Manufacturing sub-groups

I have been reading a report from IDC related to the manufacturing industry, and one of the things, I liked was the categorization done based on what it is that drives the cadence of the business and the associated supply chain.

These sub-groups are:

• Asset – oriented value chains are characterized by large investments in property, plant, and equipment and are dealing with modest levels of variation in supply, manufacturing, and demand.
• Brand – oriented value chains are characterized by branded products that serve consumer markets and are mostly challenged by managing highly variable demand and aligning that demand with relatively steady supply.
• Engineering – oriented value chains are characterized by segments that are driven by complex products that have fairly steady demand, but long engineering cycle and order books make it difficult to attenuate demand and supply variation. Product configuration complexity and designed/engineered to order further challenge efficiency.
• Technology – oriented value chains have a physical flow of goods that are dictated by the iterating cycles of key underlying technology (e.g., processors) and can have high levels of variation in supply, manufacturing, and demand.

All of them are “cost oriented” segments and it’s basically because cost reduction continuous being the top-rated supply chain priority.