“It used to be that you had to be a pretty big company before you had multiple plants and before you were serving Asian markets and European markets. That's not the case today,” says Jim Shepherd, vice president of Strategy at Plex. “Even our smallest customers often have multiple sites in multiple countries. And that's the power of technology. They couldn't afford to put big salesforces there. That's all because of what you can do with technology. And we’re going to see more of that.”

The world’s largest manufacturers have spent billions of dollars developing the ability to pull data from the shop floor and across their supply chains to make informed decisions about their businesses. But with such a hefty price tag, only the largest manufacturers have been able to afford these complex, and often highly customized, global systems.

Cloud technology changes the dynamic of the industry. The fast growing, mid-sized manufacturers that previously couldn’t compete with larger, global companies now can access shop floor data to help them respond quickly to customer demands, improve product quality, reduce downtime and expand to global markets. In short, technology is fueling a new generation of manufacturing leaders.

“Technology is really the great equalizer that allows small companies now to compete with larger companies for worldwide markets.” Frank Scavo, Industry Analyst