The manufacturing industry is often stereotyped as being populated by old-economy dinosaurs that trail the “knowledge economy” in terms of the tools they use. In reality, many manufacturers have been early and enthusiastic adopters of digital technologies that improve productivity, reduce costs and benefit their bottom lines. However, a new challenge facing manufacturers who have embraced a variety of digital cloud-based architectures is how to manage their new multi-cloud environment.

Multi-cloud ecosystems for manufacturers can include private-private, public-public or hybrid models. Regardless of the specifics, the challenges of standardizing integration and broader compatibility issues across cloud environments remain. These friction points can range from mild irritations to serious compatibility problems. No matter how serious, manufacturers must address these issues in short order to maintain and improve productivity.

For this reason, it’s critical for manufacturers to have an effective multi-cloud management system. The best option for most manufacturers is to implement one based on application programming interfaces (API), which serve as a common interface between the different clouds’ native architectures. These translation tools decouple data and applications from environments, improving interoperability and flexibility while decreasing reliance on any one cloud vendor or service.

APIs are superior to other multi-cloud management options in virtually all circumstances because they reduce the amount of custom, time and resource-intensive coding necessary for a multi-cloud environment. The low/no-code requirements for APIs are one of the features that makes them an attractive and powerful tool for manufacturers trying to tame a multi-cloud environment. More traditional methods that use high-code software solutions create a daunting cost and time barrier to improving multi-cloud integration.

Reducing custom coding requirements lowers the cost and time to deployment, creating a meaningful impact on organizations’ bottom lines. If you’re a manufacturer interested in estimating what low-to-no code data integration – including multi-cloud API management – could do for your bottom line, calculate your ROI here with Reliable Software’s online calculator using published industry studies and best practices.