Business Wire

WI-ROCKWELL-AUTOMATION

Share
New State of Smart Manufacturing Study Finds Over 40% of Manufacturers Struggle to Outpace Competitors Due to Lack of Technology and Skilled Workforce

Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, today announced the results of the 8th annual “State of Smart Manufacturing Report.” The global study surveyed more than 1,350 manufacturers across 13 of the leading manufacturing countries.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230314005374/en/

To view this piece of content from mms.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.

Rockwell Automation announced the results of the 8th annual “State of Smart Manufacturing Report” (Photo: Business Wire)

This year’s report reveals a focus on delivering profitable growth without sacrificing quality, an emphasis on accessing data’s true potential, and increasing adoption of technology to build resilience, enable agility, increase sustainability, and address workforce challenges.

Key global findings include:

  • Twice as many manufacturers believe their organization lacks the technology needed to outpace the competition, as compared to 2022.
  • 4 out of 5 manufacturers still lack an end-to-end supply chain planning solution.
  • Cybersecurity risks rank highest as the obstacle respondents are looking to mitigate with smart manufacturing initiatives.
  • 45% of manufacturers cite “improving quality” as the main positive outcome they want to achieve with smart manufacturing initiatives.
  • 89% of manufacturers plan to maintain or grow employment due to technology adoption. Additionally, 36% of respondents believe they will be able to repurpose existing workers due to their increasing use of technology.
  • Of the 95% of manufacturers who have formal or informal ESG policies in place, 42% cite “improving efficiencies” as the top driving factor for pursuing ESG initiatives.

“Manufacturers are continuing to seek opportunities for profitable growth but are realizing that uncertainty in workforce availability is impacting quality, along with their ability to meet evolving customer needs,” said Veena Lakkundi, senior vice president, Corporate Strategy and Development, Rockwell Automation. “The survey found that smart manufacturing technology is enabling manufacturers of all sizes to optimize more resilient, agile, and sustainable solutions that accelerate transformation. If we’ve learned anything from history, it’s that organizations that invest in innovation, with a bias for action, during times of uncertainty can outpace competitors.”

Based on the survey findings, technology is crucial to mitigating risk and delivering growth. However, for one-third of manufacturers, the range of available systems and platforms is leading to “technology paralysis” – an inability to decide between solutions. Manufacturers can overcome this indecision by choosing a partner with relevant industry expertise and experience who can advise and guide them in implementing a fit-for-purpose solution to achieve desired outcomes.

“At Rockwell, we combine the power of our portfolio of industry solutions with our second-to-none partner ecosystem to serve as a trusted advisor to leading companies around the world,” said Lakkundi. “As the biggest company focused solely on industrial automation and digital transformation, we work to make the complex simple and meet companies where they are in their journeys.”

The full findings of the report can be found here.

Methodology

This report analyzed feedback from 1,353 respondents from 13 of the top manufacturing countries with roles from management up to the C-suite and was conducted in association with Sapio Research and Plex Systems. The survey covered discrete, process, and hybrid industries across a balanced distribution of company sizes with revenues spanning $10 million to over $10 billion, providing a wide breadth of manufacturing business perspectives.

About Rockwell Automation

Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK) is a global leader in industrial automation and digital transformation. We connect the imaginations of people with the potential of technology to expand what is humanly possible, making the world more productive and more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rockwell Automation employs approximately 26,000 problem solvers dedicated to our customers in more than 100 countries. To learn more about how we are bringing the Connected Enterprise to life across industrial enterprises, visit www.rockwellautomation.com.

To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230314005374/en/

About Business Wire

Business Wire
Business Wire
101 California Street, 20th Floor
CA 94111 San Francisco

http://businesswire.com
DK

Subscribe to releases from Business Wire

Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Latest releases from Business Wire

Owkin Unveils Europe’s First Pan-European Agentic Infrastructure for Biology at the Franco-German Digital Sovereignty Summit18.11.2025 21:48:00 CET | Press release

At today’s Franco-German Summit on Digital Sovereignty in Berlin, Owkin, together with leading academic partners Gustave Roussy (France) and Charité Comprehensive Cancer Center (Germany), announced a landmark initiative to build the first pan-European agentic infrastructure to make biological data AI-ready, as a key step towards biological super intelligence. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251118529021/en/ Thomas Clozel (CEO of Owkin) joins Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and others at the Franco-German Digital Sovereignty Summit The project aims to develop and deploy modern AI methods to support biological research and drug development. An initial focus will be on supporting the harmonization and structuring of biomedical data across Europe to enhance scientific collaboration. It will combine agentic AI systems and cutting-edge biomedical data structuring, to power a new reasoning model capable of automating

