The manufacturing industry went through turmoil in the past year, with the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting operations on a global scale. The supply chain ecosystem took a serious hit, resulting in the consumers experiencing a scarcity of products.
However, this tumultuous situation has a silver lining. The otherwise stagnant manufacturing industry is now forced into adopting advanced technologies to sustain itself in the market. The manufacturing firms are finally looking to transition into Industry 4.0 to streamline their processes and bring in the “agility” factor.
The first step for this transformation would be to look for IT solutions that are more mobile, secure, and scalable than legacy systems. Physical desktops facilitate data storage on localized devices that are susceptible to threats. Moreover, it also poses a challenge to inventory and raw material management.
A major step towards accelerating digital transformation for your manufacturing firm would be to dump physical desktops and adopt virtual cloud desktops. Virtual cloud desktops are created in a remote cloud environment and can be accessed from internet-enabled devices, including smartphones, laptops, and tabs. These virtual desktops are offered as a part of service by third-party providers.
Here are some ways in which manufacturers can benefit from virtual cloud desktops.
Centralized Management
The production process involves the accomplishment of multiple tasks, be it procuring raw materials, packaging, shipping, and monitoring delivery networks. However, sharing of information between multiple processes over email can be tedious and error-prone.
With virtual cloud desktop hosting, users get a centralized cloud platform for efficient data sharing. As the data is stored on the cloud, workers from various departments, be it packing, production, or shipping, can update data on the cloud. This data can be viewed by other team members in real-time. This prevents errors in the process while saving their time.
Reduced Expenses
The production cost involves expenses such as the purchase of raw materials, deploying machines, and wage payments. The last thing they need is investing in the IT costs of purchasing desktops. Moreover, once purchased, these desktops also need to be maintained and upgraded regularly.
Virtual cloud desktop hosting lets you reduce the capital expenses to a bare minimum. As the virtual desktops can be accessed on the personal devices of the users, you do not need to purchase office desktops. Consequently, the costs involved in hiring an in-house IT team to manage the desktops are also reduced.
Application Delivery
Manufacturers these days require advanced software tools to cater to various processes, be it data processing, accounting, inventory management, or human resources. However, installing all these apps on the local desktop leads to scarcity of resources and performance issues.
Virtual cloud desktops give you the option to work on any number of apps without any hardware restrictions. As the apps are delivered from a remote location on your end-point device, its configuration does not matter. Hence, all you need to do is ask the provider for an application, and it will be provided to you. With virtual cloud desktops, you will never face any performance lag, even on your outdated smartphone or laptop.
Support
The manufacturing industry is time-bound, with the products required to be manufactured and shipped at a deadline. Hence, they cannot spare time for the IT issues related to the physical desktops. However, these issues occur regularly and are unavoidable, causing downtime in their process.
In the case of virtual cloud desktops, you get dedicated customer support from the service provider. They deploy an expert team at the backend that responds instantly to your issues. The best providers offer support on multiple platforms, be it call, chat, or email.
Security
The manufacturing industry deals with sensitive information that ranges from product designs, inventory status, bill of materials, and warehouse locations. Any breach of such data by hackers can lead to irreparable damage to the company. Other causes of data loss include hard drive crashes, user ignorance, and disruptive events.
By opting for virtual cloud desktop services, you get a multi-layered security infrastructure for all your apps and data. Some of the safeguards deployed by the providers include multi-factor authentication, end-to-end data encryption, OS hardening, antivirus management, ransomware prevention, and more.
Scalability on Demand
The manufacturing process is dynamic and changes with customer preferences, product requirements, raw material availability, and production costs. With it, the utilization of hardware resources also varies from time to time. However, once you have purchased the desktops, you need to either upgrade them for more resources or observe them sitting idle at some point.
Virtual cloud desktops are flexible, which means that their resources can be altered without any hardware replacements. Your virtual cloud desktop provider can provide you with the desired configuration in minutes, and you get charges according to the resource utilization.
Business Continuity
The manufacturing operations can experience a halt due to equipment malfunction, supply chain disruption, or other factors. However, one thing often underestimated while talking about business downtime is the IT issues. A server crash or a corrupt operating system can very easily cause disruptions in the business process.
Virtual cloud desktops ensure business continuity for your manufacturing process. The competent providers in the market guarantee an uptime of 99.99% for the virtual desktops, which means only a few minutes of downtime in a year. Moreover, they also deploy a disaster recovery plan to ensure seamless operations, even during a disaster.
Final Note
Manufacturers can eliminate all the IT hassles by opting for virtual cloud desktop hosting. The virtual desktops offer better flexibility, security, and reduce capital expenses. During the tough COVID times, the manufacturing industry can adopt this flexible desktop solution to optimize their process and achieve growth.
Want to try virtual cloud desktops for free, get in touch with our Solutions Consultant at +1-855-223-4887.
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