Over the past fifty years, manufacturing has changed from individual companies producing and distributing their own products, to a global network of suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors. Efficiency, price, and quality are being scrutinized in the production of each product. Because of this global network, manufacturers are competing on a worldwide scale, and they have moved their production to countries where the costs of labor and capital are low in order to gain the advantages they need to compete. Today, the complex manufacturing environment faces many challenges. Many products are manufactured in environments where supplies come from different parts of the world. The components to be used in supply chain manufacturing are transported across the globe to different manufacturers, distributors, and third party logistics (3PL) providers. The challenges for many manufacturers have become how to track supply chain costs and how to deal with manufacturing costs throughout the production of goods. Software vendors, however, are now addressing these manufacturing challenges by developing new applications.
Global competition has played a key role in industrialized countries shifting from being production-oriented economies to service-based economies. Manufacturers in North America, Western Europe, and other industrialized nations have adapted to the shift by redesigning their manufacturing production into a distribution and logistics industry, and the skills of the labor force have changed to reflect this transition. Developing countries have similarly changed their manufacturing production environments to reflect current demands; they are accommodating the production of goods in industries where manufacturers have chosen to move their production offshore—the textile industry being a prime example of this move.
A report from the US Census Bureau titled Statistics for Industry Groups and Industries: 2005 and another from Statistics Canada titled Wholesale Trade: The Year 2006 in Review indicate that wholesalers are changing their business models to become distributors as opposed to manufacturers. Between 2002 and 2005, overall labor and capital in the manufacturing sectors decreased substantially. US industry data (from about 10 years ago) indicates that the North American manufacturing industry was engaged in 80 percent manufacturing processes and only 20 percent distribution activities. Today, however, these percentages have changed dramatically; the current trend is in the opposite direction. Manufacturing processes account for around 30 percent of the industry processes, and wholesale and distribution activities, approximately 70 percent.
In addition, a report from the National Association of Manufacturers indicates that the US economy imports $1.3 trillion (USD) worth of manufactured goods, but exports only $806 billion (USD) worth of goods manufactured in the US. This negative trade balance is a clear indication of the changing economic trend toward the manufacturing of goods in low-cost labor nations.
Figure 1: Evidence of a declining manufacturing industry in the G7 countries (from Forfas's The Changing Nature of Manufacturing and Services: Irish Trends and International Context, July 2006)
In figure 1, the horizontal axis represents the year time line, and the vertical axis represents the percentage change in the number of people working in each indicated industry.
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