Today’s manufacturing world is at the start of Industry 4.0, the digitization of factories, where smart machines can communicate with each other and learn using real-time data. Industry 4.0 will see the transformation of factories into highly efficient operations, driving up employee productivity, cutting costs, and improving product quality.
Smart factories need smart cloud connectivity
The right connections enable non-stop production
Today’s factories gather data from various sources, including production lines, autonomous guided vehicles, employees, and warehouses. Losing communications with any part of the process or anyone in the loop can mean production delays. Factories need dependable, high-performance cloud connectivity for fast and consistent data transfer inside the factory and with business-critical cloud applications.
If a factory isn’t connected, it’s losing money. Estimates as to what downtime costs a factory range from $4,333 to $22,000 per minute. That’s $260,000 to $1,320,000 per hour. Companies need a networking solution that will never cause an unplanned stoppage.
Adaptiv Networks solutions keep factory networks online 24/7/365 – providing guaranteed connectivity all the time. Our cloud-managed SD-WAN uses multiple data transport methods, including broadband, cellular, fixed wireless, and MPLS, from numerous ISPs. We can bond all network connections together to create an unbreakable internet connection that eliminates downtime and increases network throughput.
Get a PDF version of this brief
In Industry 4.0, connectivity equals productivity
Cloud-managed networks drive cost-efficiencies
Cutting costs is a primary goal of manufacturing facilities every year, and networking costs can be reduced using cloud-managed networking solutions. Many factories have MPLS networks to connect separate offices and factories, but MPLS is expensive, time-consuming to update, and inflexible to meet the dynamic networking needs of modern operational technologies. Adaptiv’s solutions allow companies to enhance operational efficiencies with a software-defined networking approach, switch to lower-cost broadband connections such as Ethernet, LTE/5G, or Fixed Wireless, and keep all or part of their MPLS network if needed, with MPLS fully integrated into network utilization plans.
The Adaptiv Networks cloud connectivity solutions include 24/7/365 support provided by certified IT professionals, allowing enterprises to enjoy the confidence of a cloud-managed network service, plus easy login access to view network and application performance in the Adaptiv Cloud orchestration portal.
Cloud-connectivity enhances manufacturing flexibility
Today’s manufacturers don’t let their operations sit still – they are constantly looking for ways to expand and improve. Adaptiv’s cloud-connectivity solutions offer enterprises the flexibility to quickly adapt and implement changes.
As operations grow and new connections are needed, Adaptiv’s SD-WAN makes it easy to connect them, whether they are a:
- Factory
- Warehouse
- Office building
- Remote worker
- Supplier
- Distributor
MPLS links are challenging to create and update. In contrast, a new site can be added to the corporate SD-WAN quickly and easily by the certified SD-WAN service provider without any on-site IT expertise required by the manufacturer.
Adaptiv’s solutions can recognize and prioritize business applications, ensuring the most critical traffic is carried on the fastest and most reliable route. Adaptiv uses intelligent session-based path steering, bi-directional QoS, and is optimized for both public and private cloud apps.
Adaptiv can help with a simple phone call when it’s time to increase throughput, increasing speed from 15 Mbps to 2 Gbps (or more) by simply adding more connections and increasing the service license.
A PwC poll reports that 60% of industrial manufacturers use the Internet of Things (IoT) in their facility, with 68% planning to increase their investment in it over the next two years. Adaptiv’s SD-WAN provides efficiencies for IoT with simple configuration changes, provisioning, and policy implementations – all essential to address the growing demand for IoT, which will be adding billions of connected devices to networks. The Industrial IoT is positioned to become a transformative part of industrial networks, using sensors in places such as tools, component pieces, and completed products.
Corporate data is locked tight
Security is a crucial priority for all enterprises today. A recent report from IBM shows 13% of corporate data breaches occur in the industrial field, and the average data breach costs a company over $4 million in 2021. Prime targets in manufacturing include product data, manufacturing processes, financial information, and personnel data. Adaptiv Networks offers advanced cloud-based security technologies to ensure data integrity, including zero trust network access (ZTNA), site-to-site data encryption, cloud-encrypted internet access, and real-time cloud-based security (SASE). Adaptiv performs deep packet inspection (DPI) on traffic, analyzing packets beyond the header, enabling threats such as malware and data leaks to be found. DPI allows Adaptiv to identify, prioritize, and steer traffic accurately and efficiently over the network.
Adaptiv provides network visibility
A manufacturing survey found that 81% of respondents think that “real-time monitoring is making huge contributions to their business, and 72% describe real-time monitoring as crucial for streamlining and making inventory resolution precise.” Adaptiv’s cloud-connectivity solutions use analytics to generate real-time reports that detail the performance of sites, links, and applications, automatically directing bandwidth resources as needed. With access to up-to-the-second statistics and status of all sites, managers have better control of the processes building their products, including order management, supply chain status, production rates, quality control, and shipping.
Adaptiv Networks’ cloud-connectivity solutions provide security and reliability for factories
Adaptiv offers solutions for every networking need.
Adaptiv Enterprise Connect
is a cloud-managed network solution for interconnecting distributed enterprise sites across all business cloud services and private corporations’ applications.
Adaptiv Business Connect
creates an application-aware network that continuously monitors your Internet connections and prioritizes business traffic to deliver exceptional user experiences.
Adaptiv My Connect
provides simple and secure connectivity that keeps home office and mobile workers online and productive.
About Adaptiv Networks
Adaptiv Networks is the creator of powerful, software-defined wide-area networks (SD-WANs) for the most challenging locations requiring high availability for business-critical application traffic. Businesses rely on Adaptiv Networks’ cloud-managed SD-WAN to provide secure, high-performance, and highly reliable networking for their voice, data, and video communications needs. Adaptiv Networks serves more than 500 customers, with more than 8,000 sites deployed through an ecosystem of more than 100 Partners globally. In addition, the company has an extensive portfolio of SD-WAN-focused patents.