Why Manufacturers Are Looking To Cloud Computing

Manufacturers are under constant pressure to increase accuracy, make process speed a competitive force, and capitalize on their internal intelligence and knowledge to make every supplier, distributor and service interaction count.  The manufacturers spoken and visited with to gain the following insights are in the high tech, industrial and aerospace and defense industries, where rapid product lifecycles and short time-to-market schedules are commonplace.

Cloud-based strategies give these companies the chance to bring their own innate intelligence and knowledge into every sales situation.  While on-premise systems could also do this, cloud-based systems were quicker to roll out, easier to customize and showed potential to increase adoption rates across resellers.

One manufacturing manager explained how during a new product launch the speed and volume of collaboration was so rapid on between suppliers and distributors that an allocation situation was averted.  That he said, made senior management believers.  These epiphanies are happening daily in manufacturing.

 here are the ten ways they are using cloud computing to revolutionize manufacturing:

• Capturing and applying company-wide intelligence and knowledge through the use of analytics, business intelligence (BI), and rules engines.  For the many manufacturers who rely on build-to-order, configure-to-order and engineer-to-order strategies as a core part of their business models, using cloud-based platforms to capture knowledge and manage rules is accelerating. A key part of this area is mobility support for analytics, BI and rules engine reporting and analysis.
• Piloting and then moving quickly to full launch of supplier portals and collaboration platforms, complete with quality management dashboards and workflows.  Among the manufacturers visited, those in high tech are the most advanced in this area, often implementing Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and demand management applications that deliver real-time order status and forecasts.
• Designing in services is now becoming commonplace, making cloud integration expertise critical for manufacturers.  From simplistic services integration on iPhones to the full implementation of voice-activated controls including emergency assistance in the latest luxury cars, adding in services integrated to the cloud is redefining the competitive landscape of industries today.  Revising a product or launching an new product generation with embedded services can mitigate price wars, which is why many manufacturers are pursing this strategy today.

For other ways in which cloud computing can help manufacturing read here

Bringing Manufacturing Business Software (ERP) to the Cloud

Rootstock Software the leader in cloud manufacturing and supply chain applications, today announced that Pat Garrehy, founder and CEO of Rootstock Software, will give a presentation at OASIS, Wednesday, March 5, at 9:30 a.m. on how manufacturers, facing a whole new series of pressures and changes, can meet them only with the flexibilities and scalabilities of putting their manufacturing software on the cloud. Other presenters include BlackBerry interim CEO John Chen, bestselling author Deepak Chopra and tech legend Paul Maritz. Presenting at OASIS for the second time is Golden Globe-nominated actress and Honest Company founder Jessica Alba.

"After more than a decade of controversy, there is now unanimity of thought on many of the benefits and evolution of Cloud ERP. Indeed, today, there is common thinking among business and market analysts, software vendors and system integrators about the role of Cloud ERP and, at last, this consensus is finally trickling down to end-users," emphasizes Garrehy. "With Cloud ERP, using the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, users are provided access to ERP software and databases anytime from anywhere to support global operations. Instead of managing the infrastructure and platform upon which the ERP software suite runs, the cloud providers do so for them."

An outgrowth of the hugely popular Montgomery Technology Conference, OASIS makes its debut this year with 150 exceptional presenting companies. These companies will fall into three categories: "First Look" companies that generate less than $10 million in yearly revenues; "Emerging" companies with revenues between $10 million and $50 million; and "Growth" companies whose yearly revenues exceed $50 million. Prior conferences have provided early looks at Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Splunk, Marketo, Meraki, Exact Target, Rocket Fuel, and other breakout companies. For complete and original post see here

IBM buys NoSQL cloud provider Cloudant

Adding more muscle to its cloud operations portfolio, IBM is acquiring hosted NoSQL database provider Cloudant.

Based in Boston, the privately held Cloudant offers a hosted version of the Apache CouchDBopen source data store. Its own version, called BigCouch, can be run across multiple servers, providing a way to build and maintain an extremely large and fast data store for a front-end application.

Companies in the fields of gaming, services, manufacturing, online education, retail and health care have all used the Cloudant service.

IBM plans to use BigCouch service for its big data and analytics products and services. The company will also incorporate the service in its MobileFirst portfolio of tools for developing mobile applications.

Developed in 2005 by former Lotus Notes developer Damien Katz, CouchDB received financial support for further development from IBM, and in 2008, the open source software project was adopted as a top level project by the Apache Software Foundation. For complete story and original post see here

Busting Cloud Computing Myths

Ashvin Vellody, Partner, Management Consulting KPMG in India and Devendra Dhawale, Associate Director, Management Consulting, KPMG in India debunk four common myths related to cloud computing.

Myth: Cloud is complimentary
The cloud is not an ‘in-or-out’ approach when it comes to handling some of your existing data center workload. The cloud is not uncompromising and does not work in a binary way.  Organizations of any size and nature can leverage benefits of the cloud without compromising any business and IT controls. Organizations now can get most of both the worlds by leveraging the existing IT infrastructure and extending some of the applications infrastructure to cloud for cost, manageability and availability. The effective way to put across this message is to say that cloud is nothing but an extension of your IT infrastructure and applications. For complete and orignial post see here 

STAR Certification will boost confidence in cloud security

The Cloud Security Alliance has teamed up with business standards company ‘BSI Incorporating NCSI’ to create a new standard for security of cloud services and an independent system of certification for conformance to it.

According to Nick Koukoulas, managing director of BSI incorporating NCSI, both users and providers of cloud-based services have been asking for independent, technology-neutral certification to help them make more informed decisions about the services they purchase and use.

.He said that STAR Certification would provide organisations and consumers with a clear benchmark on which to evaluate the performance of a cloud service provider.

The CSA’s STAR Certification combines assessment for conformance to the well-established ISO/IEC 27001:2005 management system standard and the CSA’s CSA Cloud Control Matrix, a specified set of criteria that measures the capability levels of the cloud service.

According to CSA, whilst ISO/IEC 27001 is widely respected there can be a perception that it does not focus in sufficient detail on certain areas of security that are critical for particular sectors such as cloud security. This, it says, is where STAR Certification comes in, by providing a service that sets standards specific to cloud computing security. For complete post see here