Well, it is true! But it is not stated quite that way. Manufacturing does not come out of clouds, but automation control can come out of the cloud. What does that mean? As we were told some time ago, there is now the ability for one company to have servers in its operation that are connected to the Internet. These servers run software applications that do all kinds of tasks, like ERP, accounting functions, or other stuff that other companies need to keep their businesses viable on a daily basis. The companies with the servers connected to the Internet are selling subscriptions for cloud manufacturing to companies that need the functions offered by these applications. The subscription allows the subscribing company to be able to connect to the Internet and use the functionality of these software applications just like they were running on their own servers. Manufacturers are the beneficiaries of cloud manufacturing instructions from these applications that are available through the Internet. One company can run applications that are designed to give instructions to an automation device on the production line of another company that is a manufacturer. The manufacturer will need to get a subscription for this software-as-a-service so that the manufacturing device can receive its instructions over the Internet. It was only a matter of time. When applications became available to do other tasks recently, automation tasks were not far behind. This type of scenario is just going to grow as time goes on. There will be more and more businesses that offer subscriptions to do this kind of remote manufacturing control as time goes by.
What Is This Stuff About Getting Manufacturing Out of Clouds?
By John Mitchell on May 14, 2011 in cloud automation, cloud manufacturing
