Cloud migration success stories: How manufacturers accelerate Digital Transformation with Siemens Xcelerator
Product innovation is driving complexity beyond what legacy systems were designed to handle
This article examines how four manufacturers (from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises) successfully migrated to cloud platforms using Siemens Xcelerator as a Service, achieving measurable ROI through reduced infrastructure costs, faster innovation cycles and enhanced global collaboration.
For C-suite executives, the warning signs about legacy infrastructure are becoming harder to ignore. Development cycles can’t keep up with market demands and outdated tools are holding back engineering teams. Likewise, competitors are using AI and cloud-native platforms to ship faster, iterate smarter and scale without limits.
Cloud migration has emerged as a critical enabler of Digital Transformation. Companies that migrate to modern cloud platforms and cloud-based tools are innovating with greater speed, transforming cost structures and focusing engineering talent on what matters: building better products faster.
Legacy infrastructure blocks innovation: Why cloud velocity is critical for software-defined products
Across industries, manufacturers face the same bottleneck: legacy systems that slow innovation to a crawl.
On-premise infrastructure demands constant maintenance while hardware refresh cycles drain budgets. Scaling compute power for simulation, AI or data analytics requires months of procurement or capital investment or both. Meanwhile, competitors already operating on cloud platforms spin up resources in minutes, experiment rapidly and save on high-performance computing (HPC) expenses.
The gap widens daily and the cost of inaction is only compounding.
But cloud migration isn’t without concerns. Executives like CIOs and CTOs must carefully consider how they’ll meet security, compliance, cost and integration depth needs throughout the migration process.
The good news? Companies of every size and in every regulatory environment have navigated these challenges successfully. Here’s how.
Learn more about Siemens Xcelerator cloud solutions →
Panasonic: Enterprise-scale Digital Transformation on the cloud
Customer overview
Panasonic is a global consumer electronics leader with design and development teams distributed across Japan and international locations.
The challenge
To maintain market competitiveness, Panasonic needed to accelerate Digital Transformation across product design and development workflows. However, legacy on-premises infrastructure was driving up IT maintenance costs while limiting the secure remote access and data management capabilities required for global collaboration.
The solution
Panasonic migrated to Siemens Xcelerator cloud portfolio for integrated data management and digital thread implementation.
The results
- Reduced IT infrastructure maintenance labor-hours
- Lower total cost of ownership
- Rapid deployment of updated PLM functionality for global standardization
- Secure access across global locations and device types
- Reduced lead times for continuous market availability
- Scalable foundation expandable across entire manufacturing domain
Key quote
We are collaborating with Siemens to promote the shift to cloud computing and adopting digital threads for product design and development data management. By expanding this transformation in the future, we expect to enhance our market competitiveness and increase our enterprise value.”
— Hideyuki Miyazaki, CIO, Panasonic
Read the full press release here
Takeaway
Even at enterprise scale, adopting a cloud solutions delivers significant ROI through reduced maintenance burden and streamlined global collaboration.
Regent: Startup agility without administrative overhead
Customer overview
Regent is a startup with a mission to drastically reduce the cost and headache of regional transportation between coastal cities. Their vehicle, called the Seaglider, is a wing-in-ground-effect vehicle (a vehicle that flies just above water using aerodynamic lift) that couples the high speed of an airplane with the convenience of a boat, all at the low cost of an all-electric system.
The challenge
Regent needed enterprise-grade digital tools to bring an entirely new vehicle category to market. However, limited cash flow and resources meant they couldn’t afford significant IT overhead costs.
The solution
Regent adopted Teamcenter X cloud-native PLM with a subscription model and Siemens-managed infrastructure, allowing them to drive collaboration across teams in a cost-efficient manner.
The results
- Minimized administrative overhead (zero IT management burden)
- Significant cash flow benefits via subscription model
- Enterprise-grade rigor for complex product development
Key quotes
Cloud native solutions, such as Teamcenter X, minimize administrative overhead and allow us to focus 100% on design, engineering, manufacturing and innovation.”
As our seagliders approach certification and full-scale commercial production, we need a robust, modern digital tools platform that supports the pace of our innovation cycles with the rigor to encompass a product as complex as ours. Siemens Xcelerator was a perfect fit for a digital-first startup like ours.”
— Mike Klinker, CTO and Co-founder, Regent
Takeaway
Cloud levels the playing field by allowing startups to gain enterprise capabilities without enterprise IT overhead.
Read the full press release here
Rolls-Royce: Using AI-based digital threads for significant weight savings in aircraft engines
Customer overview
Rolls-Royce is a world leader in aerospace, providing aircraft engines with many critical components that must be engineered and manufactured to deliver reliable performance over time.
The challenge
Their conventional manufacturing processes were creating disconnections between teams, leading to duplicated efforts, manufacturing inefficiencies and errors. This made it increasingly difficult to optimize components like hydraulic pumps, which must generate and maintain hydraulic pressures to service engine whistling while reliably operating at a wide range of temperatures.
The solution
To address this challenge, Rolls-Royce partnered with Siemens and Microsoft adopt a digital thread that leverages AI-driven, cloud-based solutions for the design and production of their hydraulic pumps using Teamcenter X and NX X on Azure.
The results
The new hydraulic pump created with AI-driven, cloud-based solutions within a design digital thread delivered key performance benefits, including:
- 25% less weight
- 200% greater stiffness
- A safety factor of 9
- Greater sustainability due to lower fuel consumption from weight reduction
Key quote
“Rolls-Royce benefits from the relationship with Siemens and Microsoft because we are a massive enterprise capability company… we are working with trillions of rows of data every day and without Microsoft’s data and compute capabilities and Siemens’ design and PLM, we wouldn’t be successful.”
