation approaches retirement and new manufacturing economies emerge across the world, the industry faces a looming skills gap and the potential loss of vital and valuable industry knowledge. Companies now need to work more closely with academia, trade bodies, governments, and each other to attract, develop, and inspire a new, motivated workforce that can drive industrial change, corporate growth and professional excellence in the years ahead.

The Sustainability Imperative

Growing industry, consumer and legislative demands are challenging every manufacturer to develop more sustainable practices across all aspects of the business -- from operations, to product life cycles, work practices and global supply chains. Companies must continue to develop new sustainability strategies and embrace innovative green manufacturing technologies to be able to survive and profit from the new opportunities of an increasingly environmentally-conscious world.

Game-Changing Technologies

Disruptive technologies will continue to set new standards for the way manufacturing companies innovate, create, source, manage and deliver their products. Today’s revolutionary developments in new materials, advanced production and manufacturing techniques, new process technologies, and powerful information tools like analytics, mobile systems, simulation, cloud computing, and social media need to be fully explored, assessed and appropriately deployed to gain maximum benefit for the future of both individual companies and the industry as a whole.

TECHNOLOGY FORUMS

Manufacturing Execution Systems

If you are trying to get your Manufacturing Execution Systems to integrate with your other systems, or have done it in the past and would like to help others overcome similar challenges, post your questions or ideas in this forum and connect with other manufacturing executives.

Enterprise Resource Planning

Do you have questions or thoughts about how to manage internal and external, tangible assets, financial, material, and human resources? Post your question or idea in this forum and interact with other manufacturing executives.

Wireless Enterprise

Mobility is transforming the way we conduct business. Advances in wireless technology and smart devices are enabling companies of every size to compress information latency and turn location-specific knowledge into an operational advantage. When enabled by affordable and reliable mobile solutions, companies can improve performance in cost control, speed and process quality.

Enterprise Software Selection Support Group

Anyone involved in enterprise software selection can attest to the need for a support group for this activity. Managing a selection project is a challenge, and the stakes in the game of enterprise software are high. From gathering key business requirements from stakeholders, to analyzing which software products fit your business needs, to managing a software selection team, challenges abound. In this group, the team from TechMATCH will share valuable articles and advice to help you make sound business decisions when it comes to ERP, MES, CRM, PLM, busines intelligence, and other software products.

Manufacturing Automation

INDUSTRY FORUMS

CPG

Automotive

High-Tech

NETWORKING FORUMS

Manufacturing Leadership Council (Council Members Only - Click here to learn more)

Summit 2012

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PM100 Awards

Summit 2011

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