Emerging trends in global advanced manufacturing: challenges, opportunities and policy responses

Building on a previous collaboration with UNIDO, this report provides an update on the megatrends and technological developments driving change in global advanced manufacturing, paying particular attention to the increasing digitalisation of manufacturing.

Case studies illustrating how advanced manufacturing is being supported by government policy programmes are drawn from major manufacturing countries including USA, UK, Japan and Germany. These examples reveal that opportunities and challenges to capturing value in advanced manufacturing can be found not only in the development of more sophisticated products, but also in the engineering of better production technologies and systems, the establishment of more efficient and responsive supply chains, and through a better understanding of customer needs.