DIGITAL DISRUPTION
Nestlé , and Pepsi brands such as Tropicana and Gatorade who use tech provisioned by its service provider partners . Armstrong highlights QAD , an ERP vendor which uses Progress solutions at 6,100 manufacturing sites in more than 90 countries , with a strong presence in the automotive industry . “ Even in this space there is huge change in the way business applications are being developed , with more focus on cognitive business applications for growing markets like predictive maintenance ,” reveals Armstrong . “ With 47 % of our own revenue coming from manufacturing , it ’ s really important to us to react to its needs . Elsewhere , three of the five largest legal providers in the UK market are using Progress technology . That ’ s a dominant position also apparent in the Housing Association market where we work with industry leaders like Orchard Housing and Capita Housing to support their solutions .”
Recognised as a leader by Gartner and Forester for Mobile Application Development Platforms , Progress has seen a share price rise of $ 50 , which Armstrong believes shows the vision and strategy implemented by its leadership team has been supported by an eager customer base and both shareholders and stakeholders . To maintain its position in a competitive market , Armstrong identifies the challenge of providing solutions for those companies needing help with extracting value from the ever-growing data lakes . “ The data science area is growing rapidly , but there aren ’ t enough scientists to manage the data we ’ ve got . It ’ s way beyond human comprehension … That ’ s why we ’ re aiming to provide the tools and technologies that negate the need for data scientists . There won ’ t be enough of them available so we need to automate .”
To achieve this goal , Progress acquired Machine Learning & AI innovator Data RPM . “ We ’ re focusing that around predictive maintenance with a meta-learning approach ,” says Armstrong . “ Land Rover Jaguar are one of our customers who use this in the manufacturing process because every car that comes off the production line is effectively unique . We ’ re ensuring , from a predictive maintenance point of view , its plants are kept up with improvements in efficiency to deliver a reduction in overall costs . Land Rover Jaguar ’ s
26 March 2018