Critical MaaS

The Rise of Manufacturing as a Service

A shorter product lifecycle across many industries has turned up the heat on injection molding parts manufacturers.They’re under massive pressure from customers to lower costs per part – even for low and medium volume production, despite the fact that tooling costs remain fixed. What’s more, consumer product manufacturers are increasingly hesitant to commit to costly tooling investments prior to product launch and market validation.

The digitization of the business world has brought about a new way of doing things for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and B2B companies. These companies will collaboratively use the emerging technologies of sensors, data analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing to relinquish their full ownership of the assets they need to manufacture their products. They’ll shift their time and money to outsourcing these duties to a manufacturing-as-a-service (MaaS) company to improve their bottom line.

In essence, MaaS companies are contractors for several separate businesses that will evenly share the costs for equipment, software, maintenance, and repairs. This setup creates a sharing economy between businesses and reduces the manufacturing costs for each involved, allowing companies to expand more quickly and efficiently because they’re not forced to pay for the expansion on their own.

Industry 4.0 Is Leading to the Success of MaaS

In essence, MaaS companies are contractors for several separate businesses that will evenly share the costs for equipment, software, maintenance, and repairs. This setup creates a sharing economy between businesses and reduces the manufacturing costs for each involved, allowing companies to expand more quickly and efficiently because they’re not forced to pay for the expansion on their own.

Industry 4.0 is the reason MaaS is possible, and it has brought us a faster internet, inexpensive cloud computing and storage, and an improved relationship with the IoT. These technologies improve the efficiency of information transmission throughout the supply chain. It enables companies to quickly access data and information to make crucial decisions the moment problems arise, and it allows them to monitor the equipment and facilities they’re using.

By being able to monitor their facilities, companies can visualize their room to grow, and they’re able to analyze the equipment’s performance metrics to identify problem areas and schedule predictive maintenance.

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