ON PREMISES VS CLOUD BASED MES: WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

Over the years we have seen a shift regarding the appearance of cloud-based solutions. Regarding MES systems, many organizations are either deciding to shift their current on-premise solution to the cloud or implement a cloud based MES system for the first time. As manufacturers balance the pros & cons of each, this decision is residing more and more in the total cost of ownership of one against the other.

During the first decade of the current century, the term “cloud computing” became a buzzword, when the largest companies in the IT industry started to describe the new paradigm in which consumers were increasingly accessing the web for software, files and data. At the time, most organizations – including those in manufacturing – went for the safe option of having on-site control over their IT data and security standards and management of their application configurations. Thus, the on-premise MES were the go-to solution.

What is an “On-Premise” MES?

Let’s take a deeper look at this type of solution. For the On-Prem MES, organizations must take into account that the total cost of ownership greatly increases due to the initial investment and the required up-front capital in terms of

– IT infrastructure (bandwidth, servers, cooling, backup, etc.) that meets the system requirements, an

– IT security strategy that accounts for disaster recovery, and

– the scale of the overall implementation, which must be planned beforehand.

Other aspects to consider include

– the cost of IT personnel and support, and

– the cost of maintenance of the software including upgrades and integration capabilities with other software such as ERPs and PLMs, and

– the cost of the hardware per se, which struggles to remain relevant when technology lifecycles are so short.

Cloud Based MES Advantages

Currently, however, cloud vendors have significantly improved the security, and have all the resources to keep up to date with new approaches in terms of security, regulation and compliance of the infrastructure. Cloud based MES has enabled SMEs to implement the technology more affordably by removing the up-front costs in terms of capital investment for the IT infrastructure and the regular costs of maintenance and upgrades (including integration continuity). Additionally, as data and visibility is now easily accessed remotely, the response time to unexpected disruptions of the processes can be more efficiently resolved, and as many in the industry are realizing, cloud-based MES enables more agility and scalability than its counterpart. Want to know more? Visit here our Digital Manufacturing Cloud page, a cloud-based MES system for medical device, diagnostics and biotech manufacturers of all sizes.