Fictiv State of Manufacturing Report reveals challenges for engineers and manufacturers, with 94 percent of survey respondents facing barriers to product innovation.
Fictiv has sponsored this post.
There’s an old engineering joke that contains a kernel of truth: “If it ain’t broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet.”
We all know it’s not easy to create something brand new, but it can be even harder to improve on something that already exists without making it worse. That’s the challenge of product innovation: striking a balance between new and improved. Of course, in order to address that challenge, you first need to get past all the other barriers to innovating, and there are a lot to contend with these days.
In fact, according to Fictiv’s most recent State of Manufacturing Report, 94 percent of manufacturers are facing barriers to product innovation. The report identifies a number of barriers that organizations are facing when it comes to new product innovation and compares them to the results gathered from surveys over the previous two years.
Let’s take a look at the top three.
#1 Sourcing Low-Volume Production
More than half of the manufacturers surveyed (56 percent) reported that “Difficulty sourcing fast, high-quality options to manufacture low-volume builds” was impeding their ability to innovate new products. That makes it the most common issue across businesses of all sizes, from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) all the way up to large original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
What’s interesting about this issue is that it appears to be a growing problem: in Fictiv’s 2022 survey, it was still the most common barrier—as identified by 47 percent of respondents—but only the third most common in 2021 at 43 percent of respondents.
There are several potential explanations for this gain of more than 10 percent over the past three years.
For one, the ongoing global supply chain issues precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic would most certainly make it difficult to find suppliers for low-volume builds who can turn orders around quickly. The general consensus seems to be that lead times for production tooling have roughly doubled since 2020.
However, if we’re focusing on low-volume manufacturing in particular, the root of the issue may have less to do with expediency than with quality. Finding suppliers for short runs of a new product build—even suppliers with quick turnaround times—is one thing, but finding suppliers who can do that and deliver a high-quality product is another matter entirely. While cost was not highlighted as a specific barrier in Fictiv’s survey, it’s easy to infer it from this particular option.
As the old adage goes: “Fast, cheap, good. Choose two.”
#2 Lack of Development Expertise
The second-most common barrier to new product innovation in 2023, according to Fictiv’s State of Manufacturing Report, is “Limited manufacturing feasibility and DFM [Design for Manufacturability] expertise in development” at 49 percent.
This is another growing issue in product innovation, though its ascendance is not as linear as the first: 38 percent of manufacturers cited it as a barrier to product innovation in 2022, down from 42 percent in 2021. Nevertheless, the fact that nearly half of all survey respondents report a lack of DFM expertise as a barrier to new product innovation in 2023 points to a growing problem.
The manufacturing skills gap has been a concern for quite some time now, and it’s on track to worsen as more and more experienced engineers and technicians reach retirement age. While there are abundant DFM tutorials, training courses and certificate programs available, there’s no substitute for the practical knowledge that comes from decades of experience in the industry.
That’s not to say continuing education in manufacturing feasibility isn’t valuable—it may even help to avoid some of the most common pitfalls in design for manufacturing—but without the industry experience to back it up, engineers may struggle to succeed with new product innovations. Unless and until the skills gap can be properly addressed, this issue is likely to become more common in the near future.
#3 Slow Feedback Loops
The third-most common barrier organizations are facing in new product innovation, according to Fictiv’s State of Manufacturing Report, is “Slow feedback loops with manufacturing partners that extend production time” at 45 percent. This was also one of the three most-common barriers in 2022 (at 42 percent) and 2021 (at 52 percent) but—as these percentages indicate—it appears to be the most variable.
In one sense, this should not be surprising since the communications and overall relationships between customers and suppliers are much less predictable than issues with sourcing or a lack of expertise. Employee turnover, economic downturn and even geopolitical instability can all impact the quality of feedback loops between manufacturing partners, and none of these factors are easy to forecast.
Regardless, the really interesting question is: What’s the cause of these slow feedback loops between manufacturing partners? Several answers come to mind, from the mundane (people are bad at responding to email) to the complex (problems with documentation, scheduling and/or approvals) but it’s unlikely that there is a single explanation that would cover all cases. Supply chain management is complex. In fact, Fictiv’s report found that more than half of the engineers surveyed (52 percent) spend six hours per week or more on vendor sourcing, management, quotes and order activities, a 73 percent increase since last year.
One More Barrier to New Product Innovation
Although the focus here has been on the top three issues organizations are facing when it comes to new product innovation, it’s worth noting one more from Fictiv’s State of Manufacturing Report: “Rigid internal supply chain processes that hamper ability to innovate.” With 39 percent of survey respondents selecting this option, it’s far from uncommon, but it’s also the only barrier in the report that has decreased continuously over the past three years, down from 44 percent in 2022 and 45 percent in 2021.
The optimistic interpretation of these results is that companies are recognizing that they have enough external problems to deal with in terms of barriers to new product innovation—sourcing difficulties, lack of expertise and slow feedback loops—and so they’re making an effort to address their own internal barriers. If that’s correct, we should expect to see this issue continue to decline in popularity over time, especially in proportion to the others becoming more common.
For more information about how Fictiv addresses these barriers to innovation and simplifies sourcing custom-manufactured parts, visit the Fictiv website.