Reply at Microsoft Ignite 2025: Showcasing AI Innovation, Copilot Experiences, and Intelligent Enterprise Solutions18.11.2025 21:30:00 CET | Press release

Reply [EXM, STAR: REY] is taking part in Microsoft Ignite 2025, a premier event for technology professionals and decision-makers hosted by Microsoft, held from November 18 to 21 in San Francisco, California. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251118836834/en/ A trusted Microsoft partner since 1996, Reply empowers organizations to innovate with Microsoft technologies, driving agility, intelligence, and sustainable growth. A trusted Microsoft partner since 1996, Reply empowers organizations to innovate with Microsoft technologies, driving agility, intelligence, and sustainable growth. With more than 2,000 Microsoft certifications across its network of companies – including Business Elements Reply, Cluster Reply, Solidsoft Reply, Light Reply, Root16 Reply, Valorem Reply, WM Reply and Zest Reply – the group has achieved all six Microsoft Solutions Partner designations. This year, Reply is also celebrating two major h

ClickHouse Strengthens Collaboration with Microsoft through Microsoft OneLake Integration for Seamless Data Interoperability18.11.2025 21:00:00 CET | Press release

ClickHouse Inc., the company behind one of the world’s fastest and most popular real-time analytics databases, today announced the availability of a powerful new integration with Microsoft OneLake, the unified data lake of Microsoft Fabric. This integration enables organizations to harness the scale, governance, and simplicity of OneLake with the speed and flexibility of ClickHouse for real-time, large-scale analytical workloads. Learn more in our technical post. Expanding the ClickHouse-Microsoft collaboration Following the general availability of ClickHouse Cloud on Microsoft Azure, recent performance enhancements of ClickHouse on Azure Blob Storage, and a steady series of new capabilities, this integration with Microsoft OneLake marks the latest milestone in ClickHouse’s growing collaboration with Microsoft. This initiative reinforces ClickHouse’s commitment to deep interoperability across Microsoft’s data ecosystem. From Azure to Fabric, the goal is to enable real-time analytics wi

Spatial Announces the Release of 2026 1.0: Enhanced CAD Translation, Model Simplification and Mesh Preparation18.11.2025 20:53:00 CET | Press release

Streamline design, manufacturing, and simulation workflows with improved robustness and performance. Spatial Corp., the leading software development kit provider for design, manufacturing and engineering solutions and a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, today announced Release 2026 1.0 and updates across several product lines, reaffirming its commitment to providing innovative solutions. Release 2026 1.0 delivers major enhancements across Spatial’s SDKs, improving CAD translation, data preparation, and meshing workflows. 3D InterOp adds expanded PMI, MBD, and CAD format support, while Hidden Body Removal (HBR) now extends to Parasolid-based translations. Furthermore, both 3D ACIS Modeler and CGM Modeler offer various enhancements including the new Mesh Prep for ACIS to simplify the creation of meshes for simulation workflows. Together, these updates boost interoperability, automation, and overall efficiency from design to manufacturing and simulation. Enhancements include: 3D InterOpSOL

New RSA Agent for Admin Threats Now Generally Available in Microsoft Security Copilot18.11.2025 19:07:00 CET | Press release

RSA Security today announced the general availability of its RSA Advisor for Admin Threats agent in Microsoft Security Copilot. “AI is the force multiplier for defenders, and when partners bring their agentic innovation into the Security Copilot ecosystem, the impact is exponential. Together, we’re not just building tools—we’re creating a new era of intelligent, collaborative cyber defense.” - Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security. “We accelerated development of the RSA Advisor for Admin Threats agent to give security leaders the essential AI capabilities they need to quickly detect and resolve high-risk activity or insider threats in RSA ID Plus for Microsoft tenants,” said RSA President, Chief Product and Strategy Officer Jim Taylor. “In a recent RSA survey of more than 2,100 global security leaders, agentic AI emerged as the top cybersecurity priority, and 91% said they plan to integrate AI into their tech stack. We’re working with Microsoft to meet customers’ de

In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.

Visit our pressroom
World GlobeA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.HiddenA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.Eye