It seems like overnight, global logistics have become dinner table conversation for the general public – from Ever Given memes to months-long lead times for couches and the dwindling availability of cars due to chip shortages – supply chain issues have pushed their way into mainstream consciousness. But perhaps there’s a silver lining to the completely unprecedented supply and demand upheaval we’re facing today: it could well change not just the way we move goods around the world but how we design them.
Lower View From Large Group Of Containers. (Photo by Oliver Llaneza Hesse/Construction ... [+]
While logistics issues have indeed been around long before COVID-19, the unexpected and unpredictable swings in consumer demand for specific products led to severe capacity strains and congestion in our ports. Meanwhile, rising costs contributed to inflation, weighing heavily on small businesses that were not equipped to absorb price increases or easily pivot to other sources of supply. Addressing these issues starts not with where products are made but how – and there’s mounting pressure to solve this as their effects are felt throughout the global economy.
Building Smarter, Locally
The pandemic (and its ripple effects) has been a wake-up call to manufacturers everywhere that traditional methods of production – which have tended to favor large, centralized factories across the world – are no longer resilient enough to withstand the next wave of supply chain shocks. In light of this, focus is shifting to more of a “localized manufacturing” strategy, supported in part by government regulation such as President Biden’s Made in America initiative, which encourages domestic production of American goods to reinvigorate the local economy while diminishing our reliance on global supply chains.
Made in USA United States.
Moreover, when we optimize for localized production in the product development phase, everyone wins. For manufacturers, it means faster design cycles, and greater flexibility to adjust to market changes during the production phase. For consumers, it means more product variety, more customized products, and shorter delivery times.
Factory employee working with smart automation technology.
It’s no surprise, then, that sourcing for automation equipment is up 137% year-over-year. “Intelligent” and flexible automation is indeed the single best way for manufacturers to quickly stand-up localized production while competing with the economics of globalization. Leveraging adaptable robotics and advanced technology like machine learning, computer vision, and digital twins, intelligent automation creates a layer of visibility and flexibility across the entire manufacturing process – soup to nuts.
The benefits of automation, to this end, are many:
· It decreases the need to use manual labor for highly repetitive assembly tasks – lowering overhead costs and essentially flipping the economics of manufacturing on its head.
· It supports more sustainable business practices by significantly reducing a company’s carbon footprint where it matters: the supply chain.
· It results in more consistent output, fewer defects, less waste, and more substantial ROI for manufacturers overall.
· Finally, it results in better products – products that address customers’ needs, and therefore products that will sell rather than sit on a shelf.
Intelligent Automation for Product Progress
This last point is worth emphasizing – that one of the silver linings of the past 18 months has been the adoption of smart automation to drive the design and production of better products for end consumers.
Engineer showing the design on digital tablet to workers working on factory floor.
As consumers, we often think of manufacturing as a dark, mysterious art – never considering how the nuances of how a product is made can impact our experience with it. But how a product is manufactured is, in fact, directly tied to that product’s quality. Intelligent automation ensures close collaboration between designers and manufacturers, resulting in products that are not only beautiful but functional and more durable. Products that are built geographically closer to the consumer can better reflect the needs and desires of those consumers, while also allowing companies to incorporate their feedback more swiftly into subsequent generations of that product. Flexible assembly also enables greater product customization options, as opposed to the one-size-fits-all product standardization that’s become a defining characteristic of the globalization era.
As counterintuitive as it may seem, product innovation is poised for a post-pandemic renaissance – driven by technology adoption – if manufacturers are willing to seize it. Between spikes in demand, limited capacity, costly expenses, disruptions from geopolitics, weather, and of course the occasional ship stuck in a canal, issues impacting logistics aren’t going away anytime soon. But if manufacturers embrace localized, automated production from the forefront, the industry can transform for the better – and as consumers, we will all ultimately benefit.
