Manufacturing

The Canadian manufacturing landscape is being dramatically impacted by inflation, climate change, and geopolitical strife. Port slowdowns, rising container costs, and substantial lead times—along with the ongoing lack of port workers, shipping crews, and road and rail drivers—are making logistics and distribution harder, slower, and more expensive. There’s also less industrial space available in urban hot spots. But this is making way for new opportunities to innovate and transform the manufacturing sector.

Manufacturers are looking to diversify their supply chain, whether that means sourcing from multiple international markets or closer to home, and to develop strategic partnerships that can help them find value throughout the supply chain. With so much time spent sourcing inputs and optimizing operations, ‘just in time’ production methodologies are swinging back to ‘just in case.’ Digitalization will be critical to mitigating supply chain risk and enhancing sustainability going forward, but a healthy supply chain also requires focusing on ESG as a strategic imperative.

Manufacturing companies are also turning to technology to stay competitive, become more sustainable, and even take part in the circular economy. They’re producing more data than ever in smart, connected factories. And they’re tasked with managing that data, as well as automating processes and introducing machine learning and artificial intelligence into their processes. But this requires upskilling employees to take on more strategic roles. By adapting and evolving, they can move from being reactive to becoming proactive and predictive.

How we can help

Our services are designed to assist manufacturing companies in key areas such as growth, governance, and performance, and we can ‘blue sky’ new ideas and approaches in our KPMG Ignition centres across Canada. Whether your focus is engineering, industrial products, metals, or plastics, our professionals can help with a broad range of capabilities ranging from supply chain visibility and transparency to strategic partnerships, workforce readiness, and compliance with new regulations such as ESG. We can also help you apply analytics or AI to drive performance improvements and cost optimization in your business model and supply chains.

Our manufacturing practice is made up of dedicated advisors who have extensive industry experience and understand the key issues and complexities of the market. Through our global manufacturing network in member firms around the world, we bring together audit, tax, and advisory professionals to help our clients address the challenges of today and find the opportunities of tomorrow. Here are just some of the services we offer on the issues that matter most to you.