Influenced less by regulatory requirements and more by customer demands and emerging guidelines, manufacturing business continuity planning is quickly becoming highly pervasive. In addition to the National Fire Protection Association's Standard 1600, executive managers are using the tenets found within ISO standards to drive their risk management and business continuity programs.

Unlike other more "white collar" industries where operations may be moved "easily" to other office locations, manufacturing is considerably more difficult. Unique process characteristics and the trend toward centers of excellence (which can also introduce single points of failure) are complicating business continuity planning. Raw material lead times, single source suppliers, unique production equipment, personnel skills and infrastructure requirements make recovering production processes complicated.

Because of this complexity, it is critical to address event likelihood and impact equally. Manufacturing business continuity pays more attention to managing the likelihood an event that may cause downtime when compared to many other industries. Business continuity professionals in manufacturing also spend a significant portion of their time protecting critical single points of failure - as opposed to planning for their recovery. Because redundancy will not make business sense in all situations, managing the likelihood of availability risks is critically important in this industry - although developing business continuity strategies should not be overlooked.