Industry Cloud – A Game Changer for Conglomerate Companies

Industry Cloud uses cloud services to offer business and technical capabilities specific to an industry. Industry Clouds opt for a “Whole Product” approach and offer I&O leaders agility using a composable approach.

Industry Clouds are currently used as large cloud and software providers, but many organisations are considering adopting an industry cloud for manufacturing, food, or pharma. It simplifies the sourcing, implementation and integration process. Initially, industry clouds will fulfill the requirement of individual companies, but by transforming into an ecosystem cloud, they can reach their full potential.

Difference Between Industry Clouds and Current Cloud offerings

Industry Cloud comes in various combinations of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS addressing specific vertical requirements. Industry Cloud is more adaptable than SaaS, IaaS and PaaS cloud applications and functionality. It follows a “whole products” approach that looks into everything required to ensure a customer gets what he is looking for.

Industry Clouds will create a greater impact on customers than other established cloud services such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). Industry Cloud will also bring new opportunities to a partnership between multiple cloud providers and cloud-managed service providers for delivering industry-specific solutions.

Advantages of Shifting Industrial Facility to the Cloud:

• Cost Optimisation:Moving to the cloud will reduce the cost of hardware and software as it removes the requirement of investing in IT infrastructures. It will also reduce the cost involved in maintenance, technical staff and troubleshooting involved during downtime.
• Scalability:Cloud works on a subscription basis where they are hired as per requirement which is ideal for companies with fluctuating bandwidth requirements. In case of increased requirements, the system automatically scales the capacity.
• Automatic Updates: Security breaches can easily attack non-updated equipment leading to huge business losses. It can be avoided easily using Cloud, as the servers are outside of a factory facility and the system automatically updates the software version
• Safety and Mobility: The data stored in the Cloud is encrypted and features an automatic backup system. The data can be accessed regardless of the location and time providing enhanced mobility.
• Better Collaboration: As the data is shared among all the employees of the organisation which makes the production workflow process efficient and seamless.

SAP Best Practices – Industry Cloud

SAP is a leading ERP solution that comes with various industry best practices guidelines. Each industry has its specific process for mapping which functions based on the domain dynamics with continuous innovation.

Companies can shift to using intelligent suites and take advantage of industry cloud solutions from SAP and Partner solutions as subscription services. Types of Industry Cloud available:

• Automotive
• Engineering, Construction & Operations
• Industrial Machinery & Components
• Professional Services
• Public Sector
• Retail

SAP’s Industry Cloud

Industry Cloud by SAP features an open business process and technology platform that focuses on bringing innovation and enhanced collaboration between the customers, partners and SAP. The design of SAP’s Industry Cloud represents the customers’ business requirements within their industries. It also provides businesses with industry-specific solutions. Businesses can easily find a compelling industry cloud solution to increase support for end-to-end processes with an intelligent suite

These innovative solutions enable businesses to:

• Rapidly respond to new business requirements
• Transform their business
• Leverage best industrial practices

SAP’s Industry Cloud helps businesses who are planning to extend the intelligent suite with innovative industry solutions. It offers attractive commercialised models for industry cloud solutions.

Strategic Decision in the very competitive market

A lot of organisations are shifting towards disruption innovation to stay ahead of the competition. An intelligent ERP Suite can help you in taking full advantage of best practices of the industry by helping you to address your business operation.

The following Industry Cloud aspects should be adopted:

• Assess the industry-specific features offered by cloud providers
• Consider your objective while choosing a path, various vendors choose different paths. Some focus on compliance with industry regulations, some on adding analytical capabilities, others invest in infrastructure.
• Choose a cloud offering that suits your IT / cloud requirements.
• Discuss among your current application and infrastructure providers about the ecosystem they find suitable to become a part of in the future.

Manufacturing-as-a Service (MaaS) – As a Example

Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS) or Cloud manufacturing is a modern manufacturing concept that involves transforming traditional production resources into services such as cloud computing, IoT and virtualisation to make them accessible over the internet. This transformation allows controlling manufacturing services by an efficient cloud-based platform. Cloud manufacturing involves the complete life cycle of a product from its design, production and testing to its maintenance during operation.

Manufacturing as a Service is represented as a parallel distributed system of manufacturing resources that anyone can access at any time. All the manufacturing resources that include machines and software packages are offered as services in the cloud. Based on the database, machines and CAD data, ideal services are defined and capacities are planned and controlled accordingly.

The Transition from Traditional to Digital Manufacturing

Due to recent developments in the manufacturing model, a lot of companies are offering software with Cloud Manufacturing such as ERP, CRM, MES. Companies still don’t believe that they can have all the software for a manufacturing process in the cloud. The answer to this is a hybrid system featuring a low latency program in the plant with certain intelligence that can work autonomously without Cloud. This fog computing enables companies to have their program, application and data in the Cloud.

Cloud Manufacturing being an upcoming way of working in digital and collaborative space combines various departments making them accessible to various hardware and software.