New report cites ‘agility emergency’ for manufacturers in tariff times

What’s you’ll learn:

39% of C-level execs and 30% at all other levels said rigid processes hinder adaptability in the current environment of tariffs, supply chain problems and workforce upheaval.
91% expect AI investment will deliver quality improvement.
78% say greater supply chain information will help in tariff times.
75% are prioritizing earlier designs to improve quality.
72% said they need more automation.

While recent Americas-only research by Hexagon made the Trump tariffs somewhat of a side note in favor of a topline finding that outdated technology is hurting hiring at North American factories, the global sensor, software and autonomous solution company’s new worldwide survey places the U.S. administration’s import levies, both those in force and threatened, square in the middle of what manufacturers identify as their No. 1 current concern: agility.

Tariffs, which alter supply chains and upend established sources of raw materials, again came into focus this week as Donald Trump threatened 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, with levies as high as 25% while officially delaying other import taxes set to come into effect on July 9, seeking to pressure other nations into striking trade deals.

Trump also said on July 8 that he would impose a 50% tariff on all imports to the U.S. of copper, a critical material in energy technologies, infrastructure, military applications and even consumer electronics.

In light of the flare-up in tariff threats, the Hexagon report had pertinent insights as manufacturers could be forced to react to the latest levies. The report, actually released late last month, says: “Global instability is creating an agility emergency.”

In his introduction to new 2025 edition of Hexagon's Advanced Manufacturing Report, the president of the company’s manufacturing intelligence division didn’t waste time identifying the Trump tariffs as the top driver of manufacturers’ motivation toward more agile operations.

In the report, 39% of C-level executives (who made up exactly 237 of the 1,051 respondents) and 30% of all other levels said rigid processes hinder adaptability in the current “uncertainty is the new certainty” environment.

“The ultimate price for manufacturers right now is agility—it's a capability that shifts you straight from survive to thrive," the division’s president, Andreas Renulf, noted to start the report, adding that the import taxes are “the crest of a much larger wave. With the constant threat of supply chain shocks, mounting time to market pressures, and the ongoing skills crunch—the industry is navigating constant turbulence.”

Renulf and the Hexagon report’s overall message: “Don't stand still.”

In it, 20% of the respondents were from North America, 33% from the EMEA region (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), 37% from the Asian-Pacific area of the world, and 10% hailed from Latin America.

The report focuses on five verticals: electronics manufacturing (represented by 22% of the respondents); automotive (another 22%); health care and life sciences (21% representation); energy (18%); and aerospace and defense (17%). All respondents hailed from companies with anywhere from 500 to 20,000 employees.

Agility dominates the Top 5

The top five business issues among manufacturers—the high cost of new product introduction (their No. 1 priority, according to the report), supply chain challenges, sourcing materials and parts, lack of agility, and long time to market of products—that the report’s 1,051 respondents identified are all related to agility, according to Hexagon.

"This tells us that business resilience and agile responsiveness is the main issue on the minds of the manufacturing industry," the 2025 report notes.

Quality issues, an agility inhibitor, also are pervasive among the respondents, with one third of the manufacturers saying they are unable to identify the root cause of quality issues.

The 1,051 identified four key areas of their focus: 91% expect AI investment will deliver quality improvement; 78% said greater supply chain information and will help in tariff times; 75% are prioritizing earlier designs to improve quality; and 72% said they need more automation for their operations.

Barriers to digital transformation, benefits from AI and robotics

The global Hexagon study also asked manufacturers where they see hurdles to digitalization, and a third of the 1,051 said too many of their processes are still analog. Almost one-third said they suffer data quality issues while 33% said their companies’ employees lack digital skills for implementation of transformation. Overall, 91% said they faced some kind of barrier to digitalization.

Podcast: Texas Pride Trailers a prime example of digital transformation success

The report also sees manufacturers seizing on the benefits of automation, specifically AI, with 90% reporting that they are gaining competitive advantage from investment in artificial intelligence, with 49% already realizing the benefits of AI adoption and another 41% expecting to do so.

Almost three-quarters of the respondents (72%) think more automation investment should be a priority for improving quality with 65% believing physical automation with robots offers large investment benefit.