Founded in 1837 and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, P&G has grown into the largest consumer goods company in the world with operations in over 70 countries. They are the 51st largest company in the Fortune 500 and the 154th largest in the Global 500. P&G invests significantly in technology and digital capabilities to support its business operations and drive innovation. The company uses advanced analytics and modeling to get consumer insights and optimize its marketing and supply chain.
P&G also leverages technologies like artificial intelligence, automation, and cloud computing to enable smart manufacturing in its facilities. Collaboration tools and digital workplaces enable P&G’s global workforce to connect and share ideas. The company has tech hubs in cities like Singapore, Brussels, and Cincinnati where IT specialists and engineers develop new technologies for P&G’s brands. Overall, P&G’s technology infrastructure provides a digital foundation to support the company’s consumer goods business on a global scale.
P&G manages 130 manufacturing plants globally, but a reliance on legacy, thick client systems has made modernizing difficult.
“For us it is a different journey because we are moving from a thick client where you have to manually install to a web-based client”
The thick client systems limit P&G’s ability to adopt modern container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes that promise greater scalability, easier deployments, and higher efficiency.
Their main Manufacturing Execution System (MES) software, GE Proficy, epitomizes these challenges.
“We’ve always had Proficy... for over 50 years now,” Adefemi explained. "But running traditionally on desktops, it restricts operational agility."
Because of this P&G has partnered with Portainer to containerize Proficy as part of a broader cloud-native transition.
