Today’s computer and electronics sector is facing major hurdles. As consumer demand for innovative technologies continues to rise, manufacturers are navigating evolutions in their industry, grappling with economic instability, and managing the supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In pursuit of sustainable solutions to these challenges, leading consumer electronics companies are moving to the cloud. This strategy has allowed many to improve efficiency, boost customer demand, and grow market share, all while reducing costs and speeding up time-to-market for new products and services. As industry leaders embark on cloud-smart digital transformation, another tool can fuel their journey: Kubernetes, or K8s. Let’s review how this open-source container orchestrator enables businesses to gain operational agility, harness smart manufacturing, and supercharge decision-making with data-driven insights.

Gain operational agility with Kubernetes

Kubernetes grants users a simplified way of managing cloud-native application clusters, or containers. With it, companies can automate container deployment on the hybrid cloud to drive operational agility and savings. The advantages of K8s help to solve some of the computer and electronics sector’s most pressing internal issues. These include a shrinking design cycle, growing rifts between designers and manufacturers, and the consolidation of employee roles. Despite industry-wide shortages, manufacturers in this space are expected to deliver new products faster than ever. While in the past, design cycles could last for years, today they’re often expected to span mere months. When designers have to rush prototypes to production, they can’t communicate with manufacturers and are often disappointed to discover that a key component of their design simply isn’t available. This poor communication is made worse by the fact that many specialized positions are now being consolidated into single roles. PCB design, for instance, is increasingly handled by engineers already busy with other tasks. In addition to leading to burnout, this new reality prevents collaboration and sparks further unwanted delays. With Kubernetes, businesses can reinvigorate communication by networking team members across the hybrid cloud. Thanks to containers’ ability to virtualize operating systems, everyone along the production chain can collaborate without needing to worry about problems with hardware compatibility or authentication. This means that teams can interface regardless of their device or location. Further, application bundles also give team members access to transparent, real-time data, which they can take advantage of to deliver new products and services ahead of schedule.

Keep manufacturing lean on the hybrid cloud

In addition to shoring up internal communication channels and promoting collaboration,K8s and the hybrid cloud allow computer and electronics leaders to keep manufacturing lean. Cloud manufacturing empowers these companies to keep up with demand and promote savings in the face of ongoing supply chain issues. With a cloud manufacturing platform that runs on Kubernetes, for example, hardware OEMs can learn about shortages in real-time and seamlessly route production to the right facilities. In factories themselves, cloud-native infrastructure doesn’t just connect employees—it also lends managers an instant, holistic view of operations, from facility performance to available capacity. This empowers them to make the right choices about personnel management, resource allocation, and even logistics without skipping a beat. In addition to keeping the manufacturing process lean, an IT strategy that runs on Kubernetes saves businesses money in other ways. For one, cloud-native infrastructure reduces the need for expensive legacy hardware. Moreover, K8s can be used to automate container deployment to coincide with periods of high and low usage, effectively lowering server costs and compute spend. Nevertheless, it can be time-consuming to set up a system like this across multiple manufacturing channels, and any IT hiccups can lead to dreaded production delays. Diamanti makes this process easy by taking the guesswork out of Kubernetes. Thanks to Diamanti’s K8s expertise and dedicated support teams, computer and electronics manufacturers can rest assured that their digital transformation will be smooth.

Supercharge decision making with deep analytics

With Diamanti’s centralized K8s platform, manufacturers in this space have analytics pipelines at their fingertips. Along with anchoring internal operations such as resource procurement and sourcing, this information provides a stepping stone for renewing the customer experience.

For example, computer and electronics organizations might use Kubernetes to create an integrated purchasing interface that runs on the hybrid cloud. Done right, this would present clients with an accurate snapshot of inventory that would be accessible from any location. But it would also serve as a source of crucial insights, giving leaders a means of understanding their customers’ needs and responding quickly with tailored offerings. In this way, K8s provides as many opportunities for savings as it does for accelerating growth at scale. Diamanti’s platform also comes with built-in data safeguards so that the manufacturing and customer information stored by cloud-forward systems remains protected. From the platform’s added layers of internal security to its automated approach to back-up and recovery, Diamanti makes sure that businesses can mitigate data privacy and compliance risks and remain focused on getting the latest technologies into consumers hands.