Alan Alper, online editor of Managing Automation, provides the six key disciplines of “Progressive Manufacturing.” He posits that overhauls are needed to help domestic manufacturers thrive. Basically, the industry must reinvent itself.

U.S. manufacturers of all types and sizes across every industry segment are facing challenges greater than ever before. The seismic forces of globalization, outsourcing and off-shoring have converged, shaking the economic pillars upon which the manufacturing industry was built and has operated for the last 50 years.

No industry segment is immune. To remain competitive in this decade and beyond, manufacturers must transform themselves into sleek, high-performance, process-driven machines.

Realizing that long-overdue regulatory overhauls are needed to help domestic manufacturers contend with significant structural cost disadvantages (i.e., additional tax relief for retooling and retraining the workforce; meaningful trade policy reforms; and an energy policy that provides incentives for conservation and the development of new power sources), the industry must essentially reinvent itself. This means identifying information and plant systems technologies and implementation strategies that can support or advance cost cutting and more innovative ways of sourcing, assembling and delivering finished goods to the global market.

Successfully navigating these mind-bending issues requires significant attitudinal change. The hardest part is knowing what to focus on — and when.

The following are six considered-critical disciplines defined by Managing Automation magazine for manufacturers’ survival — perhaps even their thriving — in the coming years:

• Rethink business models to maximize advantages and minimize costs;
• Make innovation a core discipline, from design to the production floor and beyond;
• Re-engineer business processes around the customer to anticipate demand and improve customer satisfaction;
• Create seamlessly integrated supply chain networks to speed time-to-market and slash operational costs;
• More tightly manage data to keep business processes plugged into the market; and
• Provide enhanced education and training to employees, business partners and customers to reap the benefits of advanced automation and information technology.

Mastering these disciplines requires clarity of vision, rigorous strategic planning, an unwavering devotion to project management controls and, of course, flawless execution. It’s no trivial pursuit. It starts with identifying and deploying information technologies and plant systems that enable disparate functional groups across the manufacturing enterprise (including customers, business partners) to work off the same set of truth (i.e., data). Only then can manufacturers begin to create more streamlined and cost-competitive operational processes and start mastering these disciplines.

Top-down thinking from an enlightened management team is often not enough to make the transition to Progressive Manufacturing. Just as critical is the bottom-up participation of a workforce dedicated to creative out-of-the-box thinking to help conceive and operationalize revamped business processes that leverage integrated, enterprise-wide information and plant systems that translate raw data into actionable knowledge, and which enable leaner, meaner and more globally competitive manufacturing activities.

Armed with just-in-time insights that span the back and front office — and extend across the factory floor into the supply chain and distribution channel — manufacturers can more confidently plan for the future. They can employ more adaptive strategies to contend with everything from unrelenting price competition, supply/demand imbalances and unpredictable economic cycles.

Sounds like a panacea, but this type of progressive thinking and action will define business success across industry segments throughout the global economy.

Alan Alper is the online editor of Managing Automation, a print and Web-based information service that helps manufacturing industry managers identify and evaluate products, services and business strategies that can increase their organization’s operational efficiency and market competitiveness. Alan has spent the last 25 years covering the evolution of information technology and its potential for transforming business process across a variety of industry segments.