Nearly one in five IT directors in manufacturing say all their organisation’s IT infrastructure is based in the cloud today, while a further 38 per cent say their organisation have moved most of their IT infrastructure to the cloud. These are among the key findings of a recent survey commissioned by NiceLabel.
The survey revealed some concerns about cloud migration. More than a quarter of IT directors in manufacturing are concerned about slow performance when running applications in the cloud, while 26 per cent noted a lack of integration with legacy systems as a key obstacle. However, eliminating issues around performance and legacy systems integration would spark a faster migration, with 50 per cent of respondents saying they would be ‘much more likely to move their applications to the cloud’ as a result.
“Both a lack of legacy systems integration and performance issues can be addressed by a modern cloud system,” Ken Moir, VP of marketing at NiceLabel, said “When it comes to labelling, manufacturers need to integrate seamlessly in the cloud with other key industry platforms, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) and warehouse management systems (WMS). Cloud-to-cloud integrations can typically be done via Cloud APIs, whereas cloud-to-on-premise integrations require a proxy on premise. The use of out-of-the box connectors for most major business systems can also help achieve a rapid integration with other platforms.”
Often, it is a simple understanding of the broader benefits of cloud that drive uptake. The survey showed that among the top reasons why manufacturers decided to use cloud solutions were better and easier global collaboration and efficient traceability and tracking across the supply chain.
“Vendors can also help to accelerate the move to the cloud for manufacturers through services teams doing discovery and building solutions that deliver best practice, and, from the perspective of labelling, through tools that help convert label templates from different providers,” Moir continued. “All this together helps significantly shorten migration time from months to weeks.”
The move to the cloud is part of a wider digital transformation. The study finds that while there is a long way to go, many manufacturers plan to increase investment in major IT infrastructure. In fact, 80 per cent of IT directors surveyed expect their organisation to increase its investment in IT systems like ERP, MES and WMS by more than 25 per cent over the next three years.
