After the last two years, it’s no surprise that some might be hesitant to make predictions about the state of manufacturing, supply chains and digital transformation for the new year. But two of our senior experts wanted to weigh in by sharing their 2022 predictions in VMblog’s 14th annual predictions series.

QAD’s Director of Product Marketing Brent Dawkins recently shared his predictions about the increasing importance of tight relationships with suppliers, and QAD’s Chief Technology Officer Tony Winter added his predictions relating to the hype around hyperautomation. So, let’s break these predictions down.

Tightening Supplier Relationships

It’s understandable that the current state of global supply chains would be foremost in everyone’s 2022 predictions.

In a global survey reported by Bloomberg of 3,000 CEOs and executives at the director level and above across 10 industries, AlixPartners found that supply chain, labor issues and digitalization were at the top of the list of concerns cited by the respondents. Executives highlighted the urgent need to revise business models to build local, regional and global supply chains.

In his 2022 predictions article, Brent describes the challenges manufacturers know all too well in 2021: increasing order fulfillment times and costs resulting from labor and raw material shortages, among others. Supplier network visibility is an area requiring much greater attention.

Business leaders are gaining an awareness that something must change, that improved communication and collaboration with suppliers are critical components to a winning strategy.

Brent argues that the way to improve supply chain responsiveness and agility is to boost connectivity with suppliers and thus improve data integrity. Having digital connectivity with suppliers results in better communication and better decision-making.

Brent also outlines three areas where manufacturers can improve their supplier relationships, enhance sourcing decisions, gain one version of the truth from data analytics and achieve better global supply chain performance:

• Fortify long-term supplier relationships – to include performance measurement and continual feedback and communications with suppliers to meet and exceed service-level agreements. Improved communication and collaboration with suppliers will improve supply chain responsiveness.
• Expand efficiencies with automation – replace spreadsheets, emails, and buyers’ memories with automated solutions that result in identifying the best suppliers, price, and performance while enhancing supplier development. Automating procurement processes gives manufacturers the systematic approach they need to manage the supply chain.
• Recognize supplier risks – in addition to the expected risks of complex global supplier management, manufacturers add to their risk by depending on manually intensive processes. As they switch to digitized processes, they need to manage and protect supplier data and understand the role of cybersecurity in supply chain management.

The Hype Around Hyperautomation

In his 2022 predictions article, Tony writes about the availability of new, efficient and predictive process automation technologies – and the analysts and market intelligence firms each have their own names:

• Gartner calls it “hyperautomation”
• The International Data Corporation (IDC) calls it “intelligent process automation”
• Forrester Research calls it “digital process automation”

Regardless of how it’s named, Tony writes that it’s all about connecting people, processes, equipment and the job to be done, to reach a more perfect process efficiency and improve manufacturing effectiveness.

Perhaps the adoption and implementation of hyperautomation and related technologies might have happened organically over time, but the pandemic has most certainly accelerated it. Such technologies are becoming a survival requirement for manufacturing operations and include robotic process automation (RPA), cognitive automation, no-code or low-code application platforms (LCAP) and integrated collaboration.

Let’s take a closer look at some of these hyperautomation technologies manufacturers should consider in 2022.

• Manufacturers use robotic process automation to automate repetitive tasks. An RPA tool is given a set of instructions, captures data and places it where it is needed.
• Cognitive automation builds on RPA by learning the intent of a situation to execute a task. It leverages language awareness, natural language processing, speech awareness, and vision and historical observations.
• No-code or low-code application platforms (LCAP) give users the ability to personalize and extend an application, providing an integrated user experience easily integrated with other solutions.
• Integrated collaboration looks at unique, ad hoc tasks outside of system capabilities that are often completed via email, phone calls or paper passing. While hard to automate, these tasks can be a part of the structure instituted by integrated collaboration techniques.

A recent article in Industry Week by Jason Bergstrom of Deloitte echoes Tony’s predictions that merely dabbling in technology won’t be enough – manufacturers have to go all in to survive in 2022, which he has called “The Year of the Smart Factory.” One of his five smart factory predictions for 2022 relates to integrated smart factory solutions and how organizations will move from having a smattering of smart factory components to operating within whole smart production environments.  

Tony concludes that manufacturers will continue to face ever-increasing disruptions. To survive and thrive, manufacturers must be open to innovations and be willing to leverage hyperautomation to become agile and adaptive.