Manufacturers report a resilience surge, but supply chain visibility still lags

Manufacturers are more confident in their ability to withstand disruption after investing in suppliers, inventory and technology, but persistent visibility gaps and stalled AI adoption continue to expose weaknesses.

Manufacturers have spent the past two years pouring money and attention into shielding their supply chains from disruption, and the latest evidence suggests those efforts are beginning to pay off. Parsec’s 2026 State of the Manufacturing Industry report says 71% of manufacturing leaders now describe their supply chain operations as resilient, up sharply from 50% two years earlier. Two-thirds also say they are extremely or very prepared to handle current supply chain pressures, a sign that confidence across the sector has improved even if the underlying risks have not disappeared.

That growing sense of stability appears to be the result of a broad, overlapping response rather than any single fix. More than half of respondents said they had invested in stronger supplier relationships, while 44% had worked to diversify their networks. A similar share reported putting money into software and other tools designed to streamline supply chain management, and just over half said they had increased on-hand inventory to cushion the effect of upstream and downstream shocks. The report suggests manufacturers are increasingly treating resilience as a combination of operational discipline, technological investment and closer commercial ties with suppliers.

Yet the picture is far from settled. The same survey found that disruption remained close to universal over the prior year, with only 1% of respondents reporting no supply chain problems at all between February 2025 and February 2026. The most commonly cited issues ranged from materials shortages and price swings to transport bottlenecks, geopolitical tension and natural disasters. Visibility emerged as the single biggest challenge, with 34% of leaders saying a lack of insight across increasingly complex networks was undermining stability. That gap matters because, as the report argues, firms cannot respond early to shortages or delays if they do not see them coming.

The technology picture is similarly mixed. Parsec said only 35% of manufacturers have foundational data-driven operational systems such as manufacturing execution, quality or maintenance platforms in place, and only a slightly higher share reported having a unified, data-led strategy. Although 72% said they use artificial intelligence in their operations, just 10% have standardised it across the enterprise. In its separate 2026 industry report, Parsec said the sector is investing heavily in AI, automation and reshoring, but still struggles to scale those tools and build the workforce capabilities needed to operationalise them effectively.

Those findings fit with a broader industry shift towards resilience, even as cost pressures remain a drag on decision-making. KPMG’s 2026 US Supply Chain Survey, based on responses from 462 supply chain leaders, found that 60% of industrial manufacturing respondents see resilience as the main driver of operating model change. Parsec’s own reshoring survey pointed in the same direction, saying 70% of manufacturers have already completed reshoring or are in the process of doing so, up from 33% in 2024. Even so, 70% said they had prioritised cost-cutting over resilience in the past year, underscoring the difficult balance companies continue to strike between efficiency and preparedness.

Source Reference Map

Inspired by headline at: ^[1]

Sources by paragraph:

Source: Fuse Wire Services