Future-Proofing Global Value Chains: Country Preparedness and Beyond

Case studies

Total number of case studies

299

Sectors

21

Locations

59

Topics

9

To improve productivity, reduce cost of goods and increase manufacturing flexibility, the Biotech Development Center shifted biologics production from batch to continuous processing, reimagining both process development and GMP clinical manufacturing. Designed to accelerate the availability of new medicines to patients, this digitally-enabled facility cut speed to patient by 50% and increased labour productivity in the laboratory by 67% through advanced automation, robotics and modular environments enabling scientists to spend more time on high-value-add tasks. The continuous platform reduces capital expenditure need for a new commercial plant by 80%, establishing a scalable foundation for next-generation biologics production.
Switzerland
Merck - Fenil-sur-Corsier - Customer Centric
Intensifying competition in the electric vehicle sector demands faster product development, customization and integration across R&D, manufacturing and quality functions. The Hefei site created a real-time closed-loop system connecting in-vehicle AI, battery swap networks and a digital twin platform capable of managing more than 3.6 million vehicle configurations. The transformation accelerated speed-to-market by 44% and automated 90% of R&D workflows.
People's Republic of China
NIO - Hefei - Customer Centric
Growing demand for personalized, nutrition-based pet care required the site to deliver more than 400 SKUs while maintaining quality and agility. By deploying over 40 advanced solutions, including GenAI and advanced analytics, across agricultural sourcing, production and after-sales care, the site improved customer satisfaction by 20%, reduced in-line defects by 70% and maintained service levels above 98%.
People's Republic of China
Royal Canin - Shanghai - Customer Centric
Rapid growth in data centre demand significantly increased complexity across the site's engineer-to-order value chain, creating production, testing and logistics bottlenecks. By leveraging data engineering, integrated logistics, industrial IoT and advanced AI solutions, the site increased on-time delivery from 61% to 97%, reduced lead times by up to 35%, eliminated $43 million in backorders.
USA
Schneider Electric - El Paso- Customer Centric
Driven by growing demand for LNG carriers and other green vessels, the shipyard faced increasing complexity, fragmented planning and long delivery cycles. By deploying more than 25 digital solutions, including AI-driven planning, digital twin assembly and just-in-time logistics, the site integrated planning and execution end-to-end. Throughput increased 2.6-fold, dock time fell by 52% and first-pass assembly yield improved by 25%.
People's Republic of China
China Merchants Heavy Industry- Haimen- Productivity
Increasing volatility in global trade and expectations for thermal insulation and product ruggedness challenged traditional manufacturing of reefer containers for global cold chain logistics. By deploying more than 50 digital applications and AI-enabled solutions to optimize resource allocation and production processes, the site improved manufacturing lead times by 32%, reduced defects by 47% and lowered conversion costs by 24%.
People's Republic of China
CIMC Reefer Containers - Jiaozhou - Productivity
As India's largest single-site caustic soda producer with limited downstream integration, the site faced mounting margin pressure in an energy-intensive industry where power accounts for most operating costs. The site deployed 45 advanced solutions, including AI-enabled process control and GenAI-enabled maintenance manager. The transformation delivered an 11 percentage-point EBITDA improvement, reduced power costs by 32%, lowered material costs by 15% and cut CO₂ emissions by 14%.
India
DCM Shriram - Gujarat - Productivity
As demand for AI-driven infrastructure accelerated, the Norman site shifted its business toward highly customized storage solutions. Increasing product complexity, fragmented data and concentrated quarter-end demand exposed productivity constraints and slowed revenue conversion. By integrating inventory visibility and decision-making into a global digital platform and deploying AI-enabled configuration automation, the site reduced inventory by 50%, shortened order-to-ship lead times by 77% and advanced a proactive end-to-end orchestration model to improve delivery performance and responsiveness.
USA
Hitachi Group, Hitachi Vantara Manufacturing - Norman- Productivity
Operating a high-mix, low-volume environment with more than 1,000 SKUs and over 20,000 annual changeovers, the site faced challenges in flexibility, quality consistency and dependence on tacit worker knowledge. By deploying more than 50 digital and AI solutions, including flexible automation, AI-enabled quality control and intelligent maintenance, the site increased units per person-hour by 43%, reduced defects by 35% and shortened time-to-competency by 67%.
Singapore
Rockwell Automation - Singapore- Productivity
Rising demand from the power and petrochemical sectors required the Hawiyah Gas and NGL Complex to increase capacity while maintaining reliability and advancing decarbonization goals. Through more than 50 advanced use cases, including digital twin optimization and AI-enabled asset management, the site increased production volumes by 26%, improved product quality by 43%, reduced CO₂ emissions by 16% and increased overall equipment effectiveness by 44%.
Saudi Arabia
Aramco - Hawiyah NGL - Productivity
Traditional Chinese medicine production has historically relied on manual expertise and qualitative process controls, making it difficult to ensure consistent quality while balancing mass production, small-batch orders and customized demand. The site deployed more than 30 advanced solutions, including digital frying standards and advanced quality-marker analytics, to optimize production. The transformation reduced batch-to-batch quality variation by 33%, increased OEE by 13%, lowered production costs by 10% and captured critical tacit knowledge digitally.
