The production process has many challenges that manufacturers must overcome. Outdated on-premises technology can hold your company back from achieving manufacturing success. Communication failures, problems with scaling and a lack of meaningful analysis are a few ways that old systems get in the way of your potential. Cloud computing can make a difference in overcoming these obstacles.
Fixing Communication Problems
Coordinating communication between the office, product floor, vendors, distributors and other partners can be difficult. Vital information gets lost as it moves between teams, departments, and job locations. It becomes difficult or impossible to stay on a production schedule when messages get lost in the mix.
Cloud computing resolves communication problems in two ways: centralizing data and making it easy to integrate information with different platforms. Your data can reside on a cloud-based solution that is standardized for your organization. Rather than using a mixed bag of on-premises and outdated software, you can have everyone use the same platforms. They get updated seamlessly by the vendor. You don’t have to face extended downtime as you go around updating each piece of equipment or workstation.
Everyone is working off of the same database or has applications that sync with this primary repository. You reduce issues related to working with old information and time wasted tracking down data.
Many cloud-based solutions have built-in integration or APIs that streamline data and functionality sharing. You can push and pull data between platforms, such as the ones that your suppliers use. As you adopt new systems for your manufacturing business, you can bring your existing data into the solution automatically.
Improving Business Agility
The global market can change overnight, but trying to rapidly adjust to the new environment is difficult for manufacturers. You have a lot of moving parts that are impacted by any shifts. If you have on-premises solutions, then scaling up or down to account for demand is a time-consuming and costly endeavor.
The cloud changes the way that you respond to new market trends. Since the vendor is responsible for the IT infrastructure necessary to support their solution, you don’t have to worry about purchasing servers or bringing new IT professionals into the organization to scale up.
Instead, you purchase additional capacity through the cloud provider. In many cases, you have the resources you requested within minutes. You decrease the risk associated with scaling as well as the capital investment required for this move.
Automating and Analyzing Manufacturing Processes
Modern cloud solutions help you automate time consuming tasks, such as creating documentation that’s compliant with your industry’s regulations. When this type of procedure is built into your software, you can allocate your employees’ time to other important tasks.
You also have access to a lot of real-time data on your manufacturing processes. This information gives you insight into optimizing operations so that you reduce your costs, increase your profit and improve your manufacturing operation as a whole. Cloud-based platforms can collect data from Internet of Things devices and smart equipment, so you can break down reports on a machine-by-machine basis if necessary.
Manufacturing is a competitive industry, so you need every edge you can get. Cloud computing provides scalability, flexibility and integration that can transform your IT infrastructure. If you need help identifying areas that cloud computing can improve, bring in a managed services provider to create a plan.