Manufacturing in an earlier era led to management
thinking and also automation of processes, courtesy the efforts of great
management gurus like Alfred Sloan, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Michael Porter,
Tom Peters, and Michael Hammer and C.K. Prahalad.
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| Manufacturing can benefit from Cloud Computing ! |
For the preceding decades, the financial markets
sucked the best and the brightest minds to drive greed and make profits in
investment banking and financial markets. This era fortunately is slowing down
and the regulators and economists of the world have realized the futility of
driving financial markets without underlying security provided by
manufacturing.
Engineers who were trained and equipped for
manufacturing, migrated to a coveted MBA degree lured by the offer of huge starting
salaries coupled with even bigger annual bonus. They drove an invisible economy
driven by paper bonds and other instruments and created more complex
instruments all based on an economy, which was created by hedging financial
bets on a weak underlying asset value.
Manufacturing did not grow or innovate because the
best were not available, manufacturing was considered a poor paymaster and the
brightest who wanted to make money and fame stayed away.
As the world spins into recession every country
realizes that it needs to get back its manufacturing back in action, every
government is struggling to get the right resources to put back the derailed
manufacturing sector back on track.
It was manufacturing which created the big middle
class in most developed countries in the world, those who spent their money on
weekends, paid mortgages on their cars, houses and holidays and kept the wheels
of the service economy ticking.
Cloud computing could help manufacturing firms
adopt the latest technology innovations to improve their processes, supply
chain management, CAD/CAM/PLM solutions, research & development,
collaboration, plant operations, diagnostics, back office functions like ERP
and front office CRM.
Cloud computing can offer the latest technology,
with deep functionality and flexibility at lower capital and operating cost
than the traditional invest, build, operate computing route adopted in
manufacturing. It offers the manufacturing sector scalability, reliability, a
secure environment, an on-demand computing power, faster upgrades and the
latest technology.
Cloud computing enables manufacturing collaboration
among mobile and remote workers, vendors and other constituents in their supply
chain solutions through fast, easy and secure access to data when needed to
optimize operations and make data-driven decisions.
In the next decade, we will see new material, new
designs and new cross-country collaboration in cutting-edge manufacturing
technology all created by cloud computing as a vehicle for computing and
synergy. We will see the best minds in the various universities of our
world use the cloud for collaboration and co-option to create a healthier and
stronger world for our future global citizens.
Use of cloud will help us leapfrog into the future
with the best of computing technology, unbridled solutions to innovate and
collaborate. So, is the manufacturing sector ready to ride the cloud?
This article was carried in Information Week India Today
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