Manufacturing Transformation: Journey to the Cloud

A manufacturer’s technological progress is typically hamstrung by significant operational challenges. They confront data silos, high operational costs, lack of skilled workforce availability, weak operational technology/ information technology integration, high-speed computing needs, and machine downtime. While manufacturers may take multiple approaches to overcome these obstacles, their overall goal is to achieve enterprise visibility through a single pane of glass. However, most legacy infrastructures are not adequately prepared for this longterm digital transformation journey. Industrial firms are turning to cloud service providers to bridge the widening performance capability gap. The cloud’s ability to assist with dynamic scaling in storage and to support cost efficiencies positions it as the linchpin for resolving current and emerging manufacturing challenges.

The market is awash with several cloud platform solution providers, but there is a clear market leader — Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS has an annual cloud revenue of $27 billion and over 46% in YoY growth (’17–’18). Its cloud solutions portfolio contains over 140 highly reliable, secure, scalable services and solutions — from data warehousing to deployment tools to directories and content delivery. Customers often choose AWS to access a range of differentiated cloud-based capabilities, such as database, compute, security, and storage.