Migrate and Modernize Manufacturing Applications in the Cloud: What it Takes to Get Started


AllCloud Blog:
Cloud Insights and Innovation

Winning a competitive advantage in manufacturing today requires transformation. 

Whether this transformation centers around reducing costs, increasing agility, improving security, making data actionable or anything else, migrating to the cloud is the best way to achieve the desired results.

Migrating to the cloud with Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers some of the biggest benefits to manufacturers thanks to Amazon’s comprehensive solutions dedicated to the space. In fact, Amazon has recently announced several investments to help accelerate cloud adoption in manufacturing.

Even with these investments, it’s still important to take a strategic approach to the migration process in order to achieve the desired business objectives and develop a scalable foundation for future growth. Here’s a look at what it takes.

How to Plan for a Successful Migration to AWS

Deciding it’s time to migrate your manufacturing operations to the cloud is one thing; knowing how to best prepare your organization for that migration process is quite another.

For example, how will your organization maintain security and compliance during the migration? Who needs to be involved in the process? And what governance models will you introduce? 

Answering these questions requires upfront planning. This type of planning is the key to a successful migration and should detail your organization’s current state as well as your future state objectives. It can also help you identify skill gaps and anticipate any potential challenges you might encounter along the way.

Although the answers to these questions will be unique and no two cloud migrations are the same, there are several repeatable elements that contribute to a successful migration. That’s why Amazon created the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework, which packages these elements together to help manufacturers realize measurable benefits of moving to the cloud faster, all while reducing risk.

Specifically, the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework includes six focal points that create a repeatable framework for planning a successful cloud migration: 

  1. Business
  2. People
  3. Governance
  4. Platform
  5. Security
  6. Operations

Modernizing Manufacturing Operations with AllCloud

Successfully migrating to the cloud with AWS is the first step toward digital transformation, but it certainly isn’t the last. It’s also critical to build on that foundation for rapid innovation in order to modernize operations.

This is where AllCloud’s Manufacturing Application Modernization Solution comes into play. As an AWS Premier Consulting and Managed Services Partner, AllCloud developed this solution to support successful AWS cloud migrations and ongoing optimizations. The solution focuses on three key functional areas for manufacturing:

  • Customers: Capturing and consolidating insights on and interactions with customers to better understand those touchpoints and make the data actionable.
  • Engineering and product development: Prioritizing improvements around speed and agility for engineering and product development to meet customer needs faster.
  • Connected factory operations: Eliminating production waste by introducing leaner production capabilities and improving the ability to respond to customer demands.

 

Taking this approach helped Adama, one of the world’s leading crop protection companies, accelerate time to market for new products and enable their team to focus on growing the business rather than maintaining infrastructure.

Are You Ready to Migrate Your Manufacturing Applications to the Cloud with AWS?

Migrating to the cloud with AWS comes with enormous potential to modernize operations and achieve key manufacturing goals like reducing costs and increasing agility. 

But achieving these transformative results requires a well-planned migration and strategic approach to building operations on the new cloud foundation. Taking steps like those outlined here, including enlisting the help of an experienced partner like AllCloud to move through the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework and lead application modernization efforts, can help accelerate adoption securely without interrupting the normal flow of business.

Are you ready to get started? Click here to download our eBook on migrating and modernizing manufacturing applications in the cloud with AWS to learn more about what it takes to get started and how AllCloud can help your team realize key benefits faster.

Eric Crump

SVP, AWS North American Practice Lead

Read more posts by Eric Crump