Many manufacturers have migrated their ERP or accounting systems to the Cloud, managing and accessing their critical financial and operational data at a remote server over the Internet.
This has many advantages in that it does not require local IT support in each plant, can be accessed from multiple different locations, relieves the organization of the burden of maintaining complex software and of running their own servers.
But there are also disadvantages of running critical systems, such as ERP systems, on a shared remote server, as the recent CloudStrike incident demonstrated. A bad patch release to security software caused a multi-day meltdown for airlines, trains, hospitals, and probably some manufacturing and distribution organizations. A single point of failure could halt operations at thousands of businesses for days at a time.
VIDEO: Cloud ERP Failure: Preventing Operational Meltdown of Your Manufacturing Operations
KnarrTek offers a solution to this problem: small, highly reliable Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) computers running in each manufacturing plant or distribution warehouse to capture the real-time operations tracking data about the status of jobs and inventory at each site and to make this available to the managers, machine operators, and material handlers who need this data locally.
These IIOT computers then exchange data with ERP and accounting systems in the Cloud, when these systems are up and running, but allow clients to seamlessly continue their manufacturing and distribution operations, when these systems go down.
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