Streamlined integration
CMaaS platforms are designed with integration capabilities and APIs to facilitate the easy integration of other technologies. Additionally, it provides an intuitive edge for improved departmental and team collaboration, speeding up development and removing bottlenecks.
However, an empirical study of an actual CMaaS pilot deployment identified barriers at these levels and perspectives.
Data Protection
Security provides customers with a unique OT cyber solution that allows them to see critical assets and their activity, detect operational issues, industrial threats, and process flaws, and respond quickly, effectively, and securely. It allows organizations to improve ROI, productivity, and safety in their industrial networks and beyond.
Using an interdisciplinary approach, it empirically analyzed a real CMaaS pilot launched by a company in Sweden. It identified barriers from four perspectives (user, service design, norms, policies, and costs) that influenced the CMaaS’s individual, company, and societal performance. This mapping allowed us to identify potential hierarchical relationships among these barriers and to show how they impacted each other at the system level. It gave rise to our evaluation framework.
Data Retention
In modern manufacturing paradigms, organizations collect a lot of data. It includes proprietary business data, technical information, and operational metrics. As a result, these sensitive assets are valuable targets for malicious hackers and must be protected.
As a result, it’s essential to create and enforce robust data retention policies. These policies dictate how long data should be stored and help minimize risks by removing irrelevant data from primary systems.
It’s a best practice to classify data points based on the type of information they contain, which helps streamline the data retention process and reduce storage costs. Additionally, incorporating storage and archival timelines into data retention policy guidelines can help ensure compliance with regulatory frameworks and industry laws.
Backup
Backup copies of data are a vital component of any CMaaS implementation. Ideally, these backups are stored offsite on a separate medium from the primary data. It helps protect against primary data loss and corruption.
In addition, backups should be encrypted to reduce the risk of a security breach. Many CMaaS providers offer cloud-managed backup services, ensuring your data is securely stored offsite.
CMaaS can also result in financial savings for organizations by removing the pricey hardware and software requirements. It can be especially beneficial for companies that have multiple locations, as it allows them to reduce their IT costs while maintaining data availability and security.
Data Loss Prevention
While much attention is given to software techniques to avert data loss, hardware devices should also be protected. They are necessary to access data and conduct business, and they can be compromised in various ways, including theft or damage.
CMaaS can provide agencies with the tools they need to monitor for risks and to take corrective actions. It may lessen the possibility of human error, which plays a significant role in data breaches. This risk can be reduced by instituting cybersecurity training and enforcing strong data governance policies.
Moreover, a CMaaS solution can be more effective and cost-efficient than traditional monolithic applications. The system can be adapted to meet specific needs without extensive maintenance. It can also be easily migrated to other environments.
Data Recovery
CMaaS allows for the development of applications modularly, thus reducing the maintenance burden. That is because changes can be made to specific modules without affecting the entire application. It is in contrast to traditional monolithic applications that require extensive maintenance.
Moreover, the decentralized architecture of a CMaaS platform provides a separation of concerns. Requests are transferred directly from a user’s software to the CMaaS server as model parameter changes or toolpath regeneration requests. Once the CMaaS platform has made the necessary parametric changes, the model metadata is returned to the client middleware.
Similarly, CMaaS could reduce the use of fossil fuels in transport by offering employees flexible integrated mobility services that they can access from their homes or workplaces. However, this impact could be hard to evaluate because it depends on multiple factors and does not necessarily involve a direct measure of costs or profits.
