Amazon Web Services (AWS) is not only one of the companies in Industry 4.0 but is the engine that drives this Fourth Industrial Revolution. It provides a broad set of global cloud-based products, including compute, storage, databases, analytics, networking, developer and management tools, and other services. These products are served on the subscription or “pay-as-you-go” on-demand model. This toolkit by Amazon Web Services allows small and medium-sized businesses, large enterprises, or customers from the public sector to build their IT framework and update it as necessary, adapting to the quickly changing demands of modern times. This white paper will overview and evaluate Amazon Web Services against other companies in Industry 4.0, proposing possible practices.
Background of Industry 4.0
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, with the inventions and advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, genetic engineering, and quantum computing, brought about the emergence of Industry 4.0. This industry mainly focused on improving flexibility, quality, and productivity through mass customization and revolutionizing manufacturing. According to Meindl et al. (2021), Industry 4.0 can be evaluated in four dimensions: Smart Manufacturing, Smart Products and Services, Smart Supply Chain, and Smart Working.
In all of these aspects, the companies in Industry 4.0 aim to automize the processes by diminishing the amount of human oversight and robotizing them. Workers are gradually moving into more high-skilled positions as the systems for the simpler processes are established. With the COVID-19 pandemic, diminished workers’ presence became essential. Ghobakhloo (2020) points out that these changes have great applications for increased sustainability. One example is smart or “lights out” manufacturing. Even though many companies in Industry 4.0 are purely Internet-based, the ones that rely on manufacturing are increasingly shifting to eliminating human presence to save on the power and other costs. This cost reduction also benefits the environment, preserving unused resources and reducing emissions. Moreover, according to Ghobakhloo (2020), this sustainability benefit is what customers require, which leads to increased sales.
Knowing what customer wants is another area of the revolutionized approach. Smart products and services and mass customization would be impossible without smart supply chains dependent on analytics and intelligence. For some companies like AWS, analytics and intelligence are their smart products and services. According to Meindl et al. (2021), this shows how it became essential for increasing profits and general regular business.
Amazon Web Services Best Practices
AWS remains one of the most profitable companies in Industry 4.0 and among the subsidiaries of Amazon. Good business practices and baseline innovative business models achieve this great profitability and productivity. The primary backbone of AWS is its serverless cloud service. First, it is innovative and unique in its market, providing a great framework for establishing IT systems, as Momenzadeh et al. (2020) discover through the research. Furthermore, according to Momenzadeh et al. (2020), there are currently no direct competitors who can match the quality and product specifications to meet the needs of businesses on the market. This advantage allows for AWS to arguably stand out and further develop their product and possible new upgrades to the line-up with the conveniences of being the relatively first and leading company in the field.
In addition to the competitive advantage, AWS products are overall profitable themself. The innovative technology of not needing servers for cloud computing has several benefits. The first benefit is reduced costs due to the reduction in energy use, rent expenses, and maintenance of equipment costs due to its serverless nature (Maurya et al., 2021). On average, servers need large amounts of energy and space and constant maintenance from a team of skilled technicians. Developing a serverless service, AWS manages to reduce these costs for the customer and the risks of possible servers malfunction or crash, providing an even more seamless, reliable, and uninterrupted user experience (Maurya et al., 2021). Maurya et al. (2021) state that it further reduces the complexity of the initial set-up of the cloud database, attracting customers. Another benefit is sustainability with the reduced energy use, which is a good fit for the brands and their customers focused on eco-friendly solutions.
Past the point of the initial set-up, according to Cepuc et al. (2020), the software provided by AWS provides the framework for the implementation of DevOps and Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) techniques. It means the high flexibility and scalability of the infrastructure in the Cloud (Cepuc et al., 2020). These properties not only mean great customer satisfaction but the opportunities to integrate other products by AWS with the Cloud for a seamless experience and improved business operations. One of the most prominent examples is AI-supported analytics, which allows for customer identification and research and improving internal processes, including Cloud usage. With this technology, AWS provides improved customer service and increases its sales through automotive AI-driven smart customization.
Applications of Amazon Web Services Best Practices
There exists a mostly untapped profitable market in Industry 4.0. It is connected to the phenomenon of Industry 4.0 primary focus on large enterprises. Many solutions are far removed from small businesses’ needs, as Masood and Sonntag (2020) argue. It not only displaces small businesses from the market, putting them at a disadvantage but ignores the growing market demand and possible revenue sources. Even though small businesses are disadvantaged, they are still growing steadily (Masood and Sonntag, 2020). Thus, many companies in Industry 4.0 may skip these potential profits. However, it is not the case for AWS, as it offers its services to businesses of any scale. This inclusivity is achieved through the mass smart customization and the scalability of the services mentioned above. This feature also allows AWS to receive the data on what customers want, improving their product offerings and putting them at the top of their competition. Thus, mass smart customization specifically for increased customer segments is one of the practices that Industry 4.0 can implement to increase profits.
Conclusion
AWS is a great example of Industry 4.0 best practices and general trends. It allows AWS to stand out among the competition. The general advice for the companies based on the AWS overview is to invest in the research for other solutions to possibly address other customer demands, i.e., sustainability and serverless nature of AWS.
References
Cepuc, A., Botez, R., Craciun, O., Ivanciu, I. A., & Dobrota, V. (2020, December). Implementation of a Continuous Integration and Deployment Pipeline for Containerized Applications in Amazon Web Services Using Jenkins, Ansible and Kubernetes. In 2020 19th RoEduNet Conference: Networking in Education and Research (RoEduNet) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Ghobakhloo, M. (2020). Industry 4.0, digitization, and opportunities for sustainability. Journal of cleaner production, 252, 119869. Web.
Masood, T., & Sonntag, P. (2020). Industry 4.0: Adoption challenges and benefits for SMEs. Computers in Industry, 121, 103261. Web.
Maurya, S., Lakhera, G., Srivastava, A. K., & Kumar, M. (2021). Cost analysis of amazon web services–From an eye of architect and developer. Materials Today: Proceedings, 46, 10757-10760. Web.
Meindl, B., Ayala, N. F., Mendonça, J., & Frank, A. G. (2021). The four smarts of Industry 4.0: Evolution of ten years of research and future perspectives. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 168, 120784. Web.
Momenzadeh, B., Dougherty, H., Remmel, M., Myers, S., & Camp, L. J. (2020). Best practices would make things better in the IoT. IEEE Security & Privacy, 18(4), 38-47. Web.