Study: Industrial Companies See IoT Potential But Lack Proper Strategy

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

While approximately 85 percent of manufacturing companies polled globally see great potential in the Internet of Things (IoT), only 15 percent of enterprises are prepared to leverage that potential by analyzing machine data. These are the findings of a new study called Industry 4.0: the State of the Nations, by Infosys, together with the Institute for Industrial Management (FIR) at the University of Aachen, Germany.

The global study on asset efficiency polled more than 400 industrial manufacturing and process industry executives in China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States across several sectors including aerospace, automotive, electronics, and machinery.

And while no country can claim to be the global early adopter, China appears to be taking the lead in the adoption of groundbreaking machine-to-data technologies in the IoT, with 57 percent of companies in China identified as early adopters compared to 32 percent in The United States, 26 percent in the United Kingdom, 21 percent in Germany and 14 percent in France.

As Prof. Volker Stich, CEO of the Institute for Industrial Management, Aachen University, explained in the press statement, “Without a doubt digitalization is the future of manufacturing industries. Even though leading manufacturing countries like Germany are still pioneers in machinery construction and engineering, they have to be aware of the so called ‘fast lane’ digital and smart services. This is where the future progress and profit lie. We hope that our study drives awareness about this in the respective industries.”

An accompanying infographic highlights some of the key findings of the study:

• While 81 percent of respondents are aware of the potential of monitoring machine status for maintenance purposes, only 17 percent have put such principles into practice.
• 89 percent are aware of the high potential of information efficiency, yet only 11 percent have systematically implemented this
• 88 percent say energy management is important, but only 15 percent have implemented energy management practices.

The study revealed the inevitable and crucial role of the IoT and analysis of real-time data for industry. Sudip Singh, Vice President and Global Head of Engineering, Infosys, explained: “With equipment and system processes becoming intelligent, virtually every process and activity in the manufacturing enterprises involves data. If machine data can be transformed into meaningful insights, it will be able to provide maintenance engineers with powerful tools to accurately predict failures and make better informed decisions. Enterprises implementing technology-enabled data analytics approaches can optimally manage their assets and associated performance. This, in turn, improves availability, maximizes performance, consumes less energy, produces less waste and enhances overall quality of products.”