— Duncan Thomas, VP Data Science & AI, Rolls-Royce
Takeaway
By applying the powerful computational resources provided by cloud infrastructure and cloud-based software tools, small businesses and large enterprises alike can realize the full potential of vast amounts of data, AI-based design processes and more.
Why Siemens Xcelerator as a Service enables faster transformation
Siemens Xcelerator as a Service delivers cloud migration success through six foundational capabilities:
The comprehensive Digital Twin and digital thread
Panasonic leveraged digital thread capabilities on the cloud for product design and development data management across global locations. The Digital Twin enables real-time collaboration, version control and data transparency throughout the product lifecycle, from concept through manufacturing and service. Siemens’ customers leverage the world’s only truly integrated, comprehensive Digital Twin, enabling teams to work without any manual handoffs, turn data into smarter business decisions and work from a single source of truth.
Open ecosystem and integration depth
Siemens Xcelerator’s open architecture supports multi-cloud deployments, third-party tool integration and existing platform compatibility, ensuring organizations leverage the best-of-both-worlds solutions without vendor lock-in.
Cloud infrastructure and scalability
Rolls-Royce added the computational resources to analyze trillions of rows of data daily with cloud-based infrastructure and tools, while Regent scaled from startup to building their first manufacturing facility with a subscription model. Elastic compute resources scale instantly with demand while enabling access to industry-leading tools from day one.
Industrial AI and advanced analytics
Embedded AI and machine learning capabilities integrate directly into design optimization, predictive maintenance and decision-making workflows. As Gartner projects a 5X increase in AI-related cloud workloads by 2029, Siemens Xcelerator as a Service positions manufacturers to leverage AI without building custom infrastructure. Furthermore, organizations can rest assured that Siemens solutions are purpose-built to solve specific, complex industrial challenges rather than adapt off-the-shelf, generic cloud tools.
Enterprise-grade security and compliance
Panasonic achieved secure access across global locations. The platform supports defense-grade security, regulatory compliance (FedRAMP, ITAR, GDPR), role-based access control and IP protection, all rooted in Siemens’ unparalleled experience protecting critical industrial infrastructure.
Reduced administrative overhead
Regent achieved zero IT management burden with Siemens-managed infrastructure, while Panasonic also reduced IT maintenance labor-hours. The cloud-based solutions eliminate infrastructure management, while enabling automatic updates, disaster recovery and security patching, which allows teams to focus on innovation rather than IT operations.
The risk of standing still exceeds the risk of moving forward. These four companies prove it.
Ready to see how Siemens can accelerate your Digital Transformation with the cloud?
Explore Siemens Xcelerator cloud solutions →
Frequently asked questions
What is Siemens Xcelerator?
Siemens Xcelerator is a comprehensive digital business platform that combines software, hardware and cloud services to accelerate Digital Transformation for manufacturers. It provides integrated tools for product lifecycle management (PLM), simulation, industrial IoT and digital twin capabilities, all accessible through cloud-native or hybrid deployment models.
How does Siemens Xcelerator support Digital Transformation?
Siemens Xcelerator enables Digital Transformation by connecting data across the entire product lifecycle, from design and engineering through manufacturing and service. It provides digital thread capabilities that integrate workflows, eliminate data silos, enable real-time collaboration across global teams and deliver enterprise-grade tools through flexible cloud deployment models that reduce IT overhead.
What industries use Siemens Xcelerator?
Siemens Xcelerator serves diverse industries including aerospace and defense , consumer electronics (Panasonic), marine and emerging mobility (Regent), industrial machinery, medical devices and highly regulated sectors requiring compliance with standards like FedRAMP, ITAR and GDPR.
What are the benefits of industrial cloud migration?
Industrial cloud migration delivers measurable benefits including cost optimization, reduced IT infrastructure overhead, enhanced global collaboration with secure access, elastic scalability that matches fluctuating computational demands, faster time-to-market and the ability to access enterprise-grade capabilities (like GPU-accelerated HPC) without capital investment.
How do manufacturers modernize legacy systems?
Manufacturers modernize legacy systems by migrating to cloud-based platforms that integrate existing data and workflows while providing updated functionality. Siemens Xcelerator enables phased migration, where organizations can maintain critical on-premises systems while gradually moving to cloud infrastructure, ensuring business continuity while gaining rapid access to the latest PLM, simulation and design tools, among other software.
Why are manufacturers moving engineering workloads to the cloud?
Manufacturers move engineering workloads to the cloud to match infrastructure with innovation velocity. Software-defined products create highly fluctuating computational demands, whether it’s simulation spikes, IIoT data streams or multi-physics analyses requiring massive compute that then drops to near-zero. Cloud infrastructure flexes instantly with demand, eliminates CapEx barriers and enables teams to focus on innovation rather than infrastructure maintenance.
What is the Digital Twin?
The Digital Twin is a virtual replica of a physical product, process or system that connects real-time data across the entire lifecycle. It’s a living, breathing replica of a product, its systems, production processes or entire performance lifecycle. It enables manufacturers to simulate performance, optimize designs, predict maintenance needs and validate changes digitally before physical implementation. In short, it allows companies to reduce risk, accelerate development cycles and improve product quality through continuous feedback loops.
How does Siemens support secure cloud collaboration?
Siemens supports secure cloud collaboration through enterprise-grade security architecture including defense-grade encryption, regulatory compliance (FedRAMP, ITAR, GDPR), role-based access control and IP protection. Ecosystem flexibility for solutions like AWS GovCloud integration enable organizations in highly regulated industries to access cloud benefits while maintaining data within secured networks and firewalls, proving security is enhanced, not compromised, by cloud adoption.