People's Republic of China
Taiji Group Chongqing Fuling Pharmaceutical, SINOPHARM - Chongqing - Productivity
Originally designed for large-scale production, the site faced growing complexity from a 50% increase in SKUs and a fourfold rise in demand volatility driven by e-commerce and smaller order sizes. By implementing an end-to-end Fourth Industrial Revolution ecosystem, including AI-enabled planning, sourcing and magnetic levitation manufacturing technologies, the site reduced response times by 72%, accelerated changeovers by 40%, reduced minimum order quantities by 40% and improved service levels to 99%.
India
Unilever - Haridwar - Supply Chain Resilience
As time-to-delivery competition in bulky-goods logistics intensified and hybrid B2B/B2C demand surged, traditional fulfilment models struggled to keep pace. The Qingdao site developed an AI-enabled platform that uses intelligent decision-making across order fulfilment, warehouse operations, vehicle scheduling and carrier bidding to dynamically optimize logistics flows. This transformation increased response time by 48%, improved inventory turnover by 40% and reduced transportation costs by 23%.
People's Republic of China
RRS Qingdao Smart Logistics Park - Qingdao - Supply Chain Resilience
Located in a region facing severe groundwater depletion and carbon-intensive energy use, the site confronted growing risks to long-term operational continuity. By deploying AI-enabled solutions across regenerative sourcing, water management and energy systems, the site reduced scope 1 and 2 emissions by 99%, improved energy efficiency by 29%, contributed to a 37% reduction in upstream transportation and distribution scope 3 emissions across the Hindustan Unilever Foods portfolio, and achieved 100 times groundwater recharge while supporting 35% production growth.
India
Unilever - Sonepat - Sustainability
As the site experienced 30% business growth, increased insourcing and stricter sustainability requirements, it faced the challenge of reducing emissions across its value chain while supporting continued expansion. By deploying more than 50 advanced cases, including SF₆-free product design, supplier decarbonization programmes, energy optimization and SF₆ circularity initiatives, the site reduced Scope 1 emissions by 65%, eliminated Scope 2 emissions and reduced Scope 3 emissions by 43%, while improving energy efficiency by 36%.
People's Republic of China
Schneider Electric - Beijing - Sustainability
To address the dual challenge of improving safety and operational efficiency in nuclear power generation, the site built advanced digital capabilities across its workforce. By scaling 45 advanced use cases across talent development, deployment and human-error prevention, the site increased digital talent more than tenfold, reduced human error by 71% and increased profit per employee by 50%.
People's Republic of China
Fujian Ningde Nuclear Power - Fuding - Talent
The textile industry faces rising demands for quality and cost efficiency but remains constrained by labour-intensive, experience-based operations. To comprehensively tackle these challenges, Yueda Textile implemented 23 digital use cases including smart logistics, digital traceability and AI-driven performance management. Its digital transformation enabled the site to move to data-based operations, boosting productivity by 421%, reducing defects by 90% and cutting conversion costs by 26%.
People's Republic of China | Technology
Yueda Textile - Yancheng - Productivity
For the world's largest battery production site, rapid expansion brought a major challenge: rising carbon emissions, high energy use and an increasing value-chain carbon footprint and manufacturing costs. To solve this, the site combined an AI-driven energy transformation, micro-grid photo-voltaic storage, process innovation and low-carbon product R&D. The initiative resulted in a 56% reduction in carbon footprint and helped 13 suppliers achieve carbon neutrality certification, cutting annual Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 16% and Scope 3 emissions per unit output by 45%.
People's Republic of China | Energy Technologies, Technology
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. (CATL) - Yibin - Sustainability
Foxconn Industrial Internet Viet Nam (Fii VN) is a key hub for the company's supply chain resilience. Yet, it faced net-zero challenges across its value chain, with Scope 3 at 27% upstream – of which 70% come from 128 small and medium-size suppliers (SMEs) – and 36% downstream. Fii's customers aim for 50% material circularity and 100% renewable energy by 2030. To address this, Fii VN Bac Ninh deployed more than 20 digital solutions, including AI-driven green design to reduce the carbon footprint of its bill-of-materials, a generative AI carbon accounting platform for SMEs and Omniverse + AI for energy efficiency. This initiative resulted in cutting Scope 3 emissions by 22% and Scope 1 and 2 by 34%.
Viet Nam | Technology
Foxconn Industrial Internet - Bac Ninh - Sustainability
Operating in the water-scarce region of Kutch, Unilever Gandhidham has implemented a transformation focused on two critical sustainability topics: Climate and Nature. The initiative applied AI, digital twins and IIoT across the end-to-end supply chain to improve water stewardship, enable traceable palm oil sourcing, support sustainable formulations and refrigerants, strengthen disruption management and implement digitally-enabled aquifer recharge. As a result, the site cut water use by 17%, saved 6.12 billion litres of community water, reduced waste by 48%, lowered Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 90% through a transition to renewable energy, and contributed to a 12% reduction in Scope 3 emissions in the India Personal Care business, while supporting 24% growth for the site.
India | Technology
Unilever - Gandhidham - Sustainability

Future-Proofing Global Value Chains: Country Preparedness and Beyond

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