In Mind Cloud Blog

“Manufacturing” as a category might make up a huge part of a country’s GDP, but when you break it down, the types of products made can range from the smallest screw to the largest forklift. There are automotive manufacturers, medical equipment manufacturers, contract manufacturers, engineer-to-order and make-to-order businesses…the list goes on.

It stands to reason that sales processes can differ dramatically according to the type of manufacturing as well. In this article, we will be looking at the ability to expedite the industrial B2B sales cycle for a section of manufacturers.

First things first, we are big fans of the Novus CPQ Podcast. Frank Sohn, CEO of Novus CPQ established this format to bring valuable knowledge and industry insights about all things Configure-Price-Quote related to his audience. 

With Good Friday right around the corner, March ends on a holiday high. Let’s look back at the most interesting Industry 4.0 stories from this first quarter of the year, from supply woes to automotive innovations.  

As Industry 4.0 solutions have taken over the market, employees of manufacturing companies have started getting anxious about job security. The number of articles that proclaim ‘Robots/Automation will destroy our jobs!’, boosted by publishers such as The Guardian, BBC, and Wired, number in the millions (2 million results on Google and counting!).

While it is true that innovation will bring many changes to the work landscape and many roles will need to be up-skilled to stay relevant, it is also important to keep in mind that Industry 4.0 solutions will affect every role differently.

As China rose through the years as a manufacturing powerhouse, the country became synonymous with exports. ‘China used to be the world’s factory’, proclaimed Forbes, as the country overtook the United States as the world’s biggest producer of manufactured goods from 2011 onwards. In 2015, it produced ‘80% of the world’s air-conditioners, 70% of its mobile phones and 60% of its shoes’, as per The Economist. In 2016, its total Manufacturing Value-Added (MVA) was a whopping 3.25 trillion, as mentioned in our previous article on ‘Made in China 2025’.

However, along with that meteoric rise in manufacturing production came an opposing dive in China’s reputation for product quality. As early as 2007, consumers and manufacturers alike were complaining of ‘quality fade’ when it came to Chinese products, explained by Forbes as ‘the deliberate and secret habit of widening profit margins through a reduction in the quality of materials’. Basically, by reducing the quality from batch to batch, factory owners were able to cut costs and increase margins, but with many potential risks.

Engineer-to-order (ETO) businesses have a unique challenge in the manufacturing space: When your business model depends on mass customisation, sales is never routine. Each project requires precise complex calculations as well as engineering resources and input due to the singularity of the final product or project.

Contract Manufacturers are vital in the supply chain of manufacturing. While many in the manufacturing industry treat it as just an outsourcing entity, churning out goods for others, contract manufacturers have been busy adapting to the rapidly-changing landscape that Industry 4.0 has brought on.

Have you ever walked into a grocery store to buy something, saw the number of options available, and then spent an hour comparing every single one until you were sure you were getting the best product? Or refused to buy a product in-store until you had done a detailed comparison online?

In this data-driven age, this isn’t uncommon. This can be seen through the power of review sites; various research conducted has put online trust in review sites at a 80-90% range. Everyone is bombarded with information, and trying to find more information that will tell them which information is best.

Surpassing the United States in 2010, China’s manufacturing sector is now the largest in the world, with a total global Manufacturing Value Added (MVA) of USD 3.25 trillion in 2016, according to the World Bank.

China's government has committed to convert from a "high growth" to a "high quality growth" nation cemented in the 13th Five-Year-Plan. So how does this ambitious goal translate into the transformation of China's diverse manufacturing industry? Following our previous article on China's digitalization, let's have a look at the nation's digital upgrade plan for manufacturing - the "Made in China 2025" initiative.

The shortest month of the year might be ending, but that doesn’t mean that February was any less exciting. After all, Tesla and Elon Musk did send an actual car into space this month! Our top 4 Industry 4.0 news, below.