Future-Proofing Global Value Chains: Country Preparedness and Beyond

Case studies

Total number of case studies

299

Sectors

21

Locations

59

Topics

9

To meet high-end market demands while addressing regional cost pressures and quality expectations, Haier launched its Shanghai site as a new production base in 2022. Using its in-house industrial IoT (internet of things) platform and advanced technologies such as genAI-enabled 3D modelling and deep learning, the site increased production by 37%, improved delivery efficiency by 40% and cut conversion costs by 33%.
People's Republic of China | Technology
Haier Washing Electrical Appliances - Shanghai - Productivity
Facing high mobility and productivity improvement bottlenecks in the younger generation of workers, Haier Chongqing adopted the proprietary RenDanHeYi model, shifting from a management-oriented to a service-oriented organization. The site deployed 35 4IR talent-empowerment solutions, including personalized promotion pathways, a point-based innovation incentive platform, and team-level smart workforce planning using multi-time-series forecasting. These efforts reduced attrition by 40% and raised participation to 61%.
People's Republic of China | Other
Haier Refrigerator Manufacturing - Chongqing - Talent
In response to shifting customer demand towards tailored solutions and a fragmented market landscape, and with 34.8% of orders being single-item orders, the Mettler Toledo site in Changzhou embarked on a digital transformation. The site deployed 49 Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) use cases, including AI-accelerated product configuration, reconfigurable modular cluster workstations, and machine learning powered welding inspection with closed-loop adjustments to preserve quality. These solutions helped the site achieve a 98.4% on-time delivery rate, a 22% lead time reduction and a net promoter score of 84.9.
People's Republic of China | Other
Mettler-Toledo - Changzhou - Customer Centric
To address talent shortages and surging demand, including for new automotive devices, GlobalFoundries’ Fab 7 in Singapore implemented over 60 4IR use cases to tackle increasing process complexity, meet more stringent quality requirements and accelerate prototype development. The site built a holistic transformation team, partnering with AI vendors and universities across four impact areas: machine learning-based predictive maintenance; remote support enablement; machine learning-powered quality control; and workflow digitalization. As a result, labour productivity improved by 40% and new product introduction prototyping time improved by 30%.
Singapore | Technology, IT and Communications (ICT)
GlobalFoundries - Singapore - Productivity
As operator of Pearl Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) for and on behalf of the Government of Qatar, the world’s largest GTL plant, built to produce 260k barrels per day of liquid hydrocarbons from natural gas, Qatar Shell GTL Limited tackled early-stage asset integrity and reliability challenges. By deploying over 45 4IR solutions, including AI for structural integrity, and empowering frontline teams, it was able to increase the site throughput by 9%, improve reliability to 99%, cut emissions by 7% and extend equipment life by up to 50% within a five-year period.
Oil & Gas
Qatar Shell GTL - Ras Laffan - Productivity
In the highly competitive solar cell market, Tongwei focused its digital transformation on improving power conversion efficiency (PCE) and quality. The site deployed over 50 4IR use cases, mostly based on AI – machine learning to drive process optimization, genAI-enabled maintenance, and advanced AI algorithms to analyse defects. The transformation improved PCE by 12%, cut defect rates by 41%, reduced conversion costs by 37% and lowered CO₂ emissions by 33%.
Technology
Tongwei Solar - Meishan - Productivity
As Lenovo’s largest site in North America, the Lenovo Monterrey site regularly managed 2,000 overseas suppliers and 52,000 SKUs across 80+ markets, alongside increasing emphasis on quality and evolving labour dynamics in Mexico. By deploying more than 60 4IR solutions, over half of them AI and genAI-enabled, the site reduced lead time by 85%, logistics costs by 42%, quality losses by 56% and carbon emissions by 30%, while boosting productivity by 58%. Today, the site serves as a global digital model factory for Lenovo.
Mexico | Technology
Lenovo - Monterrey - Supply Chain Resilience
To address complex cross-border supply chains, customer quality issues and training barriers, Midea implemented 72 digital and AI solutions. These included closed-loop quality systems and genAI-enabled workforce development. The result was a 43% reduction in order lead times, a 32% drop in customer complaints and a 62% improvement in employee qualification speed.
Thailand
Midea - Si Racha - Supply Chain Resilience
Following the launch of its Resid Upgrade Plant in 2014, Tüpraş İzmit faced rising crude oil type diversity, product complexity and pressure from port-based sales that increased jetty congestion. In response, the refinery launched a digital transformation, integrating planning, inventory and logistics across the value chain. By deploying AI-driven forecasting and optimization solutions, the site improved delivery reliability from 85% to 95%, shortened average truck loading times by 75%, increased forecasting labour productivity by 48%, reduced CO₂ emissions by 8% and water consumption by 31%.
Türkiye | Oil & Gas
Türkiye Petrol Rafinerileri A.Ş. (Tüpraş) - Izmit - Supply Chain Resilience
To meet fast-changing consumer demands and manage the volatility of e-commerce and lower-tier market expansion, Yunnan Baiyao addressed inconsistent quality in key herbal ingredients and scattered planting areas. Deploying over 40 4IR solutions, including satellite sensing, industrial internet of things and large language models, the company reduced raw material return rates by 78%, inventory days by 38% and stockout rates by 30%, ensuring more stable and responsive supply.
People's Republic of China | Other, Food & Retail
Yunnan Baiyao - Kunming - Supply Chain Resilience
