Major hurricanes, such as Harvey, Irma and Maria, have brought a new awareness of the devastation that nature can cause. Lives, homes and businesses have been lost or irrevocably affected and residents of these affected areas are still recovering from the damage wrought by the storms.
In terms of economic impact, the full extent of the damage is still being estimated. “Factory floor leaders need to keep their equipment and processes going no matter what, yet maintaining productivity is more complex today as manufacturers often use sophisticated software in tandem with their machines,” writes Quorum vice president of product and technical operations Gabe Gambill in Manufacturing Business Technology. “Whether an equipment failure, staff injury, security incident or natural disaster like a hurricane, blizzard or earthquake, some kind of downtime will happen to a manufacturer — mandating a re-evaluation of backup disaster and recovery (BDR) plans.”
Here are some of Gambill’s tips on ensuring your company’s manufacturing IT team is ready for the unexpected.
- Get the C-Suite on board with a BDR ahead of disaster, and look at past downtime delays to see where the failure points lie.
- Map it out: Look at your IT infrastructure and any external systems, and what failures could lead to a shut down of the plant or organization. Map out recovery strategies.
- Don’t forget the human component, with medical responses to injury. Look at the effects of human error or injury on taking equipment out of service and how backups are being implemented.
- Back everything up digitally and store them offsite, with multiple copies.
Source:
https://www.mbtmag.com/article/2017/10/are-your-disaster-recovery-plans-ready-hurricane
