IT Infrastructure & Computing Solutions for the Manufacturing Industry
Highly available, easy-to-manage IT infrastructure in the data center and on the manufacturing factory floor
Today’s manufacturers operate in some of the toughest, most distributed environments in the world: from harsh plant floors to remote facilities and high-precision production lines. As Industry 4.0 initiatives accelerate, plants must process data closer to the source, support sensor-driven automation, and maintain secure connectivity across machinery, workstations, quality assurance systems, and robotics. Any downtime, even seconds, can disrupt production, cause quality defects, or halt revenue.
Scale Computing's modern edge infrastructure provides manufacturers with a resilient, easy-to-manage foundation that works reliably on the factory floor, even in temperature-variable, vibration-heavy, dust-prone environments.
Benefits of Scale Computing for Manufacturing and Connected Factories
With integrated networking, secure network segmentation, and broadband+cellular failover, manufacturers can keep shop-floor systems online while streaming real-time operational data for monitoring, analytics, and predictive maintenance.
Manufacturing IT teams often operate with small staff and high system demands. Consolidated infrastructure reduces time spent managing clusters, troubleshooting outages, and juggling multiple vendors. Automated updates, simplified management, and resilient edge operation help lower operational costs while increasing uptime for production-critical systems.
Modern plants rely on a mix of legacy controllers, OT systems, quality platforms, and new IoT sensors. Simplified, unified edge environments from Scale Computing reduce the complexity of running these workloads across distributed lines and buildings. Integrated compute, storage, virtualization, and networking streamline operations, keeping environments consistent and easier to manage.
As production lines expand and automation increases, infrastructure must scale effortlessly. Our modular edge computing systems allow plants to add compute or storage where needed, supporting high-volume sensor data, machine-vision workloads, or additional stations without taking systems offline. Ruggedized options ensure deployments stand up to factory-floor conditions.
Manufacturing facilities require infrastructure that supports robotics, predictive maintenance, digital twins, and other Industry 4.0 technologies. Real-time data processing at the edge enables faster insights, better equipment calibration, and immediate detection of anomalies. Scale Computing's flexible, future-ready platform ensures plants can adopt new technologies without reengineering their entire IT footprint.
“We have standardized on Scale Computing at our remote sites because those clusters are easy to manage and deploy. We have reduced our spend and saved a great deal of time not have to train staff on legacy virtualization, as well as not having to spend time managing multiple vendors.”
Director of Infrastructure & Operations at Benchmark Electronics, Inc.
Benchmark standardizes worldwide manufacturing facilities with Scale Computing
IT leadership saw the opportunity to create a more strategic and cost effective IT infrastructure as they went about making up their technology debt at their global manufacturing facilities.
CRNtv at SC//Platform 2024 - VMware Upgrade: Scale Computing Transformed This Industrial Powerhouse
Shane Rogers of Harrison Steel Castings describes how Scale Computing’s solution helps them achieve these results.
Made for the IT Infrastructure Demands of Manufacturing
Purpose-Built Platforms for the Industrial Edge
Manufacturers need infrastructure that performs reliably on the factory floor, processes data at the edge, and maintains secure, continuous connectivity across production lines, warehouses, and remote facilities. Scale Computing delivers hardened edge performance, centralized orchestration, and end-to-end security, helping plants modernize operations, reduce downtime, and accelerate Industry 4.0 adoption.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), and how does it benefit manufacturing operations?
Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) integrates compute, storage, networking, and virtualization into a single system. For manufacturers, this means simplified IT management, reduced downtime, and improved efficiency. SC//Platform provides a self-healing, automated infrastructure that can be deployed at manufacturing facilities with minimal IT oversight. It ensures high availability for mission-critical applications, supports real-time data processing, and scales easily as production demands change.
Can Scale Computing's solutions integrate with existing manufacturing systems and equipment?
Yes. SC//Platform is designed to integrate with existing manufacturing systems, including legacy equipment and industrial control systems. It supports virtualized workloads, allowing manufacturers to run applications such as SCADA, MES, and ERP on a highly available and resilient infrastructure. SC//Platform is compatible with various industry-standard protocols and applications, ensuring seamless integration without requiring significant changes to existing operations.
How much does it cost for manufacturers to redo or change IT infrastructure?
The cost of IT infrastructure changes varies depending on factors like deployment size, hardware requirements, and existing infrastructure. However, traditional IT environments often involve high capital expenses (CapEx) for new hardware, as well as ongoing operational expenses (OpEx) such as licensing fees and management costs. SC//Platform lowers total cost of ownership (TCO) by approximately 70% by eliminating the need for separate virtualization licensing, reducing deployment and maintenance complexity, and enabling cost-effective scaling.
How do you future-proof your manufacturing IT infrastructure?
Future-proofing IT infrastructure involves adopting scalable, resilient, and easily managed solutions. SC//Platform provides a hyperconverged, edge-ready architecture with built-in automation, high availability, and simplified management. This eliminates downtime risks, reduces reliance on specialized IT staff, and ensures infrastructure can scale with business growth. SC//Platform’s support for virtualization and containerized applications allows manufacturers to adopt new technologies without major infrastructure overhauls.
Is Scale Computing's platform suitable for both small and large manufacturing facilities?
Yes. SC//Platform is designed to be flexible and scalable, making it suitable for both small manufacturing plants and large-scale industrial operations. It offers a right-sized infrastructure that can run on small form-factor edge devices or scale up to high-performance data center solutions. Its centralized management capabilities allow IT teams to efficiently monitor and maintain multiple locations, ensuring consistent performance across different manufacturing sites.
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