7 Top 2023 Manufacturing Industry Trends

When you manufacture products, it’s essential to test them out and ensure that they work properly. That’s especially true if you manufacture parts for heavy machinery, in which case the integrity of the parts is vital to keeping the machine running. But it can cost money to test out prototype after prototype.

You can alleviate that problem by using digital twins, another recent manufacturing trend. A digital twin is where you scan a physical product and recreate it perfectly in simulation software. The digital replica has the exact same properties as the physical product, and the simulator lets you test it out in all kinds of ways without you having to do so in real life.

That saves you money on having to continually build physical prototypes and run machinery to facilitate the tests.

Another recent manufacturing trend is microfactories. Microfactories, as the name suggests, are smaller, more modular factories. These factories tend to place a heavy emphasis on automation, using tools like AI and robotics to manufacture products quickly and efficiently, with minimal room for human error.

One of the benefits of microfactories is that, being smaller, they cost less to maintain and can therefore save you money. Another benefit is that with these factories being automated, the process can go much more quickly and smoothly, allowing you to get your products out on the market sooner.

Product as a service (PaaS) refers to the growing trend of selling products and services not through one-time sales, but on more of a subscription-based plan. Depending on what you sell, this may not be right for you — it works best if you have a lot of recurring clients.

Instead of having clients make individual purchases, you can simply provide a subscription plan, enabling them to pay a set rate each month or year and then take advantage of your services whenever they need them.

This has the potential to benefit both parties. Customers who use your services often don’t have to worry about their budget changing from month to month, while you benefit from earning a steadier stream of revenue.

More and more in manufacturing, 3D printing is becoming one of the preferred methods of creating parts and products. There was a time when everything had to be made with large, sophisticated machines and then put together on assembly lines — but not anymore.

While 3D printing has been around for a few years, it’s only lately caught on as a recent manufacturing trend, as the process has become cheaper and more reliable over time. 3D printing often costs less, and it’s quicker than traditional manufacturing. That means you can save both time and money.

If you’re like many manufacturing companies, you may use an enterprise resource platform (ERP) to manage all your company data. But how up-to-date is your ERP? Many manufacturers have been using the same outdated tools for years, and as we move into 2023, it’s becoming apparent that they need to upgrade.

ERPs have gone through plenty of changes in the past several years, with many of them moving to the cloud. Additionally, many manufacturers have found that they don’t need all the customization options that some ERPs advertise, so they’ve been gravitating toward simpler — but equally effective — programs.

If you’ve had your ERP for a long time — or don’t have one at all — you may want to consider following this trend and finding a more modernized ERP to organize your business data.

Over the past few years, the public has become more and more active in holding companies to a high moral standard. Calls have increased for businesses, including manufacturers, to be responsible with their business practices, treat their employees well, and give back to the community.

In response to those calls, manufacturers have been making changes in the name of corporate responsibility. Many companies are going out of their way to ethically source all their materials, curb carbon emissions, offer excellent employee benefits, and donate to charities and other good causes.

Not only does this help improve these companies’ public image and draw in more customers, but it also attracts more employees, going all the way back to the first of the recent manufacturing industry trends that we covered on this list.