A revolution in manufacturing is firmly underway. Infineon, a German semiconductor manufacturer, is investing
$105 million in the next five years in order to turn its Singapore plant into a smart factory. It took robots and
3D Printing to make Adidas bring back manufacturing to Germany. A leading fragrance maker in Switzerland
ramped up capacity by a third in the past three years, all through addition of robots.
To assess how manufacturers can drive most value from smart factories, we surveyed 1000 senior executives
of large companies across key sectors and countries.
Here are the key findings from the research:
The prize:
• Smart factories could add $500 billion to $1.5 trillion in value added to the global economy in
five years
• Manufacturers predict overall efficiency to grow annually over the next five years at 7 times the
rate of growth since 1990
• We estimate that smart factories can nearly double operating profit and margin for an average
automotive OEM manufacturer
The challenge:
• 76% of manufacturers either have a smart factory initiative that is on going or are working on
formulating it. And more than half of manufacturers (56%) have aligned $100 million or more
towards smart factories.
• However, only 14% of companies are satisfied with their level of smart factory success. Only 6%
of manufacturers are ‘Digital Masters’: at an advanced stage in digitizing production processes
and with a strong foundation of vision, governance and employee skills.
• Digital Masters outpace all other categories in realizing the benefits of smart factories