Mass-produced personalized products sound like an oxymoron. Not so according to manufacturing industry experts who say that companies need the intelligence that allows factories to turn on a dime so they can meet whiplash-fast customer demand signals in a market rocked by anything from extreme weather to geopolitical conflicts.

“Manufacturers can no longer create one product for one set of customers,” said Mike Lackey, global vice president of Solution Management for Digital Manufacturing at SAP. “They have to be agile enough to deliver mass-produced and individualized products at scale. The intelligent factory delivers on highly changeable customer expectations by connecting business data directly with the shop floor for agility based on unexpected events as they arise. Leading manufacturers are digitally transforming to infuse intelligence into every aspect of the business and the factory while controlling costs and quality for a stronger future.”