Transforming Industrial Footprint and Supply Chain Network

On-demand Webinar

The 4th industrial revolution has begun to transform the operational, economic, and social models of industry - and by extension, society. The past 5 to 10 years brought dramatic advances in sophisticated global supply networks. The latest generation of these end-to-end supply chains were designed for “pull” rather than “push”, enabling the high efficiencies delivered by Japanese-style Lean Production Systems.

Entire value streams now operate with sophisticated software and are governed by “control towers”, which continuously optimize the supply-production-distribution flow. These transformed and globally scaled industrial footprints deliver significant gains in productivity, quality, resource efficiency, environmental sustainability, health & safety, and customer satisfaction. The application of IoT, big data, advanced analytics, and machine learning promise to deliver even further gains. 
 
But suddenly the music stopped. The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented economic shut-down. The global economy was put on pause for several months. Now, as much of the world begins the complex process of de-confinement, companies are re-thinking their industrial footprint and supply chain network. Many of the previous assumptions are no longer valid. The massively integrated global networks designed for 2019 suddenly seem ill-prepared for the new realities of 2021.  
 
Chief Operating Officers now face a new set of constraints: 

• Pressure to maintain profitability at lower volumes 
• Increasing requirements for local sourcing 
• Increasing requirements for agility to flex to rapidly changing demand patterns 
• Post-merger integration of supply chains, as industry consolidation drives M&A 
• New constraints on free trade and trading conditions (ie. US/China, Brexit, etc.) 
• Acceleration of the Green Agenda, with challenging sustainability targets