In the next year and beyond, calls for digital transformation will grow louder across the boardrooms of American manufacturing companies. Those calls shouldn’t be ignored.
Why? Because one way or another, cloud technology, edge computing, and all things digital transformation are about to directly impact your bottom line and product strategy. Whether that’ll be good for you or not depends…do you want to stay ahead of the game or play catch-up? Do you want a proactive or reactive product strategy?
Digital Transformation Is About Staying Competitive
According to a 2017 McKinsey report, the average factory in the United States is 25 years old and filled with machinery that’s nearly 10 years old. But a new generation of industrial smart machines, powered by edge computing, is making its way onto manufacturing floors all over the world—and these machines are redefining efficiency.
Go ahead. Ask your technology people. If they aren’t already beating your door down about digital transformation, they will soon. Count on it…and ignore them at your peril because these smart machines are about to change everything.
Honestly, your best bet is to champion the cause now, or risk getting left behind. If you need to do your due diligence before making such a strategic pivot, start by getting your technology and finance people in a room together. It’s a lot easier to ignore calls for new technology if they aren’t corroborated by a financial imperative. But that corroboration is starting to happen because cloud and edge computing technologies are already moving the needle…
Edge Computing Will Revolutionize Manufacturing
Actually, this revolution will dwarf the previous one. Here’s why…
Edge computing greatly speeds up how interconnected systems work together by accelerating the collection and analysis of real-time data to unprecedented speeds. It does so by enabling smart machinery on a factory floor to handle the majority of its computational work onboard…and only transmit “lighter weight” critical information back to a central network. The result is dramatically reduced levels of latency—a key concern for IoT manufacturers!
Simply put, edge computing and smart manufacturing machinery is a paradigm shift. A true game changer. With industrial processes optimized to the hilt, entire “smart” factories will become the norm as unprecedented levels of efficiency lead to enhanced profitability throughout the supply chain.
Edge computing greatly reduces the costs, time, and labor involved in any type of manufacturing process…and it will soon become mandatory for you to remain competitive.
Digital Transformation Will Provoke Industry-Wide Change
Indeed, digital transformation technologies will provoke manufacturers to examine their entire business models and product strategies. For example, companies will be able to operate smarter and respond to changing business conditions after by basing their business decisions on advanced sets of real-time, integrated data analytics. Meanwhile,connected business processes will help them bring new products and services to market faster and give them the ability to provide customers with instant personalized experiences.
A few more ways cloud and edge computing technologies can benefit your business include:
- Developing Economies of Scale – Saving costs on hardware, electricity and equipment management
- Having Automated Data Redundancy and Replication – Protecting files by keeping multiple secure copies of the same data
- Having Backup Schedules – Moving electronic documents between tiers to backup systems as frequently as needed
- Being Protected Against Malware – Protecting shared files from ransomware and malware
- Employing Environmentally Friendly Business Practices – Eliminating paper documents and reducing power consumption for local data storage