ATLANTA and TEMPE, AZ—Market researchers at Deloitte Consulting LLP and the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) recently disclosed their positive outlooks for manufacturing in 2022.

Jason Bergstrom, a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP, and the company's Go-To-Market Smart Factory leader, believes that manufacturing will move from occasional smart factory use cases to full-scale smart factory adoption. He says this will occur thanks to the cost-effectiveness of advanced technologies such as video analytics, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, autonomous mobile robots and command centers—all of which used to require custom and often home-grown solutions, but are now offered by multiple providers.

Bergstrom also says that vision systems and autonomous mobile robots will play big smart factory roles. The former will lead to significant improvements in quality and safety, while the latter will let more companies easily automate repetitive tasks.

Over at the ISM, Tim Fiore, chair of the group's manufacturing business survey committee, has written a report that says manufacturing’s purchasing and supply executives expect to see strong growth in 2022.

"They are optimistic about overall business prospects for the first half of 2022, with business continuing to expand through the second half, though at slightly lower rates," he writes. "Manufacturing experienced 18 consecutive months of growth from June 2020 through November 2021, with the composite PMI registering above 60 in nine of the last 12 months of that time frame.

"Respondents expect raw materials pricing pressure to increase in 2022, as well as improved profit margins over H2 2021. Wages and employment will continue high rates of growth as hiring slows. Manufacturers also predict growth in both exports and imports in 2022.”

According to Fiore, manufacturing capital expenses (capex) are expected to see a 7.7 percent increase this year, following a 12.1 percent decrease in 2021.