Manufacturing is traditionally a conservative industry - one in which change comes slowly. Conjuring images of manufacturing bring to mind massive buildings with rows of machines and workers on the floor building parts and assembling complex products like automobiles, appliances, or instrumentation.
As conventional an industry as manufacturing may be, it has weathered the disruptions brought on by the COVID-19 global pandemic fairly well, according to new IDG research. This resilience bodes well for the industry positions for post-pandemic recovery.
Since manufacturing is more of a hands-on industry than other sectors - think assembly line workers on a plant floor or maintenance workers repairing machines - remote work has been more of a challenge. Nevertheless, because the pandemic shut down many facilities, 58% of manufacturing organizations in the IDG survey accelerated or launched new initiatives to improve remote work and collaboration capabilities – in line with other industries and markets across the globe.
For manufacturing firms, supporting a remote workforce means using cloud-based collaboration tools and technologies. It appears likely manufacturing will continue to extend those capabilities for supporting a hybrid flexible collaborative workplace even after emerging from the pandemic. This represents a massive cultural shift for the industry.