To advance its sustainability targets, Hisensehitachi deployed 27 4IR solutions at its Qingdao site to reduce emissions across the entire product lifecycle – from in-house refrigerant leakage (96% of Scope 1) and R&D operations (46% of Scope 2) to material sourcing and customer site usage (over 90% of Scope 3). Using IoT and advanced analytics, the team reduced refrigerant leakage by 56% and redesigned key processes, cutting Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 48%. Tailored control strategies for environmental parameters at customer sites led to a 28% reduction in Scope 3 emissions from product use.
People's Republic of China | Technology
Hisensehitachi - Qingdao - Sustainability
To address resource scarcity, regulations and customer demands, Schneider Electric transformed its Evreux site into its first circular distribution centre. It implemented an end-to-end “use better, longer, and again” model that enables circularity at scale. Key innovations include a digital customer platform for ordering and take-back of over 3,000 SKUs, a data model linking products to repair, refurbishment and repackaging centres, and circular solutions in packaging, transportation and energy. These efforts reduced single-use plastic by 40% and energy consumption by 18%.
France | Technology
Schneider Electric - Evreux - Sustainability
To meet growing customer demands for higher lab productivity – more applications in a single instrument – the site leveraged 4IR technologies to overcome product customization and lead time challenges. By merging digital and engineering expertise, the site implemented 50 use cases focusing on in-house development of tailored and cost-effective AI solutions. This digitized engineering know-how enhanced adaptability, precision and speed across its design-to-production cycle, improving productivity by 56% and lead time by 31% with customer satisfaction on delivery exceeding 96%.
People's Republic of China | Health, Technology
Agilent - Shanghai
North Ghawar Oil Producing Complex’s history began with the start of Saudi oil production in 1938 and today manages assets dispersed over 12,500km. To meet increasing demand while reducing both operational costs and emissions, the complex launched a 4IR strategy. It pioneered oil-producing intelligence, boosted existing asset reliability and upskilled young talent by leveraging over 65 solutions, including advanced analytics, AI-powered digital twins and Aramco large language model (LLM) genAI. As a result, oil production increased by 8.44% while Scope 1 and 2 emissions reduced by 8.21% per barrel of oil equivalent.
Saudi Arabia | Energy & utilities, Oil & Gas
Aramco - North Ghawar
To meet the challenge of stricter quality standards for high-end automotive manufacturing and increasingly diverse stock-keeping units (SKUs), the site deployed 67 4IR use cases, 61% of which utilized AI. This enhanced end-to-end process accuracy, resolved customer quality challenges and eliminated key quality and throughput constraints. As a result, high-end sales increased by 36%, customer complaints decreased by 55%, product defects dropped by 35% and production line efficiency improved by 21.2%.
People's Republic of China | Materials, Mining & Metals
Beijing Shougang Cold Rolling - Beijing
To support global expansion, CEAT needed to manage three times more SKUs, faster order fulfilment, coupled with new product launches at twice the speed with productivity improvement in assembly process. To achieve this, CEAT deployed over 30 digital solutions, including operational research models for reducing turnaround time, advanced analytics for predictive control and machine learning-based design. These solutions improved labour productivity by 25%, reduced dispatch turnaround time by 54%, accelerated product ramp-up by 30% and cut Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 47%.
India | Automotive
CEAT - Sriperumbudur
“Lightweighting” trends are reshaping the automotive sector, by driving intense competition for high-quality auto parts with smaller environmental footprints. In response, CITIC Dicastal Morocco deployed over 40 digital use cases for high-precision, flexible production and efficient use of materials. The site deployed advanced algorithms for casting and machining, an AI-generated content-enhanced vision inspection system, and a process control to manage natural gas quality volatility in furnaces – a local challenge. This led to a 17% improvement in overall equipment effectiveness, a 27% increase in labour productivity, a 31.1% reduction in defects and a 53% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions.
Morocco | Automotive, Mining & Metals
CITIC Dicastal - Ameur Seflia
To maintain its cost advantage and produce soy sauces with consistent flavour, Foshan Haitian implemented digital transformation to address rising consumer demands for diverse products and manage increasingly complex orders. The site deployed over 50 digital use cases, nearly half powered by AI to optimize operations. Despite a 54% increase in SKUs and a 64% rise in small-batch orders, these efforts reduced raw material waste by 33.6%, cut product defect rates by 39.1%, and shortened order lead times by 38.7%
People's Republic of China | Food & agriculture, Food & Retail
Haitian Flavouring & Food - Foshan
Guizhou Tyre faced the challenge of meeting highly customized orders (over 60% of all orders) for heavy load operations, which required strict design, verification and reliability standards. To speed up product design and ensure consistent and stable output, the site implemented over 40 4IR solutions to improve agility and productivity in manufacturing. These solutions, which included AI-enabled design, advanced data analytics and flexible automation, resulted in a 57% reduction in defects, a 68% increase in labour productivity and a 34% reduction in inventory levels.
People's Republic of China | Automotive
Guizhou Tyre - Guiyang
To enhance profitability in a rapidly changing chip market, UMC focuses on production of specialized semiconductors, which have higher value but also greater process complexity. UMC’s largest production and R&D site in Tainan adopted agile strategies to deploy over 48 4IR use cases, such as a machine learning model to shorten design kit delivery time by 57% and an AI defect analysis system helping raise yields to 97%. This led to higher customer engagement with specialized product ratio up to 53% from 13%, contributing to a 75% gross margin gain.
Taiwan, China | Technology, IT and Communications (ICT)
United Microelectronics Corporation - Tainan

Future-Proofing Global Value Chains: Country Preparedness and Beyond

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