The global 2023 State of Manufacturing Report from Rockwell Automation contains responses from 75 of the Australia's manufacturing industry leaders (49 percent of whom were women) and identified the primary areas that need to be addressed for this sector to advance.

Although smart manufacturing is key to Australia's success in this area, only 25 percent of the country’s manufacturing industry leaders said they were extremely familiar with the technologies. This compares poorly with survey respondents from the US and France where familiarity with smart manufacturing technologies is vastly higher with numbers close to double that of Australia’s. Interestingly, 73 percent of local respondents stated that smart manufacturing is very important.

This may explain why 71 percent of Australia’s C-suite leaders identify technology paralysis as one of the largest barriers to growth. An excess of technology options is making selection and adoption much more challenging, especially when familiarity with the solutions is quite low.

The report also revealed that 86 percent of C-suite responders would invest in cloud technology as a result of the disruption of the last 12 months. This compares to only 24 percent of managers who put this at the top of their list last year. A cloud-based operation may help mitigate the effects of variable staffing levels, monitoring the supply chain and accommodating hybrid work.

The report offers several other interesting insights regarding:

• 48 percent of Australian companies have already invested in robotic process automation (RPA) while 46 percent have expressed an intention to invest. This is comparable to the US where 49 percent have already invested in RPA.
• 86 percent of respondents say that up to half of their data goes unused
• Balancing quality, growth, skills, and staff retention
• Cybersecurity as the biggest concern
• Hiring more staff because of increased technology use
• Lack of familiarity with smart manufacturing among Australia’s leaders
• Lack of skills and inadequate innovation holding back companies
• Process Automation shows widespread adoption and promising growth. 64 percent have already invested in this technology with 43 percent planning to invest more. This compares well with the US and the UK both of which report 68 percent investment rates.
• Technology paralysis as the biggest inhibitor of growth
• The lingering effects of Covid-19 on industry
• The use of software to track ESG

To download the full report, and see all the data and statistics, please visit: https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-us/capabilities/digital-transformation/state-of-smart-manufacturing.html