With the New Year on the horizon, and the COVID-19 pandemic keeping the world on the edge, what can the process manufacturing industries expect from 2022? Let’s have a quick look over the indicators.
Table of Contents:
- Overview
- Manufacturing in the age of uncertainty
- Food and beverages manufacturing industry
- Trends that will rule the pharmaceutical sector in 2022
- Paint manufacturing Industry
- Coatings industry
- Chemical industry
- Personal care and cosmetics manufacturing industry
- Closing thoughts
Overview
The COVID-19 catastrophe has put forth many new challenges for the manufacturing industries, which require a transformed way of working to recompose their manufacturing operations.
Not just has the pandemic affected lives and livelihoods, but also has imparted greater influence on the economy.
While the manufacturing sector has been trying to get back on its feet, many regions in the world have started observing a new surge in COVID cases due to the spread of the newly-discovered variant “Omicron”.
While the rapid pace of vaccination can keep the global population in good stead, will the businesses be able to return to their pre-pandemic potential, or will they fall short again in front of this new obstacle?
What can they possibly have in store this year? Let’s try and find the answers:
Manufacturing in the age of uncertainty
Over the past couple of years, the COVID-19 virus has disrupted the core capabilities of every business globally. The compounding of restrictions and unpredictable situations has hit the manufacturing sector hard, both on the demand and supply side.
While the initial impact of this pandemic proved to be a brutal one, the manufacturing industry has demonstrated its readiness for an effective rebound against it by opting for digitalization initiatives.
With this digital penetration, companies would be looking to enhance their operations in order to meet their relevant requirements.
Let’s take a specific closer look at the process manufacturing industry, to understand what challenges as well as opportunities does 2022 have in store for them.
Food and beverages manufacturing industry
Along with the unpleasant feeling of worry and fear, we were slowly moving towards normalizing the situation and making our lives more liveable.
However, the sudden spike in the recent cases has transformed everyone’s perspective, making the market more demanding for the F&B manufacturers in particular.
The food and beverages manufacturing industry is likely to experience an unusual transition in response to the increasing demands of customers related to the hygienic production & sustainable packaging of food products, with people becoming more concerned about their health and the surrounding environment.
After emerging in 2020, this trend is likely to stick around in 2022 as well.
Another trend that’s likely to take the food & beverage industry by storm in the year 2022 is investment in automation and digitalization, which is going to be the key solution for the manufacturers who are looking to scale up the production again.
Focus on localized production and forecasting and demand planning is going to be yet another trend for the industry this year.
Trends that will rule the pharmaceutical sector in 2022
Amid the downfall witnessed by virtually every sector, the pharmaceutical industry managed to grow in the past couple of years.
The challenges faced by other sectors sort of acted as the steppingstone for the pharma industry, especially while achieving the herculean feat of massive vaccine production.
Moving forward, disruptive technologies are going to be a hot trend for pharma industry in 2022. After playing its part in self-driven cars and chatbots, Artificial intelligence (AI) will find a new home in pharma manufacturing.
With the help of advanced machine learning algorithms and AI-powered tools, companies will witness streamlined production and error-free drug discovery at a new rate.
Among other trends will be intensifying efforts towards developing medicines with high accuracy, reducing the operational costs, and decreasing the count of clinical trials.
For this, the pharma companies will have to make a notable shift towards effective research & development.
Paint Manufacturing Industry
In this changed world, there has been an increased focus on improving homes. To have a healthy environment around is now the top priority of every individual.
So, even during these difficult times, there is a clear indication of growth opportunity for the paint companies for offering home hygiene products.
In 2022, the paint manufacturing industry is likely to deal with the trend of facing an exponential increase in the prices of some raw materials, which possibly can peg the industry back a bit.
Some other trends that are likely to dominate the paint manufacturing industry this year would be emphasis on getting rid of supply chain bottlenecks, and heightened focus on bringing down the transportation & shipping costs.
Coatings Industry
Increased demand in the construction industry, coupled with a significant rise in infrastructure activities, is likely to be the buzzing trend for the coatings manufacturing industry in 2022.
The acrylic coating is the primary need of every construction for providing high-end finishing and binding properties to the crucial elements like roof, walls, etc. In 2022, it will drive the industry.
In this New Year, there will also be a greater focus on meeting complex environmental regulations, making supply chain resilient, and disruption-proof, and shifting focus towards eco-friendly coatings.
Chemical Industry
Since the start of the pandemic, the chemical industry has constantly been dealing with numerous challenges.
Initially, lockdown restricted shipping, trucking, and movement of raw materials which severely affected the production and delivery plans of chemicals manufacturers.
And now, when things were getting slightly better, the consumer demands are making the manufacturers struggle.
The socially responsible and well-aware consumers are more cautious about limiting the ways that harm the nature, resulting in adoption of carbon-neutral products, due to which manufacturers are facing a big transition in their production approach. This trend is likely to be a buzzword in 2022.
In other trends, focus on R&D initiatives to bring out innovation, and adoption of new business models for sustainable growth, are likely to take prominent place for the chemical manufacturing industry in the year 2022.
Personal care and cosmetics manufacturing industry
For the past couple of years, the personal care & cosmetics industry has also been witnessing change. The pandemic has brought a noticeable transition for the consumers towards a healthy life with a two-fold motive; one is minimizing the environmental degradation, while self-care being the other.
With a new-found awareness towards safeguarding the skin against artificially-created chemicals, people are shifting towards natural products, making plant-based skincare to be the future of this industry, and also a buzzword for 2022.
The manufacturers are also expected to focus on some of the other trends this year, which include maintaining efficacy and affordability of the products, keeping digitalization at the forefront, and offering positive experience to the consumers, both online as well as offline.
Concluding Thoughts
For successfully navigating these trends in the year 2022, the aforementioned process manufacturing businesses will require an effective automation tool by their side. And there can be no better partner than BatchMaster ERP.
BatchMaster’s intelligently crafted and specifically tailored ERP solutions will surely help the process manufacturing businesses from these industries remain ahead of the pack, by streamlining & stabilizing their core operations even during the time of crisis.
If yours is a manufacturing businesses operating in the pharma, food, paint, coatings, chemicals, or personal care & cosmetics industry, do write to our experts today for a no-obligation discussion, or for scheduling a demo, and understanding how we can help your business remain on top of the trends in 2022, and beyond!
