77% of manufacturers call their operations connected. Only 40 really are.

• More than four in 10 catch quality problems too late 
• Executives and the shop floor describe very different factories, with the widest gap around data integration perception 
• 39% report limited feedback between design, manufacturing and quality teams

North Kingstown, RI, September 17, 2026 – Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence Business Area ("Hexagon") today announced new research showing a gap between how manufacturers describe their operations and what is actually happening on the production floor. Most manufacturers consider themselves connected, but responses around feedback loops, quality and lost time tell a different story.

The State of Manufacturing Report 2026, commissioned by Hexagon and conducted by Dynata, surveyed 511 professionals working in U.S. manufacturing from entry-level workers to the C-suite. Three-quarters (77%) describe their operations as fully or mostly connected, and 40% say they are connected across design, production, quality and business systems. However, 39% report limited feedback between design, manufacturing and quality teams, and 67% do not have data from most systems integrated into a single view.

“Manufacturers aren't wrong when they say they're connected,” said Steve Ilmrud, VP of Operations, North America, Stationary Metrology Division, Hexagon. “However, connected and integrated are two different things, and companies confident in their connectivity are still finding quality problems late and losing expertise between teams, and both of those get more expensive as production scales. What separates the manufacturers pulling ahead is that they went looking for the handoff where information stops moving, and they fixed that one first.”

Key findings from the research include:

Leadership and the Shop Floor Describe Different Factories
Confidence around data integration concentrates at the top of the org chart and decreases further down the shop floor. 80% of executives say their data is integrated, compared to 33% of the shop floor, the widest single divide in the research. 

Confidence in adapting to a major disruption like uncertainty and outages follows the same pattern, from 91% in the executive suite down to 62% among entry-level workers. Nearly a third of executives (31%) say their plant already runs lights-out somewhere in the operation, but only 10% of their own senior managers agree.

Where the Disconnection Costs the Most
The cost of disconnected data largely falls on quality. 43% say rework disrupts production schedules and 42% catch quality problems too late to act on them efficiently. Two-thirds (67%) lose six or more hours a week to measurement and inspection bottlenecks, and 35% lose 11 hours or more. 

Inspection Moved Closer to Production, the Data Has Not Caught Up
59% of manufacturers now inspect on or near the shop floor, and only 15% remain mostly or entirely lab based. The results, however, often stay inside quality reports rather than reaching the production teams and design engineers who could act on them, which leaves manufacturers identifying defects after they happen instead of using quality data to prevent them.

How Hexagon Helps Manufacturers Close the Gap
Manufacturers are being asked to grow several times over while holding costs down. They can’t build factories or hire people that fast, which leaves operating more efficiently with the workforce and equipment already in the building as the route open to them. Hexagon's approach is to connect design, production, quality, automation and operational data so that information moves between teams rather than staying trapped with whoever produced it.

*Dynata survey of 511 professionals working in U.S. manufacturing, conducted in July 2026.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:  
Dana Trismen, Unshakable Marketing Group for Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence
[email protected]

Carla Gutierrez, Senior Director Corporate Communications, Hexagon, [email protected]