Merck’s Manufacturing Data and Analytics Platform Triples Performance and Reduces Data Costs by 50% on AWS

For over 130 years, Merck has developed important medicines and vaccines to prevent and treat diseases in people and animals. In 2017, the company’s IT team developed MANTIS, a centralized data and analytics platform, to help store, visualize, and analyze global manufacturing data in an effective, efficient, secure, and reliable manner. The platform was initially built on premises. “MANTIS not only streamlines manufacturing operations and helps achieve our strategic goals but also helps us become a more data-driven organization,” says Ram Silai, director in the Digital Manufacturing organization at Merck.

Due to exponential growth and increasing variety of data, MANTIS constantly hit its performance and scalability limits. With data from over 120 source systems and thousands of users, Merck needed a more scalable and reliable system that provided maximum efficiency and reduced operating costs. “We wanted speed and efficiency to develop applications on a data platform,” says Silai. “Plus, because we had a range of technology solutions with multiple vendors, it was cumbersome to move, share, and analyze data.”

In 2019, Merck migrated MANTIS to the cloud. It chose AWS due to the flexibility of different services, the ability to run programs at a global scale, and the combination of low-cost storage with high-speed data processing capabilities. Moreover, AWS has been an important component of Merck’s enterprise cloud journey. “AWS provides key enterprise services for Merck and supports our cloud-first strategy at every touchpoint across the organization,” says Silai. “We engage with the AWS team on a constant basis so we can align our road map, improve our capabilities, and become more efficient for our users and businesses.”

By using AWS services, Merck’s Digital Manufacturing organization is effectively overcoming the challenges of implementing and sustaining a huge, complex data platform. The company provides data analytics solutions and capabilities to thousands of users across the globe. Looking ahead, Merck will focus on scaling the platform for low-latency data availability, virtualization, and no-code self-service.