Technology Trends that are Redefining Manufacturing Industry

Manufacturing Industries have been adopting IT solutions to meet their growing challenges successfully, ever since mainframes have drastically eased business processes in the departments like sales, HR, Inventory management, quality assurance etc.

Today, technology trends such as Cloud, Big Data, Digital media, IoT (Internet of Things) and Mobility are reshaping business processes.  On the other end these technologies are also empowering today’s customers with wide information resources, and online solutions. It has also broadened choices for businesses to delight their customer’s through efficient supply chain by connecting CRM and SRM for customer and supplier resources. Manufacturing Industries catering to global customer reach are adopting newer technologies more effectively as the sales, marketing, and HR teams can connect to the back-end from anywhere anytime. The clear visibility of available stock levels and resources enables efficient sales and management decisions.

IoT is taking the world by storm by connecting people, places & devices like never before. IoT provides businesses to keep closer track of data, bringing increased supply chain visibility and accountability.

Social media platforms like Facebook, and microblogging sites like Twitter, have brought about a robust increase in customer connect along with continuous security threats to websites and corporate data. To avoid malicious practices attacking websites and corporate data, it requires continuous monitoring and testing.

ERP systems are playing a big role by bringing advanced production, planning capabilities, and better labor tracking tools on the production floor. Enterprise mobility has created new strategies in business processes as never before. Approvals of several processes are accessed through mobiles because of their capability to connect to ERP and back-end information from anywhere anytime.

A mobility solution with RFID technology provides real-time tracking and reduces human efforts and errors. The usage of mobile apps speeds up business processes and increase productivity, thereby creating a good ROI.

The enthusiasm of Manufacturing Industries in mobilizing their business processes is overwhelming. The fact that mobiles are handy and have a widespread use, has created a robust connect with customers. Mobile apps make it easy to respond from anywhere, anytime. It is also possible that if an application is not functioning as intended, a customer may uninstall the same and not use it again. This situation makes testing mobile applications all the more important to ensure effective functionality and performance. Regular testing of ERP systems also ensures security of organizational data.

Big Data is another unavoidable trend for any industry with online presence, computerized business and enterprise mobility. Volume, Variety, and Velocity are the virtues of Big Data. Huge volumes of data enter into the databases of Manufacturing Industries through automatically generated call details, weblogs, smart meters, manufacturing sensors, equipment logs, trading systems, and social media. The availability of huge volumes of data helps businesses spread across multiple industry verticals to become productive by responding faster, and make better decisions and predictions. Testing Big Data for value, that is, identifying the right data from huge volumes of data that creep into business databases through various channels, and storing it in a structured way help organizations make the best data-related decisions.

Technology trends are promising. They create a global presence for organizations, a better ROI, and instant customer connect. Continuous testing avoids security breaches and performance pitfalls, helping continuous and secured delivery of services to customers and smooth running of connected ERP and business processes.

Cigniti Technologies, the world’s 3rd largest independent software testing is a proud sponsor at Manufacturing IT Summit on 4^th June in Mumbai. Cigniti has helped large manufacturing companies across the globe in their software quality initiatives, and helped deliver high quality product on-time, and under budget. Cigniti India leadership team invites you to meet at the event to discuss and understand how Cigniti can help you in your software quality initiatives to realise business benefits.