04/12/2025 • Learn why the next wave of manufacturing competitiveness will depend less on hardware, and more on the software that drives it
With deglobalisation, decarbonisation, demographic change and digitalisation now having a huge impact on manufacturing across the globe, SEW-EURODRIVE’s Chief Innovation Officer, Dr Hans Krattenmacher, is exploring why manufacturers cannot remain competitive if they rely on traditional hardware-driven systems.
The future of manufacturing operations is being defined by four main forces: deglobalisation, decarbonisation, demographic change, and digitalisation.
Deglobalisation is all about reducing interdependence between countries, as companies become driven by the need for supply chain resilience amid economic and political disruption.
A drive toward greener production is also reshaping the industry as natural resources become harder to source and secure. The circular economy – which keeps resources in use for as long as possible – is now a strategic priority for companies that want to strengthen their competitiveness through better resource efficiency.
At the same time, manufacturing workforces around the world are experiencing changes in their demographics. Older, highly skilled employees are leaving the sector through retirement, and fewer young people are choosing to progress through the industry, leaving skills gaps.
This is resulting in a push for digitalisation, as firms look to adopt digital tools that save time and reduce effort, leading to more efficient operations and less of a need to recruit new skilled labour.
Despite half of the manufacturers in the UK being ready to embrace digital transformation in the next 12 months according to a joint report between The Manufacturer and Barclays, a major barrier still exists.
While Industry 4.0 has improved flexibility, supply chain crises in recent years have exposed various weaknesses in production lines, including a lack of transparency, poor resource data, and slow rescheduling during material shortages.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) transformation is seeing technologies being integrated within factories to create connected, data-driven production environments that help lead to increased efficiencies.
However, many factories are built around legacy hardware-driven systems that rely on sometimes tricky to use, physical components for control. For manufacturers that want to remain competitive, it’s imperative that they start switching to software-defined factories and automation.
Software-defined factories are flexible production environments that use a software-layer based approach to control and optimise production rather than relying on hardware. When these production environments are built, their factory floors and layout are driven by software from the outset, enabling real-time simulation, rapid configuration and greater productivity through simplified control mechanisms.
A central part of these factories is software-defined automation, which is a key technological component that focuses on creating systems that help people work more effectively. This is done by allowing access to automation through a single, easy-to-use interface which stays the same regardless of the hardware supplier used.
Here at SEW-EURODRIVE UK, we’re centring our strategy around simplifying tasks to minimise deployment time and reduce lengthy training periods, reducing the effect of skills gap shortages.
Instead of being stuck firefighting and troubleshooting issues arising from hardware-centric production, our engineers are being freed up to work on innovation, helping us in the push for higher productivity in both our own factories, and the sites of our customers.
This in part comes through our offerings like the condition monitoring software DriveRadar®, which continually records data from gear units, analyses it, and uses it to predict machinery failure and alert operators ahead of impact.
We can easily adapt to any customer’s ecosystem rather than forcing them into ours too – our platform neutrality means our clients aren’t tied to specific ways of working, and we can integrate our gear units, motors, and automation components seamlessly into whatever systems they already rely on.
The next digital transformation wave is also well underway, and it won’t be long before it reaches our shores. Already taking root in China, we’re now starting to see the use of AI agents that automatically optimise processes inside fully digital factories. The ultimate productivity multiplier, AI, is here to further boost efficiency and unlock new capabilities previously thought to be out of reach.
Do you want to work with an automation partner that has a firm footing in the future? Get in touch with our team.