What’s Really Holding Manufacturers Back – And How to Break Through

Manufacturers know they need to run lean, move fast and adapt quickly. But progress is often blocked by issues that are hard to see, difficult to fix or baked into outdated systems. Here are the biggest barriers to growth, and how forward-thinking companies are clearing the way.

Engineers are built to solve problems. But today’s pressures are pushing even the most resilient manufacturers to rethink how they operate. To stay competitive, they must deliver more value with fewer resources, adapt at breakneck speed, and build systems that deliver now and scale for what’s next.
That’s a tall order in the current environment. According to a recent industry report*, UK manufacturers face a potent mix of rising employment taxes and business costs at home alongside growing trade tensions abroad.

Four in five firms (79%) are paying more for raw materials, while a similar number (71%) have seen logistics and transportation costs rise. UK energy prices remain the highest in the G7, with three in four companies (70%) bracing for another price hike this year.

But while the squeeze is real, it’s also revealing where real opportunities lie. These pressures are exposing outdated practices and disconnected systems – barriers that have long held companies back from their full potential. The good news is that with the right tools and mindset, these problems can be fixed. And the manufacturers pulling ahead are those confronting them head-on.

Start Building the Business You Want

Too many manufacturers are stuck in reactive mode, caught between rising costs, skill shortages and aging IT systems that hinder more than help. Every day spent firefighting is time lost on strategy, innovation and growth.

Sound familiar?

The three most common issues we see holding manufacturing businesses back right now are:

1. Lack of visibility and control over costs
2. An aging workforce and loss of key talent
3. Outdated systems that slow down operations and decision-making

At NexSys, a SYSPRO company, we help manufacturers tackle these exact challenges every day. For over 40 years, our innovative ERP+ solutions, consultancy and training have helped businesses streamline operations, optimise resource use and unlock growth. By harnessing the power of SYSPRO ERP, we provide the strategic foresight needed to deliver on today’s goals and evolve as your business moves forward.

1. Costs Are Up. Visibility is Down

Margins are being squeezed from all sides. Yet, many manufacturers still struggle to get a clear, real-time picture of where their money’s going.
With SYSPRO ERP+, you gain a unified 360-degree view of your business, from shop floor to the warehouse. It connects purchasing, production, inventory and finance, delivering live insights that inform smarter decisions, tighter budgeting and faster reactions to cost pressures.
Whether you’re looking to cut waste, reduce stockholding or plan more effectively, NexSys gives you the tools and insights to make every penny work harder.

2. The Skills Gap is Growing. So is the Risk

The brain drain in manufacturing is accelerating. The average worker is 52 (a decade older than the national average) and a third are aged 50 to 64. With one in five set to retire by 2030, decades of hands-on expertise are about to walk out the door.

New starters bring energy and fresh thinking, but they lack the hard-earned, intuitive know-how that takes years to build. Meanwhile, high recruitment costs and limited training bandwidth make it difficult to fill the gap fast.

That’s why growth today isn’t just about hiring more, it’s about empowering the people you already have. NexSys helps do just that. By automating mundane tasks, digitising processes and embedding knowledge into your systems, we free up teams to focus on higher-value work. Instead of being bogged down with data entry and having to rely on memory, teams can act with clarity, consistency and confidence.

Our integrated HR tools support smarter workforce planning, from payroll to performance reviews and skills development. And when critical know-how is captured and accessible, not stuck in someone’s head or a spreadsheet, you build real operational resilience that lasts beyond your most experienced employees.

3. Your Systems Are Holding You Back

It’s hard to move fast when your tools are slowing you down. Many manufacturers still rely on spreadsheets, paper trails and fragmented software patched together over decades, not out of choice but because “it’s how we’ve always done it.”

But these legacy systems come at a cost. They create siloes, delay decisions and form operational blind spots. Critical data is buried, reports are outdated on arrival, and departments that should be in sync aren’t.

NexSys brings it all together. From scheduling and production control to reporting and compliance, our platform replaces fragmented workflows with a single, connected system. That means fewer delays, less duplication and more capacity for strategic work.

Turning Complexity into Competitive Advantage

Alexander Dennis, a leading manufacturer of double-deck and lightweight buses, builds different vehicle variants on the same production lines. That means even a minor delay has a domino effect.

With thousands of SKUs across electric, hydrogen, diesel and hybrid models, the business needed a way to manage fast-changing global lead times, complex configurations and a growing order book without burying the team in admin.

Working with NexSys, Alexander Dennis streamlined its enterprise IT systems using:

• SYSPRO’s materials requirement planning (MRP) system
• DataSwitch – NexSys’s purpose-built integration tool that standardises the flow of information between siloed software
• and Business Intelligence (BI) for actionable insights

Global supplier data is now automatically captured and fed into the planning engine, delivering accurate and agile material scheduling. This allows the supply chain management team to focus on improving customer service and reducing backlogs, not typing out purchase orders.

Robotic process automation (RPA) handles everything from extracting key data from PDFs to late-stage specification changes, removing thousands of manual actions at the call centre and reducing the risk of costly delays.

As a result, Alexander Dennis now has a leaner, more responsive supply chain, reduced stockholding and faster turnaround on complex builds – all without compromising production quality or delivery.

The Systems That Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Staying competitive means confronting the bottlenecks holding you back and investing in tools that give your team clarity, consistency and control.

Ready to Stop Firefighting and Start Growing?

Talk to us today and see how we can help you break through to the next stage of growth.

*Manufacturing Outlook Report: Q1 2025 – Make UK/BDO