The Manufacturing sector is large and diverse, comprising process industries, industrial machinery, automotive suppliers, highly-engineered products and services, and low-tech manufacturing. In today’s global economic environment, nearly all manufacturing segments are contending with challenges of unprecedented complexity. For many companies business is getting tougher and established competitive models continue yielding low returns.

Process industries, like cement, paper, plastics, chemicals and metal processing, are challenged by intensified global competition, emerging markets, shrinking market share and margin erosion due to dwindling demand and downward pressure on prices. Companies need to look for profitable growth based on active industry consolidation, managing their operations for value, not production volume. As well, they need to leverage their global capability: pursuing revenue in high-growth geographic markets and reducing costs by off-shoring low-cost upstream production to developing countries.

Industrial goods manufacturers, typically subject to large business cycles, are now faced with new and intensified challenges: global competition for market share in emerging economies, competing production from low-cost/high-capability countries, and increased prices of raw materials. Achieving a lean cost structure and building global presence are essential for these companies to remain competitive. This means extending the manufacturing footprint to low cost countries, adopting lean manufacturing, and establishing new supplier programs based on joint-process cooperation rather than price-driven transactions.

The automotive industry faces fundamental structural change. As OEMs are looking to improve their cost position and are restructuring operations, automotive suppliers are caught between significant worldwide industry overcapacity on one hand and slow sales growth on the other. They need to simplify their cost position and restructure their asset base around key products by reducing the cost of complexity and narrowing their focus to long-term profitable product lines.

Highly engineered products, like aircrafts, engines, propulsion and power systems, and services, like integrated logistics and third-party aircraft maintenance, rely on extensive supply chains hard pressed for quick changes in market demand, innovation and speed to market. Companies are striving just to cope by improving and accelerating supply chains to respond to real-time issues. To stay ahead, they need to actively manage value-chain participation, focus on their core business, achieve the highest levels of capital productivity and invest in innovation for future revenue growth.

Low-tech manufacturers comprised of fragmented industries like special dies, tools, jigs and fixtures, valves and fittings, commercial printing, furniture and machine tool accessories just to name a few, have been especially susceptible to global competition from low-cost manufacturers. Given their high-fixed costs, small and medium-sized companies need to pursue many initiatives to keep competitive, including: actively consolidate the market, improve productivity, increase the level of technological sophistication, narrow their market focus to high end products, and create differentiating service efficiencies.

We work with clients across all stages of the life cycle spectrum, helping companies get beyond the limits of their established business programs and providing analytical support for making important strategic decisions that confront them: i.e. selecting what markets to serve with what products, anticipating and preparing to defend against competitive threats, and capitalizing on opportunity.