MSPs Provide Welcome Relief to Busy Manufacturing IT Departments

The manufacturing industry faces some unique challenges, particularly when it comes to keeping IT systems and networks running efficiently and smoothly. Most companies are spread out over multiple locations and IT personnel often need to monitor routine tasks remotely while also adding value and competitive advantage to organizations’ offerings. In the age of IoT and M2M technologies, this becomes increasingly complex and can place a heavy burden on IT staffs.

A managed service provider (MSP) can be a valuable asset for manufacturing companies burdened with supporting a large and dispersed IT infrastructure. Logicalis (News - Alert) US specializes in handling core IT management responsibilities for companies throughout the world, and understands the particular demands of the manufacturing sector.

"CIOs in manufacturing environments are expected to not only keep the compute environment functioning properly 24x7 as other CIOs do, but they are also expected to contribute to the manufacturer's productivity and competitive advantage through the creative use of their team's technical skills," said Ed Konopasek, vice president, cloud and managed solutions, Logicalis US. "To mature their internal IT operations, manufacturing CIOs must realize that being responsible for IT doesn't mean they have to do everything in house.”

According to Konopasek, MSPs can offer ITIL-based remote monitoring and management of an entire IT infrastructure for manufacturers. And they can back up their services with SLAs, generating time savings, guaranteed uptime and predictable regular costs. This ultimately frees up internal IT teams to focus on core business initiatives and emerging technologies.

In addition to cost savings and a large pool of skilled resources, MSPs offer manufacturers best practices and adherence to a variety of industry standards. Other benefits include proactive management of networks and operations rather than reactive management, which heads off problems and issues before they occur. The result is guaranteed uptime since MSPs are consistently monitoring and managing compute, storage and fixed network resources.

Ultimately, manufacturers benefit from predictable costs when they hire an MSP, as well as massive time savings since internal resources are freed from routine management and maintenance responsibilities. In an industry that is becoming increasingly competitive as IoT and new technologies gain traction, an MSP can be a valuable ally to a manufacturing company.