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They are letting technology serve as a catalyst for innovation, and, more dramatically stated, are changing the ways of life.
For us at Protolabs, the business lesson is to never get comfortable; be restless in your pursuit to push your company, and your industry, to greater technological heights.
Manufacturing industry has traditionally been dominated by hardware and manual processes. Software programming, automation and analytics have changed that. Manufacturers that don’t harness this technology will struggle to compete.
The combined efforts of industrial digitalisation equate to what has been dubbed Manufacturing 4.0. Engineers, product designers or company executives may wonder where Manufacturing 4.0 will lead. Well, most likely it will be the accomplishment of meeting large-scale trends that are disrupting traditional growth models, such as the transition we’re seeing in the European aerospace industry. Resulting partly from the challenges thrown up by the coronavirus, innovators are seeking new ways to reshape the industry, most notably in ‘low space’, where drone development could help mitigate problems we face as a result of infectious disease. According to Protolabs’ recent aerospace report, Horizon Shift, 50% of business leaders within the aerospace sector see drones as becoming commonplace within three years, which represents a dramatic change. The agility of Manufacturing 4.0 will help supply this new reality of demand.
Customers want on-demand products and services tailored to their needs. And the companies that supply – from consumer products and medical devices to automated vehicles such as drones that would deliver – they must thrive in this environment.
But how can they thrive? By shortening product life cycles, through personalisation and mass customisation, by building in marketplace agility beyond launch with a high-mix, low-volume product ratio. How do companies achieve that? Digital manufacturing of on-demand parts.
Shortened life cycles
The first macro trend is the fact that product life cycles are shrinking. In parallel, new product introductions (NPIs) are growing. These two are intrinsically tied together. With near instant access to market feedback, design and engineering teams can respond to what the market is telling them. More so, they can have physical products of design iterations in their hands in a few days, and subsequently reintroduce product updates to the market quickly. And it’s not just small modifications to existing products, it’s entirely new products being developed. Iteration leads to innovation, and an on-demand supply chain supports that.
Mass customisation
People want customised, personalised experiences but to do that your company has to be agile, and its suppliers need to be equally as agile. I’ll use medical and health care development as an example. Customisation in orthopaedics, spine, and patient-specific devices aligned to individual conditions are creating new market opportunities and bettering patient outcomes at the same time. And hearing aid technology can now be moulded to the custom shape of your ear to improve in-ear comfort. We saw the second industrial revolution defined by mass production, but we’re seeing mass customisation as a driver of the fourth revolution.
Responsive supply chain
This centres around safeguarding your supply chain after you’ve launched a product. One way to do that is with a high-mix, low-volume product ratio. If market demand decreases for one product line, you’re left with minimal overhead costs with the added bonus of not having to warehouse millions of stocked units. On the other spectrum of market volatility, if demand spikes for a product, a responsive supply chain with low-volume capabilities can quickly run more parts to satisfy demand. It’s like you have a virtual inventory of parts that can help shrink supply chain risk and costs.
What does it all mean? For companies and manufacturers alike, the challenge is to grow revenue. To do that, you can’t ignore the market trends, and you can’t ignore the technology that is going to help you address those market trends so new revenue streams can be unlocked.
The market opportunity in every corner of the industrial sector still exists – whether you’re developing cutting-edge medical technology or version updates on delivery drones. To capture this, companies and the manufacturers that partner with them must challenge themselves to disrupt antiquated business models by digitalising their processes. Amazon did that, as did Lyft, Uber, Spotify and Netflix. As products and services become increasingly on-demand, it’s those that can keep up that will survive.
Find out more at protolabs.co.uk
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.