Cloud Computing for Manufacturing

IT-Director.com (Holloway) - Cloud Computing-based manufacturing solutions are emerging as viable competitors to products from established vendors. These cloud solutions are most commonly used for supply chain visibility, transportation management and supplier/contract negotiation. Vendors are rapidly creating cloud computing modules to address other manufacturing issues, such as: supply chain execution, shop floor planning, demand planning and production scheduling. But where else?

Cross enterprise collaboration. Verstraete sees cross-enterprise collaboration as being a current weak point in Supply Chain management. The required integrated environment would require the exchange of structured and unstructured data, of synchronous and asynchronous communication. By integrating multiple concepts of social networking and providing them in an integrated, cloud based environment, companies could use a variety of collaboration mechanisms to perform key business processes without having to manage the environment. Data can be contributed by the parties on request, limiting the sensitive data in the cloud. Mike Frichol, founder of Pragmatic Papers, stated: "Cloud computing provides a geographically dispersed network approach that is much better aligned to serve all these trading partners trying to communicate with each other through different systems. Supply chains are networks. Cloud computing comprises networks for delivering business applications anywhere, anytime—that should significantly improve supply chain capabilities, communication and coordination."

Packaging World (Reynolds) - Cloud Computing: It's Quite a View - An ERP solution delivered over the Internet brings this aseptic juice manufacturer real-time visibility into processing, packaging, and the entire supply chain. “Our strategy is to build a group of plants and integrate them together in a national footprint. The technologies we deploy are what will help us support that integration process.”