This year’s Next Generation Manufacturing (NGM) Study shows a quartet of company characteristics that are critical to manufacturing success. For example, the NGM Study examined customer-focused innovation and found that:
- 57% of manufacturers rate customer-focused innovation as highly important to their organizations’ success over the next five years.
- 24% of manufacturers have a company-specific strategy with full functional involvement and buy-in for customer-focused innovation.
- 24% of manufacturers have sufficient talent and development programs in place to drive world-class customer-focused innovation.
- 18% of manufacturers have state-of-the-art business systems and equipment to provide long-term support for world-class customer-focused innovation.
Manufacturers with all four of these characteristics in place for customer-focused innovation are more likely to outperform manufacturers lacking in one or more of these areas. Just 4% of manufacturers have all four characteristics, and members of this small group are more likely to:
- Rate their companies as having achieved world-class customer-focused innovation — 47% have achieved world-class customer-focused innovation vs. 11% of other manufacturers.
- Commercialize their investments in R&D — 45% commercialize more than one-quarter of their R&D investments vs. 29% of other manufacturers.
- Achieve game-changing market breakthroughs from their R&D investments — 64% report that more than 5% of R&D investment turns in game-changing market breakthroughs vs. 32% of other manufacturers.
These four characteristics relative to the other five NGM strategies correlate to similar performance findings for those strategies. What four characteristics should your company try to attain in 2012?
By George Taninecz, VP of Research, The MPI Group
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