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Despite the likelihood of another financial crisis looming, IDC Manufacturing Insights predicts moderate growth in the Singapore economy during the next five years. This will in turn fuel manufacturing IT spending, which is forecasted to grow from US$ 885 million to US$ 1053 million by 2015, representing a CAGR of 4.45% between 2011 and 2015.

Among the range of industries within manufacturing in Singapore, IDC Manufacturing Insights expects the high-tech sector to spend most on IT in 2011, accounting for about half of all IT spending in manufacturing. This is followed by the chemical sector. In terms of IT spending growth, IDC Manufacturing Insights sees potential in the consumer product process manufacturing, automotive, and high-tech electronic components sectors.

Companies are still very cautious with their spending due to the volatility in the world economy, which means that investments in IT need to have an immediate payback.

Recent regional events such as the earthquake in New Zealand and the Tsunami in Japan have raised questions over the resiliency of the supply chain, and IDC Manufacturing Insights is seeing increasing attention being given to the management of supply chain risk.

"With the increasing complexity of products and manufacturing processes coupled with increasing costs and competition, manufacturers are aware that they need to be nimble and constantly improve in order to be competitive," says Dr. Christopher Holmes, Head, International, IDC Manufacturing Insights. "But as costs rise, manufacturers need to get much cleverer at how they compete."

Dr. Holmes adds: "We are seeing an increasing trend to look at productivity and efficiency across the region. As companies seek to put in place resilient and responsive processes to cope with today's volatile business environment, we expect that that they will be investing in enterprise resource management and supply chain management applications this year."

Overall, the less developed manufacturing organizations are expected to take the first step in business and manufacturing automation in 2011.

"For the more advanced companies, we will see more specialist application adoption, such as supply chain and product lifecycle applications," concludes Dr. Holmes.

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