iWorker continues to work on the cloud MES market, but the popularity of cloud MES is still far away

Edit | Yu Bin

Produced | Yu Jian

According to the 2019 "China Enterprise SaaS Industry Research Report" released by iResearch, the Chinese enterprise SaaS market will continue to maintain a high industry growth rate in the next three years, and the market potential is still huge. In the field of cloud ERP in the future mainstream direction of the industry, Kingdee Cloud, UFIDA Cloud, and iWorker have become the "top three" of the domestic SaaS industry, which makes the rapid development of iWorker in recent years particularly noticeable.

Not used by Kingdee and UFIDA, the two well-known ERP giants, iWorker is slightly "mysterious" in the market. In view of the relatively high competition threshold of the entire ERP industry and the large number of industry participants, iWorker can stand out in this market environment and attract more attention.

It should be pointed out that in the field of cloud MES products, iWorker also operates frequently. Is it possible to use the industry trends of cloud MES to achieve a bigger breakthrough in the industry? This is a problem that many people will care about.

"Start-up" company iWorker: originated from Kingdee, force the cloud

iWorker is a "start-up" SaaS company founded by former Kingdee vice president Cai Jun and other former employees of Kingdee. It claims that the average founding team members have been in the industry for more than 15 years. This may be an important reason for iWorker's rapid development.

In terms of the company's development direction, although iWorker has no time to accumulate a lot in the traditional SaaS service field like Kingdee and UFIDA, it has caught up with the "cloud" service trend. It has been different from traditional ERP companies based on finance since its inception. Drive, business drive, etc., but the "cloud" as the focus of enterprise development.

Based on this, iWorker has deployed in the field of industrial Internet for a long time, and launched cloud computing, ERP, MES, DCS in the construction of platforms and products such as infrastructure (IaaS), management and development platform (PaaS), application platform (SaaS), etc. /PCS and other related products.

Starting in 2018, iWorker has launched cloud MES products on the basis of cloud ERP, which makes iWorker more attractive in the industry. For a long time, although the industrial Internet is the mainstream direction of the industry, how to land it has always been a headache for participants in related fields. iWorker provides the industry with its own ideas through the cloud ERP+cloud MES industrial Internet combination solution. According to iWorker, it wants to make its cloud ERP into the underlying operating system of the manufacturing enterprise, and the cloud MES is like an APP in the system. For the same application software, only when the software and the system are linked together can enterprise operations and order management be truly managed effectively.

Regardless of the landing situation, iWorker has started its own brand in the industry. Its cloud ERP+cloud MES product portfolio has also become an emerging force in domestic industrial Internet solutions.

The popularity of cloud MES is far away, iWorker may be difficult to break through

Focusing on the cloud MES system that iWorker and a large number of ERP vendors have been pushing in recent years, as a workshop-level manufacturing execution system, it is also the basic technology transformation direction for enterprises to realize the digitalization of workshop production. The MES system has now obtained a large number of medium and large-scale manufacturing Enterprise recognition.

In this context, the majority of small and medium-sized manufacturing companies have also aimed at the MES system, they also pin their hopes on the MES system to achieve production optimization. But for these large number of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises, the characteristics of discrete production, small batches, low degree of automation, and dependence on labor determine that cloud MES systems may be more suitable solutions for them.

In theory, the cloud MES system can help small and medium-sized manufacturing companies to deploy multiple systems in multiple factories and multiple workshops. The advantages of out-of-the-box, controllable development and operation and maintenance costs have also attracted a lot of attention from cloud MES systems.

In terms of theoretical application, a cloud MES system based on public cloud can help small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises achieve cost reduction and efficiency gains in multiple dimensions. For example, the cloud MES system runs in an external data center and provides operation terminals through the Internet. During this process, the service provider is responsible for installation, configuration, maintenance, and system update. Users only need to access the Internet to access the cloud MES system. Enterprise deployment The cost and timeliness of going online can be greatly increased.

Of course, although the ideal is "satisfactory", the reality is "skinny." Judging from the actual application situation of the current cloud MES system, the cloud MES system based on the public cloud is still far away from its true popularity.

For example, the cloud MES system is closely related to the real-time data on the shop floor, but the current Internet technology has no way to meet the real-time requirements of the cloud MES system. The so-called 5G popularization is still too early for the “enablement” of the industrial Internet at the landing stage. . In addition, the cost of building a dedicated line network in the cloud MES system is not low, and it is currently not very stable. Once problems occur, customer accountability and compensation issues are often not easy to solve.

Therefore, from the current point of view, only manufacturers that do not have very high requirements for real-time data in the industry will consider using a cloud MES system. In the process of use, it is often necessary to adopt a hybrid model of on-site front-end server and cloud. Can meet the needs, and this hybrid model is obviously still far from the real "cloud" side.

Considering that a large number of small and medium-sized manufacturers on the client side are very worried about the security and stability of the cloud MES system, so whether it is on the demand side or the technology and product preparation side of the industry participants, the popularity of the cloud MES system is still In the distant future, although the cloud MES system has become a recognized future in the industry, it will take a long time to explore when it can truly meet customer needs and achieve widespread popularity.

In this context, SaaS companies such as iWorker based on the cloud may find it difficult to achieve breakthroughs in the industry, which may be the decisive factor that restricts iWorker from becoming larger.