A big time majority of industries have adopted internet of things (IoT) solutions–86%, according to Bsquare’s inaugural IIoT Maturity Study–but there’s still a lot of work to be done for sectors like manufacturing, transportation and oil and gas to truly unlock the efficiencies promised by IoT-driven digital transformation.
In addition to the 86% adoption rate, Bsquare, an embedded IoT software provider, identified that the vast majority of IoT projects, 78% are focused on the connectivity piece, and another 83% on data visualization tools. While that’s a great start, there’s a long way to go.
“Our study shows that while industrial organizations have enthusiastically adopted IIoT, a majority have not yet moved to more advanced analytics-driven orchestration of data insights,” said Kevin Walsh, vice president of marketing at Bsquare. “These later stages of IIoT maturity—analytics, orchestration and true edge computing—tend to be where most of the ROI is realized. This is especially important because, according to our study, the number one reason cited for IIoT adoption is cost reduction.”
As Walsh points out, the real value of IoT is in using analytics-based insight to create process automation. In a manufacturing use case, for example, predictive analytics can use machine learning to identify failures and push fixes before any unplanned downtime halts or slows production. This has a very real impact on business outcomes and bottomline.
According to the research, only 48% of industries are adopting “advanced analytics” based on data captured from connected assets, and 28% are taking that data analysis to the next step and automating insight.
Here are a few other highlights from the analysis:
- 73% of stakeholders plan to increase investment in the next year;
- 90% of business leaders “feel it is very or somewhat important” to invest in the internet of things;
- And drivers of IIoT investment are monitoring assets, streamlining logistics, reducing operating costs and increasing production output.