The cloud has proven transformative for businesses, particularly in terms of building new workloads and applications to improve products and services in order to fulfil client needs. Even though the cloud can now be used by all businesses, some still need it to have some extra features.
The heavily regulated banking sector, for instance, can use the cloud, but there are some restrictions on how many operations and how much data they can operate or store there. As a result, cloud service providers have created cloud services specifically tailored for today’s financial services.
In the manufacturing sector, a cloud that can uniquely meet their needs is also sought after. In fact, the manufacturing sector is currently experiencing the fastest rate of digital adoption, with automation leading the way. Also, digitisation presents a huge opportunity to increase visibility into the supply chain and manufacturing floor.
To meet the data management and analytics needs of manufacturers, California-based data cloud company Snowflake has rolled out its Manufacturing Data Cloud, which gives enterprises in automotive, technology, energy, and industrial sectors a foundation to get started with Snowflake’s data platform and unlock the value of industrial data for business growth and competitive edge.
Bridging manufacturers and partners through industry-specific cloud service
With the help of the Manufacturing Data Cloud, manufacturers can work securely and flexibly with partners, suppliers, and customers, enhancing agility and visibility throughout the whole value chain.
In today’s digital-industrial world, businesses may create a data basis for their operations, enhance the performance of their supply chains, and power smart manufacturing efforts.
“The Snowflake Manufacturing Data Cloud and our ecosystem of partners gives manufacturers and their suppliers access to the data, applications, and services needed to effectively manage end-to-end supply chains, create new shop floor efficiencies, and deliver better products and services to their customers,” said Tim Long, global head of manufacturing at Snowflake.
Addressing industry challenges with data-based solutions and improved supply chain performance
With unified governance, elastic performance, and support for almost any scale of storage, computing, and users, the Snowflake Manufacturing Data Cloud delivers a single, fully-managed, secure platform for multi-cloud data consolidation. It also enables manufacturers to break down data silos by ingesting and analysing both IT and OT data, as well as data from third-party partners.
In terms of the supply chain, the Snowflake offering allows for seamless data sharing and collaboration with partners for downstream and upstream insight across an organisation’s complete supply chain by combining its own data with data from third-party partners and Snowflake Marketplace.
Using SQL and Snowpark, Snowflake’s developer framework for Python, Java, and Scala, different teams can collaborate on the same data and confidently build AI and ML models to forecast demand and enable critical use cases like supply chain control tower and spend analytics.
Powering smart manufacturing
In addition to streamlining operations within and across manufacturing plants, Snowflake’s native support for semi-structured, structured, and unstructured high-volume Internet of Things (IoT) data enables manufacturers to use shop floor data in near real-time to predict maintenance needs, analyse cycle time, enhance product yield and quality, and achieve sustainability goals.
“Data has never been more critical as manufacturers embrace smart manufacturing initiatives and steer their companies into an increasingly digital-industrial world,” Long stated.
To date, Snowflake Manufacturing Data Cloud customers include the UK-based energy supplier EDF, the automation business ABB, the connectors manufacturer Molex, and the truck, bus, and industrial engine manufacturer Scania.
For more information about Snowflake for Manufacturing and partner-tailored solutions for the manufacturing industry, visit this site.
