Manufacturing and Data: Why You Need a Backup

In the manufacturing industry, downtime can be devastating. Researchers estimate that factories lose anywhere from 5% to 20% of their productivity due to downtime and the cost can add up. According to research, downtime can result in financial loss ranging from $10,000 to $250,000 per hour for large industrial manufacturers.

Yet, despite the devastating impact, downtime is common. More than 82% of companies have experienced unplanned downtime over the past three years. Additionally, on average, a manufacturer experiences 800 hours of production downtime a year, due to a wide range of factors, including data loss.

Without access to critical data, manufacturers often experience costly interruptions to production. Data loss can alter the production process for some firms, resulting in a decrease in products available for consumer purchase, greatly impacting a firm’s bottom line.

Let’s take a look at the importance of data in manufacturing, the causes of data loss, and how employing a SaaS backup solution can ensure organizations are protected.

Manufacturing threat landscape

Critical manufacturing data is increasingly under attack. According to a recent report, one in five manufacturing firms have been targeted by a cyberattack. The report was based on survey responses from 567 manufacturing employees and found that nearly a quarter of firms are attacked weekly, and more than a third are attacked every month. Additionally, 35% of employees are worried about ransomware attacks shutting down their company’s manufacturing capabilities.

According to another report, 61% of manufacturers have experienced cybersecurity incidents in their smart factories and are struggling to deploy the technology needed to effectively manage cyber risk. The report found that 75% of manufacturers have suffered system outages as a result, and 43% said outages lasted more than four days.

And cyber attacks aren’t the only thing contributing to data loss. Human error is the single largest cause of data loss. One study revealed that 75% of data loss is caused by human error, including: intentional or accidental deletion or overwriting of files.

Data in manufacturing

In order to maintain operations, manufacturers rely on a wide range of data sources. This includes records related to production, product design, inventory, sales, taxes, employment, payroll, research and development, finance and business development, and policies and statements. It also includes critical data related to manufacturing instructions, the master batch record, batch records, deviations, test results, out of specification results, investigations, bills of materials and certificates of analysis and/or compliance.

With the advent of Industry 4.0, manufacturers are increasingly storing this data in the cloud. According to one report, 87% of organizations in the manufacturing industry are relying on the cloud. Additionally, SaaS applications are a major factor in manufacturing digitization efforts and these efforts have been accelerated thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a recent report, 73% of manufacturers said they planned to invest in new technology to facilitate remote work.

Manufacturing firms are increasingly using SaaS solutions like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace to drive innovation. These cloud solutions give manufacturers the capacity to connect people, assets, workflows, and business processes with applications like Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, and Gmail. According to one report, 34% of manufacturing organizations consume more than 50 SaaS applications.

Based on the increasing reliance on SaaS data and the growing threat to manufacturers, protecting vital data has never been more important.

How to protect your data

The only way to guard against data loss is to backup the critical manufacturing data necessary for maintaining operations.

Since manufacturers increasingly rely on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, manufacturers need a third-party backup solution specifically tailored to these SaaS applications. Having a Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 backup solution that automates the backup and recovery process ensures your vital data is protected.

Backupify is an all-inclusive solution purpose built for your organization’s Google Workspace backup and Microsoft 365 backup needs. Unlike other solutions, our cloud-to-cloud backup solution provides a single pane of glass for recovering data from both SaaS suites in the event of malicious or accidental deletion. Backupify guards against data loss from critical Microsoft apps like Exchange, Teams, OneDrive, Sharepoint, and more. It also streamlines the backup and recovery process for Google Workspace apps like Gmail, Drive, Calendars, and more.

Ready to backup critical manufacturing data to ensure business continuity? Try Backupify today.