The 2011 Next Generation Manufacturing Study

The Next Generation Manufacturing Study National Executive Summary presents analysis and findings from the 2011 NGM Study, focusing primarily on awareness, best practices, and achievements related to six key Next Generation strategies. World-class capabilities in these six forward-looking strategies will drive manufacturing growth and profitability into the 21st century:

• Customer-focused innovation: Develop, make, and market new products and services that meet customers’ needs at a pace faster than the competition.

• Engaged people/human-capital acquisition, development, and retention: Secure a competitive performance advantage by having superior systems in place to recruit, hire, develop, and retain talent.

• Superior processes/improvement focus: Record annual productivity and quality gains that exceed the competition through a companywide commitment to continuous improvement.

• Supply-chain management and collaboration: Develop and manage supply chains and partnerships that provide flexibility, response time, and delivery performance that exceed the competition.

• Sustainability: Design and implement waste and energyuse reductions at a level that provides superior cost performance and recognizable customer value.

• Global engagement: Secure business advantages by having people, partnerships, and systems in place capable of engaging global markets and talents better than the competition.

The NGM Study results offer a “scorecard” for U.S. manufacturers by which to measure progress in defining strategies within their organizations, implementing best practices to support those strategies, and then achieving performance improvements that can move them into the next generation. A key step in any manufacturing improvement initiative is to benchmark and compare performances; the NGM Study provides these benchmarks.

It’s encouraging that some U.S. manufacturers have already adopted some or most of the NGM strategies. But many other manufacturers still face an “execution gap” between their good intentions (understanding the importance

of NGM strategies) and their ability to implement those strategies. Worse off still are the group of manufacturers that haven’t yet recognized the critical importance of the NGM strategies.

Manufacturers need be proactive in implementing NGM strategies, but they needn’t go it alone. A wide array of organizations — public, nonprofit, and private — are already helping thousands of manufacturers to implement NGM strategies to remain competitive into the next generation — and beyond.