Manufacturing and distribution are changing faster than at any point in their history. Factory networks now share data with the enterprise, artificial intelligence is moving onto the plant floor, and more of what runs a plant lives in software than ever before. This paper examines the seven trends redrawing industrial operations in 2027, grounds each in current industry data, and traces the common thread beneath them: as plants grow more connected and automated, keeping production running, and recovering it quickly when something interrupts it, becomes a design decision rather than an afterthought.
What you’ll learn:
- The seven trends redrawing manufacturing and distribution in 2027, from IT/OT convergence to agentic AI to an aging workforce
- What current research reveals about each, with data from Deloitte, Dragos, SANS, IBM, and Siemens
- Why more connected, automated operations depend on being able to recover quickly when production stops
- How to adopt new technology deliberately, pairing capability with the resilience needed to depend on it
