A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

PLM, Supply Chain and Cloud Adoption

PLM, Supply Chain and Cloud Adoption
Oleg
Oleg
21 April, 2011 | 2 min for reading

Cloud is one of the most discussable topics in the industry. In the consumer web, cloud seems to be a proven option. I think, people are feeling very comfortable in the cloud these days. Days when people afraid to put their credit cards on the website for e-commerce gone forever. Earlier with Google and lately with Facebook, cloud becomes an obvious thing. However, when people talk about cloud adoption in the enterprise and manufacturing industry, things are not always as simple as Facebook climb towards 700 million users. I read Driving Automotive Industry to the cloud article by Ronald Teijken of IBM/Sterling Commerce. Ronald is speaking about the cloud opportunity in the Automotive supply chains. Here is my favorite passage:

Many manufacturers are wary of moving particular processes to the cloud, due to questions around trust and visibility. However, as manufacturers increasingly rely on IT to ensure the smooth running of their supply chains, the question of whether or not to move to the cloud is unavoidable. It provides some much needed elasticity both in terms of cost and more importantly the agility needed in the supply chain to support future growth.

This article made me think about some aspects of cloud implementation that can make the supply chain a low hanging fruit for cloud adoption.

Collaboration Space

When it comes to the communication between suppliers, the ultimate need is to have a space where both sides can collaborate easily and exchange information. In most of the industries (automotive is not exclusion), companies are not allowing a complete transparency between their internal data spaces. Therefore, to have a separate cloud-based environment can be a solution to improve communication between OEM and various suppliers.

Security

This is another big question on the “cloud roadmap”. It is always presented as a case why manufacturing companies won’t be interested to go alongside with the cloud. Put aside companies internal stories. To communicate with suppliers, data needs to go out anyway. This is a chance to public or near-private cloud to show up and establish a trustful position. Cost, reliability and availability can be factors to lead manufacturing to adopt it.

What is my conclusion?

Cloud is an interesting space these days. Leverage huge consumer market adoption, it will inspire people in the enterprise to adopt some of the best cloud examples. Will automotive manufacturing supply change be a “low hanging fruit”? I can see it possible… Just my thoughts, of course.

Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
16 January, 2017

Historically, engineering and manufacturing created a waterfall process. Some people called it “over the wall engineering“. To follow this process,...

13 May, 2015

I’ve been reading a blog Getting PLM right: no one answer by Monica Schnitger. It is a slick writeup started from...

11 March, 2009

We live in a physical world. Everything in this world seems to be created in a parallel, virtual space. This...

3 February, 2012

If you followed my comments on one of previous posts – Cloud PLM and IT Basic Instincts, I promised to...

22 December, 2015

Information and process silos. For manufacturing organizations silos is a problem that slows down innovation and enterprise software efficiency regardless on...

23 November, 2024

How to make PLM more than just a buzzword? An article Make PLM Great Again written by Lionel Grealou in his blog...

5 August, 2022

There are a lot of factors to consider when it comes to choosing the best PLM systems and solutions for...

5 July, 2022

How do you envision the future of PLM data modeling? In my earlier posts, I was talking about some of...

10 March, 2020

My simple question What should trigger BOM revision triggered a bloodbath of debates about FFF (form, fit and function) and...

Blogroll

To the top