How can manufacturers cope with an environment of increasing global competition and regulatory pressure while also positioning themselves to take advantage of new opportunities in developing economies, where consumers are just beginning to flex their spending muscles?
They can redouble their efforts to drive operational efficiency in both product development and production, said manufacturers including Pfizer, Genentech, and Tata Technologies at the recent Frost & Sullivan Growth, Innovation, and Leadership Silicon Valley conference in San Jose, CA.
“In the 1990s, we saw manufacturing companies focusing on managing capital expenditures and emerging markets,” said Sath Rao, Frost & Sullivan’s vice president for industrial automation & process control. “Now we see the focus shifting to operational excellence and continuous innovation.”
At pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer, for example, company leaders continuously consolidate its manufacturing network in search of better operational performance, said Rick Mitzner, Pfizer’s senior director for engineering technology. Having emerged from an aggressive acquisition spree — highlighted most recently by its 2009 purchase of Wyeth — Pfizer is now moving production to its highest productivity plants, and shutting down low performers. At the same time, Mitzner said, the company is defining standard processes used by its most productive plants and rolling them out across its network by standardizing on technologies such as Emerson’s Delta V DCS infrastructure.