Following 2024, 2025 is forecasted to evolve its technological advancement with equal force. Recent hype will manifest itself in the strategic pipeline, and understood technologies will enhance engineering and manufacturing capabilities.
This article explores the broad areas that will receive attention in 2025. This includes smart manufacturing, sustainability, supply chain and inventory strategies, reskilling and smarter financing.
Smart Manufacturing
As technology advances, so does the infrastructure required to support it. For smart manufacturing at scale, more powerful computing resources that can be controlled safely and autonomously are required. Artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and real-time data processing all require vast computing resources.
To facilitate increased data flows through interconnected wireless systems and devices, network speeds will increase. The progress of WIFI 7 and 5G will continue with rollouts to provide ‘Extremely High Throughput ’.
As manufacturers increase and broaden their use of technology, their security risk increases. With more interconnected systems, devices and automation, the risk of attack from inside and outside the organisation increases. Cyber security will feature prominently in 2025 as security experts highlight the increasing risk that manufacturers face. Manufacturers will become more in tune with their responsibility to prioritise security.
From 2024, the Internet of Things will continue supplying manufacturers with smart devices to improve production processes. Edge computing, where data processing occurs closer to production, will reduce latencies and enhance security and overall performance.
Interest in robotics will continue to rise as they become more adaptable and intelligent. Advanced sensing and perception will allow them to operate in more complex environments and perform a range of tasks not previously capable of. Robots will also begin to work more cooperatively. As AI plays a larger role, we will see more collaboration between humans and robots, allowing humans to focus on the tasks where they best add value.
Many of the capabilities being envisioned in strategy meetings will continue to centre around AI. For example, taking readings using measuring equipment was a manual process. Now, measuring can take place autonomously, in line with real-time analytic and decision-making capabilities, such as coordinate measuring machines (CMMs).
2024 saw a rapid uptake of generative AI, and in 2025, more practical use cases will be developed. Offering data exploration, insight generation and decision-making, large language models extend the field of analytics to benefit manufacturing.
Data exploration can occur by querying with natural language, making the data more quickly valuable for a wider group of people. Of course, other machines can also access these capabilities. Benefits exist in pattern recognition, anomaly detection, and predictive analysis, dramatically increasing intelligence across all business functions.
A digital twin is a digital model of a physical product, process or system. It is intended to support activities like simulation, testing, prototyping and monitoring to advance production expansion, capability and quality. As AI becomes more capable, so do digital twins, and their business value continues to increase as implementation challenges are harmonised.
With all the greatness that technology offers, manufacturers will become increasingly concerned about the costs it poses. Return on investment is critical for any business, and with limited capital expenditure, careful choices need to be made to ensure competitiveness.
As we move through 2025, the cost of AI is likely to receive more attention—alongside environmental concerns.
Customisation and Personalisation
Many of the technologies mentioned above facilitate advanced manufacturing, enabling customisation and personalisation. For example, through customer data analysis and predictive analytics, product recommendations and designs can be made based on user preferences, past purchases and trends. Further, better demand forecasting will allow better resource planning.
Additive manufacturing will support customisation by enabling the on-demand production of customised products without moulds or production lines. The digital twins will also support customisation by allowing manufacturers to test customisations.
Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Manufacturing
The never-ending quest for a more sustainable planet will continue to impress upon manufacturing. Environmental regulations will likely become more stringent, and manufacturers embracing energy-efficiency drives will likely be more competitive. As a result, sustainability will feature heavily in corporate social responsibility and environmental and social governance discussions.
The transition to renewable energy sources, such as solar, will continue. For instance, Solar power is not only greener but also offers operational and financial benefits. By creating the electricity that a manufacturer needs on-site, they will be protected from varying grid prices and outages while using the sun’s free energy.
Supply Chain and Inventory Strategies
Recent domestic and global events have caused massive disruptions and caused many businesses to reconsider their supply chain and inventory strategies. Brexit, Covid, financial crashes such as the 2008 crisis and war in foreign countries have led to deteriorating trade relationships, increased costs, higher lead times and uncertainty over availability and delivery.
Some manufacturers are diversifying and localising to mitigate risks and reduce their vulnerability to geopolitical tensions and trade uncertainties. Technology is also modernising the supply chain with improved tracking and forecasting.
Reskilling
Again, the workforce skill gap will be on the agenda for 2025. As AI progresses, there will be an ever-increasing need to reskill the workforce to meet new opportunities and challenges. Learning is likely to become more essential and continuous as robot companions evolve and humans take on a greater range of tasks than in the past.
Smarter Financing
While manufacturing has been busy getting smarter, so has finance. With a greater understanding of manufacturing businesses and technologies, financiers will be able to provide support for a wider range of capital expenditure and working capital activities. Financiers will incorporate advanced data analysis to perform risk assessments, leading to more informed lending decisions.
Further, innovative solutions such as cryptocurrency and blockchain will likely feature in discussions and incentives for sustainability will certainly happen. For example, in the U.K., there are various incentives for solar power, such as the Smart Export Guarantee, where excess energy can be exported back to the grid. Solar PV systems can also be offset against taxable profits, and the electricity generated is not subject to the Climate Change Levy.
Jeff Eley is the founder and managing director of Eley Metrology, a leading company in the precision measurement industry. With decades of experience in metrology, Jeff has established himself as a respected figure in the field. Under his leadership, Eley Metrology has become renowned for its expertise in coordinate measuring machines (CMMs), digital height gauges, and granite metrology products. Jeff’s vision has driven the company to develop innovative solutions, including custom-designed CMMs and the flagship long-bore measurement machine (LBM). His commitment to excellence and customer-centric approach has positioned Eley Metrology as a trusted provider of high-precision measurement tools and services for industries such as aerospace, automotive, and manufacturing.