Technology Record - Issue 22: Autumn 2021

140 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om F E ATUR E from the product’s design. At the very beginning, how are you thinking about the innovation for the product itself? How are you thinking about the packaging, about the distribution? Once it actually gets into the manufacturing facility – how are you thinking about resource utilisation, about the footprint, about the way it’s connected? What about the external suppliers that you’re connected to? How can you be working with them to create a much cleaner, a much greener entire ecosystem? And how can you do this in a way that’s not just looking at the next 10 weeks or 10 months, but in a way that is going to create a better 10 years or 10 decades?” Microsoft is walking this path alongside its manufacturing customers, and its launch of the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing is the latest step on this shared journey. “As a manufacturer ourselves, Microsoft is on a mission to be carbon neutral and water positive by 2030 and erase our carbon footprint by 2050,” says Masson. “But we will only find success by partnering with others to amplify awareness and develop joint solutions that benefit both the business and the environment.” Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing provides industry-focused solutions to seamlessly con- nect people, assets, workflow and business pro- cesses, supporting resilience, innovation and sustainability. “Bringing together released and new manufacturing capabilities on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing will empower manu- facturing firms to accelerate pandemic recovery and create operational resiliency,” says Masson. “These are areas where we believe Microsoft and our partners can help manufacturers connect the dots across their operations, workforce, design and engineering processes, customer engage- ments, and the end-to-end value chain.” “We will only find success by partnering with others to amplify awareness and develop joint solutions that benefit both the business and the environment” Leading manufacturers are deploying Industry 4.0 technologies to support sustainable innovation and growth. We asked selected Microsoft partners how they are using Microsoft products and services to help manufacturers ensure a sustainable future Partner perspectives Bill Green Vice President of Solutions and Product Strategy at Adexa “Every manufacturing company’s growth and future depends highly on a sustainable and resilient supply chain. By leveraging Microsoft Azure cloud services, Adexa delivers hosted sales & operations planning and sales and operations execution solutions to plan for sustainability. Adexa’s planning solutions on Microsoft’s cloud enable on-going measurement and trend analysis of companies’ supply chain carbon footprint using Adexa’s attribute-based planning (ABP) technology. Azure Machine Learning services combined with Adexa’s proprietary AI technology provide the intelligent infrastructure needed in order to monitor on-going changes in the carbon footprint of a supply chain and find emerging patterns every time a plan is generated. To this end, companies can measure their overall green strategy on an on-going basis and see the trends as their demand, customers, suppliers and methods of manufacturing change. Adexa’s supply chain solutions, with embedded intelligence and advanced analytics, provide turnkey supply chain visibility, monitoring and dashboards leveraging Azure Synapse, SQL Server, Analytic Services and Power BI.”