If ever there was a time for the manufacturing industry to futureproof itself and its supply chains, that time is now. Recent global events have created unprecedented change in the industry, forcing companies to look for ways to embed security, resilience, and agility into their operations — and more often than not, the answer lies in IT. From my conversations with manufacturing leaders this year, here are the five hottest topics in the boardrooms across the globe today:

Agility and Resilience

The need to produce more and faster has never been greater. But with disruption now an ever-present risk, manufacturers must find the balance between enabling agile operations and building robust resilience into their supply chains. Many organizations are now looking to add automation technologies into their supply chain, to reduce costs, and increase efficiencies. Intelligent analytics are becoming a priority as companies seek to harness proactive risk monitoring to minimize downtime and ensure business continuity. And organizations are now moving to integrate their IT and operational technology systems into a centrally managed digital supply chain network, to achieve greater visibility, flexibility and control over supply chain operations.

Cybersecurity

Supply chain ecosystems are now increasingly distributed, meaning the chain reaction triggered by one cyberattack on a single supplier can compromise the entire value chain. A recent report found that 51 percent of organizations have experienced a data breach caused by a third party. It is now widely acknowledged that traditional tools for remote access such as virtual private networks (VPN) are no longer sufficient to counter today’s sophisticated attacks. Certainly, in the last 10 published annual reports I have read, cybersecurity in the context of third-party management is highlighted as one of the key risks organizations must address today. As a result, cybersecurity leaders are turning to zero-trust security models for their IT infrastructure, in which collaboration and integration of IT systems can be guaranteed. These models reduce the attack surface and allow organizations to isolate access to key data, employing a “never trust, always verify” approach to security, with “just in time, just enough” access to trusted users.

Onshoring/Nearshoring

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted manufacturers to look at ways to make their supply chains more flexible, agile, and resilient. And while initially that meant onshoring, nearshoring or regionalization footprint strategies, ongoing disruptions caused by shutdowns in China and the war in Ukraine are forcing manufacturers to employ a multi-faceted approach to supply chain agility and risk management. With that context, IT leaders are making the case for technologies such as cloud computing and desktop virtualization to centralize and streamline IT operations and empower organizations to quickly adapt scale to changing demands.

Time-to-Market

As production cycles continue to accelerate, manufacturers are becoming increasingly reliant on partners and specialists to help fulfill their strategic initiatives. The ability to quickly onboard (and offboard) global talent is fast becoming a priority for senior executives — pushing the requirement for a robust and flexible IT infrastructure to the top of the agenda. With the right technologies in place, organizations can deploy rapid onboarding and offboarding of employees, partners, and third parties across the globe by providing fast, secure access to content, applications, and desktops. This allows manufacturers to quickly adapt their supplier ecosystem to respond to market change without the costs or complexities associated with full-blown IT integrations.

Sustainability

As manufacturers seek to deliver on carbon neutrality and net zero goals, implementing sustainable supply chain practices is a major priority for the industry. Gen Z, the future generation of industrial buyers, is further driving the change, according to Forbes, forcing industrial leaders to prioritize sustainability to build trust with their future customers. But turning goals into action will require a number of consecutive initiatives, from monitoring and measuring energy usage, waste, and environmental impact in production, to minimizing mileage, emissions, and carbon footprint in logistics. Manufacturers already acknowledge that advanced analytics will play a key role in reaching their sustainability targets by providing visibility and proactive monitoring across the supply chain. Enabling remote working — by providing secure, remote access to data, apps, and desktops — will be an important factor in reducing transportation and commuting. And the use of digital-twin technology, which allows engineers to work remotely with digital representations of physical elements, is also now being viewed as an essential element in delivering sustainable manufacturing.

A compelling example of this comes from Volkswagen, which set up more than 1,000 digital workstations via Citrix Cloud during the pandemic, to enable developers to perform computer-intensive tasks from home. By eliminating the need for 1,000 remote workers to travel to and from the plant, the company estimates a CO2 emissions saving of 109.2 tons a month.

Learn more about how a digital-first approach can help manufacturers address some of the key challenges facing organizations today in our Citrix manufacturing eBook Digital First: Transforming Manufacturing for the Age of Agility.