In part one of this post we explored how to manage supply chain complexities and unpredictability. In this second part, we’ll help ensure chemical manufacturers don’t fall into a pattern of bad planning and skillfully anticipate seasonality.

To operate at its peak an enterprise needs to face and recognize the top trends that are reshaping manufacturing. Understanding these trends is the first step toward initiating a digital transformation. You can then take the additional steps designed to solve your business’ current problems, start showing value immediately, and help evolve a stronger business strategy.

Supplier seasonality and promotions

Thankfully, not everything about supply and demand is unpredictable—materials in the supply chain in various parts of the world follow their own, reasonably predictable seasonal patterns. For instance, cotton prices from India (the largest producer of cotton in the world, according to Statista) plunge when the harvesting begins in November, and stay low though when harvesting ends in March of the following year. This, obviously, has a significant impact on the fiber-garment industry.

In part one of this post we discussed the smartest ways to gain global visibility and respond to volatility in a food and beverage supply chain. And here in part two we will cover how to embrace the best technology. Addressing these key challenges can have a profound and positive impact on your entire supply chain—from procurement to manufacturing to delivery.

Embrace the best technology

When you're looking at building a better foundation to address the challenges you may be facing within your overall organization, there's a number of solutions to consider. These aren't necessarily always the options that fall into what you’d expect to be a supply chain solution, but they all overlap within your overall supply chain and will help drive effectiveness and efficiency.

The first example is formula management. Many companies want to ascertain that it’s creating the right products for the right country as there may be limitations from a global perspective of where you can sell a product. Trying to manage this manually is challenging. Being able to respond to inquiries from customers and prospects around the globe requires quite a robust formula management solution.

Food and beverage companies have long struggled with the unique requirements of shelf life management, complexities of batch scheduling, traceability, and many other factors. In addition, uncertainties around tariffs, sustainability initiatives, and growing regulations are some of a multitude of dynamics that will surely add even more complexity to the mix. Many of these issues and trends can have profound impact on your entire supply chain—from procurement to manufacturing to delivery.

In a recent Infor-sponsored webinar, Mike Edgett and Christine Barnhardt discussed a number of challenges as it relates to supply chain complexities in the food and beverage industry. In the webinar, we segmented the challenges into three buckets; gain global visibility, predict and respond to volatility, and embrace the best technology.

In part one of this blog post we’ll briefly go through the first two categories and part two will cover how to harness the finest technology. Click to watch the on-demand webinar for a deeper dive.

To stay competitive in today’s chemical industry, manufacturers must sustain a high level of operational productivity. Moreover, current issues like rapid commoditization, complex supply chains, aging assets, and increased need for dynamic operations planning make it more demanding than ever before to achieve the level of productivity that drives differentiation and innovation. Manufacturers often become locked into patterns where they’re implementing shortsighted cost-cutting measures that can adversely affect operational productivity and decrease overall market responsiveness.

To ensure you don’t fall into these traps, it’s vital that you not only understand the industrial challenges you face, but also recognize the top trends that are reshaping manufacturing. Gaining this knowledge is the first step toward building a foundation of digital transformation.

This blog post is a helpful summary of the top challenges a supply chain faces today. If you’d like to learn more about how to turn these obstacles into opportunities, please read Infor's recent executive brief for an even deeper dive into the topic.

Shifting trade conditions and tariffs have set the stage for frontier markets in Africa to emerge, but how can global brands and manufacturers tap into this vast wealth of resources? Global trade winds are shifting, driven by mounting forces that range across political, social, and economic landscapes. Uncertainty looms in the forms of tariffs, trade wars, and populism. Commerce continues to undergo a transformation as Uber-ization and the Amazon effect continue to play out across industries, redefining customer expectations in both the B2C and B2B sectors.

Into Africa: Tapping vast resources beyond China as trade conditions remain volatile.

A rising middle class emerging from China and India is creating new opportunities that come with new demands and challenges.

The Factory of the Future is coming, and it's being built on technology, innovation, and advanced manufacturing capabilities. But what is it, exactly? And what are the technologies you need to know about to help your manufacturing company embrace the change?

The definition of the Factory of the Future is evolving; even the name is in flux. Some call it Smart Manufacturing, Industry 4.0, or the Digital Enterprise. While the terms may vary, there's one thing that is clear: The Factory of the Future is the product of fast-changing disruptive technologies hitting manufacturing like a cyclone. Information technology and operational technology are both seeing drastic innovations and the convergence of these two forces is creating a paradigm shift. Manufacturing is experiencing the fourth industrial revolution.

Probably one of the most famous quotes in marketing comes from Harvard Business School Professor Theodore Levitt: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”

That, in a nutshell is servitization.  Turning a traditional product offering into a service. This new customer-centric feature becomes a differentiator, adding value, building relationships, preventing commoditization, and adding profits. Data insights, generated from the Internet of Things (IoT) are often at the heart of the new service offering. Sometimes the new offering is used to generate revenue, replace the old product-centric business model, or be a complimentary add-on designed to boost loyalty.

Innovation is a central component of the manufacturing industry. It can take many forms and address many functions. It can be a simple tactic for improving shop floor operations. It can be a concept for a new type of product or service. It can be a revolutionary approach that completely disrupts the way you do business. But all innovations start much the same way: as an idea.

How does innovation fit into your growth strategy?

Manufacturers everywhere have an extremely underutilized employee. This employee is a robust repository of institutional knowledge, facts, and random trivia. However, this employee is full of latent potential that hasn’t yet been tapped, and they are ready to do so much more.

Ok, so maybe this is a quirky metaphor, but—in case it wasn’t clear—this underutilized employee is your organization’s data. And Data could be doing so much more to help your human employees make better decisions.

For many manufacturers, the collected data is sitting in various databases and spreadsheets, waiting to be called upon, sorted, and analyzed to inform decisions across your organization.

Launched annually on the first Friday in October, and with events continuing throughout the month, MFG Day helps show the reality of modern manufacturing careers by encouraging thousands of companies and educational institutions around the nation to open their doors to students, parents, teachers and community leaders. Over the next decade, manufacturers will need to fill 4.6 million jobs—jobs that are high skill, high tech and high paying. These career opportunities include high pay and exposure to cutting-edge technology and innovations. MFG Day is a time for manufacturers to open their doors and open minds, to connect the future workforce to potential employers and change the narrative around manufacturing.