Keeping Manufacturing Facilities Humming Requires Flawless Network and Application Performance

For manufacturers, the expression “time is money” speaks to the mission-critical need to keep operations and supply chains running smoothly and ensure deadlines are met. This is no small task in complex manufacturing environments, where even the slightest disruption can negatively impact revenue, harm customer satisfaction, or degrade employee productivity.

Because manufacturers increasingly rely on networks and applications for nearly every aspect of their operations, assuring performance and security of the ecosystem is essential. That puts the onus on IT teams to keep systems operating flawlessly. Failure to do so can lead to slowdowns and outages in factories that result in a cascade of business-impacting problems, such as delays in production, reduced inventory, missed production quota targets, and product shortages.

Latency and/or downtime in operational technology (OT) tends to have a domino effect on revenue and costs. Disruptions can impact plants downstream that do assembly, affect inventory availability for competitive or cyclical sales opportunities, and create the need for greater overtime, which results in higher costs.

Network and Application Performance Is More Vital Than Ever

As the manufacturing industry continues to embrace digital transformation, reliance on network and application performance grows increasingly important. Internet of Things (IoT) applications in manufacturing plants are becoming common, allowing packages and finished goods, along with lot numbers, to be more easily tracked.

Plant floor management apps are driving greater efficiency. Manufacturing execution systems (MES) are being used to integrate systems and information to keep production lines operating. MES is often used to tie together computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and other systems, such as industrial control system (ICS) monitors and controls for plant floor industrial processes. In the back office, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are relied upon for material and finished-goods forecasting, inventory tracking, procurement, and so forth.

Observability Is Key to Assuring Performance Even in Remote Facilities

OT networks oftentimes require nanosecond response times to ensure that production is able to run without a hitch. Compounding the challenge, when manufacturers run multiple shifts, networks, and applications must be available around the clock. Ensuring ecosystem performance requires observability end-through-end—from data centers to virtual environments to colocations and into the cloud. This is particularly true when remote locations are involved. For manufacturers with multiple plants, regional offices, warehouses, smaller production facilities, and global supply chain partners, the need for observability across disparate locations is vital to meeting productivity demands.

Advanced observability that is based on real-time packet monitoring is essential for strengthening digital resilience, streamlining operations, and minimizing costly downtime. Using real-time packet data, highly effective monitoring solutions are able to accelerate issue identification and thereby reduce time to resolution, thus ensuring systems stay up and running. The right solution can enable early detection and proactive troubleshooting, which shortens mean time to repair (MTTR) and can help to prevent costly operational interruptions.

Enhancing Efficiency and Reducing Downtime

NETSCOUT’s nGenius Enterprise Performance Management solution provides deep visibility into manufacturers’ systems— even when remotely located—leveraging real-time packet analysis to solve critical manufacturing challenges. This comprehensive visibility empowers IT to both protect manufacturing efficiencies and avoid cost overruns associated with such expenses as overtime pay to make up for inventory shortfalls.

This advanced observability solution delivers the visibility needed to reduce downtime, allowing manufacturers to improve production throughput, meet delivery deadlines, and maintain customer satisfaction. By gaining actionable insights, IT is better able to maintain production efficiency, protect system performance, and achieve better business outcomes. Application tools alone can’t offer sufficient network performance management and packet analysis needed to cut mean time to knowledge (MTTK). This is critical in fast-paced manufacturing environments. Packet analysis offers the insights that enable IT to minimize downtime, so manufacturers can meet production goals and avoid costly disruptions.

Learn how observability with NETSCOUT’s nGenius Enterprise Performance Management solution helps IT minimize downtime so manufacturers can meet production goals and avoid costly disruptions.

Discover how NETSCOUT solutions empower manufacturers to enhance efficiency and minimize downtime. Watch our on-demand webinar “Observability to Enhance Efficiency and Reduce Downtime in Manufacturing” for more.