The benefits of cloud computing for supply chain visibility in the manufacturing industry

By Mike Kiersey, Head of the EMEA Technology Organisation, Boomi.

Across the manufacturing industry, supply chain visibility is crucial for ensuring efficient operations and the timely delivery of products. With the growing sophistication of cloud computing, companies can now leverage its benefits to enhance their supply chain visibility with even greater scalability and flexibility.

In this article, we explore how cloud computing can deliver a range of game-changing supply chain benefits to manufacturers. We'll look at the challenges companies face when implementing cloud computing into core processes and how the right integration platform can bridge these gaps, enabling increased operational efficiency and the creation of new value from data-driven insights.

Cloud Computing for Better Manufacturing Supply Chain Workflows

Cloud computing offers almost limitless potential for manufacturing supply chain management. However, its strength is currently being leveraged most notably with real-time data access that powers end-to-end supply chain visibility, enhanced collaboration between supply chain players, and high-level predictive analytics.

From transparency issues and difficulties with defining KPIs to managing multiple systems and supply chain partners, a lack of end-to-end supply chain visibility has caused a raft of problems for manufacturers over the years. Logistics lapses into a needlessly complex task, storage of assets is a headache to organise, and systems and data become siloed.

Yet, many applications manufacturers currently use to service the different supply chain areas are already in the cloud. By migrating their operations to the cloud, manufacturers relieve themselves of expensive, high-maintenance, on-premise servers and can access real-time data uploaded to cloud-based applications by other supply chain players.

The efficiencies this real-time data unlocks are formidable. For example, instead of ringing suppliers to enquire about the availability of various components and waiting for a response, manufacturers can simply access the supplier's inventory through a shared cloud-based application and instantly see inventory stocks in real-time. As a result, decision-making, order processing, and management of storage capacities and logistics become significantly faster and more accurate. 

This seamless integration of applications through the cloud also dramatically improves collaboration. Mainly via APIs, integrated applications can communicate with each other and share data in real-time. For the manufacturer, this allows access to better insight, task automation, and the ability to build single data instances to manage products and marketing campaigns. As orders pass through multiple applications, each supplier can access shared real-time data that provides a single view of what’s happening, where it’s happening, and when.

With reactive processes accelerated and streamlined, enhanced predictive analytics kick in, allowing manufacturers to become more proactive. Owed to the sheer wealth of data, users can access detailed insights into customer trends, view the busiest times of year with added granularity, and make more accurate predictions for approaching seasons and years. The analytics are versatile as well, feeding into the development of more impactful marketing campaigns, de-risking new initiatives such as drop shipping or adopting just-in-time stock control, improving cash flows, and accelerating time to market.

Common Challenges When Implementing Cloud Computing 

Technology that offers cloud computing's standard of functionality and performance is not implemented overnight. Migrations to the cloud take time, and there are obstacles to overcome along the way.

At a time when a digital skills gap grows ever more apparent, fierce competition for people with the requisite knowledge and experience to oversee a migration to the cloud is building. Even with the right people recruited, allocating the time to research, plan, initiate, and then manage a cloud migration can be difficult, especially for busy or smaller manufacturers.

Cloud migrations also require more than simply switching to applications hosted in a different environment. Decoupling integrations and reintegrating them into new platforms is a delicate procedure, and security must be embedded in every stage. However, with the proliferation of APIs, migrations are happening more quickly and allow for testing to take place with greater confidence.

Although APIs are helping ease the journey to the cloud, choosing the right cloud service provider (CSP) remains the most important decision a manufacturer can make. Different manufacturers will be better suited to different CSPs, but certain features are universally essential. Providing an environment that allows for seamless communication between applications is an example, as too is the provision of sound business logic and validation rules around data.

Increasingly, manufacturers are accessing the speed and cost benefits of cloud migration by rapidly connecting new SaaS applications with existing on-premises applications via integration platforms. Through a single pane of glass, platforms allow users to access every application in their portfolio with a common language between them all, thereby drastically improving usability.

Unlocking the Potential of Cloud Computing with Integration Platforms

Manufacturers need real-time visibility across the entire manufacturing process, not least across the supply chain. Where supply chain conditions constantly change, the acquisition of raw materials is impacted. Meanwhile, limited insights delay the tracking of materials, goods, or products as they're manufactured and dock-to-door monitoring of inventory and delivery lacks transparency and coordination between internal and external systems.

Without an integration platform, manufacturers often come to rely on outsourced database procedures or custom scripts for integration work – a practice that is expensive, time-consuming, prevents agility, and is not scalable long-term.

Although it is incorrect to view an integration platform as an instant shortcut to effortless cloud operations, with the right platform and the right planning, they represent a compelling route to cloud readiness and radically augmented supply chain visibility.