Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, a global leader in digital reality solutions combining sensors, software, and autonomous technologies, found that 98% of manufacturers say data challenges hinder collaboration and productivity, delay response times to customer demands, and risk missing business objectives.


Hexagon recently released its Global Advanced Manufacturing Report.

This report, commissioned by Forrester Consulting, identifies three digital transformation catalysts that have brought about fundamental changes in the design and manufacturing of high-value products: data quality and usability, collaboration and empowerment within the organization, and automation.

Based on a global survey of 500 manufacturing leaders, including CEOs, covering the entire value chain from design to finished product and quality management, Hexagon's report provides insights into trends, challenges leaders face, success stories and new opportunities in the manufacturing industry.

According to the report, the majority of business leaders believe that improved collaboration will lead to improved product quality and timeliness.They reported that it could shorten the time to market for products and improve communication between design and manufacturing teams, which could significantly reduce material waste and hazardous substance emissions, thereby increasing sustainability.

Despite the growing need to improve collaboration through data integration within the enterprise, 71% of business leaders are concerned about the lack of synergy between design and manufacturing teams.

“It’s ironic that while automation and agile approaches that originated in manufacturing are driving business transformation across other industries, digitization across the manufacturing process has lagged,” said Josh Weiss, president of Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence. “Digital twin technology enables smart factories, innovatively solves cross-functional problems, and improves productivity with high-quality data. Empowering an organization’s ability to use data is the foundation for more efficient value creation, agility in market response, and faster time to market.” For example, Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD is shaking up the auto industry by overtaking Tesla to become the leader in the electric vehicle market through productivity improvements and innovative changes across the manufacturing value chain,” he said.

With only 2% of manufacturers reporting that their data flows are unaffected, the majority of companies risk missing out on achieving their business goals if they do not take steps to implement cultural and technological changes across their organization to successfully achieve digitalization.

Leaders cited improving operational efficiency, increasing manufacturing output, and rapidly improving the quality of new products as their top business priorities for the next three years.

37% of manufacturers are latecomers, having not yet advanced or fully automated any step of their manufacturing process, leaving them behind their competitors.

On the other hand, companies that have automated two or more stages of their manufacturing process have shown a clear advantage in employee productivity and efficiency, and have also effectively resolved talent shortage issues.

Among leaders in companies that have prioritized automation, 58% said their workforce has become more productive and innovative, while 39% said their efforts have effectively addressed talent shortages.

In contrast, only 35% of leaders in latecomers said they had increased productivity and innovation, and 26% said they had effectively addressed talent shortages. As manufacturers around the world adopt advanced automation technologies to improve productivity, manufacturers in Asia in particular are increasingly leveraging data to prevent downstream problems that could have serious financial implications, such as through simulation, virtual manufacturing, and maintenance prediction.It appeared as .

Furthermore, while 58% of Asian companies said they plan to invest in AI-based or generative automation over the next three years, less than half of manufacturers in North America (45%) and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (38%) said they plan to do so.

Hexagon's Global Advanced Manufacturing Industry Report is a survey and analysis of manufacturing leaders in nine countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, and the full report can be found on Hexagon's website.

Meanwhile, Hexagon is providing various solutions and platforms to resolve data siloing and build automation for domestic manufacturers.

Through Nexus and AI tool ODYSSEE, we are actively supporting domestic manufacturers to improve productivity and introduce automation by utilizing cloud technology, AI, and machine learning to shorten product development cycles and costs, and combining autonomous mobile robots (AMR) with Hexagon’s solutions.