Electronics and appliance manufacturers are leading the way for Industry 4.0 ‘maturity’, according to a new poll of 500 industrial companies by Nokia and ABI Research. Their research says that electronics and appliance manufacturers are marginally further along with their digital transformation than companies in certain other high-profile industrial sectors. Producers of fabricated metals and petroleum also rate above average, in the sample.
The pair said manufacturing companies producing electronics and appliances score 73.1 and 79.5 out of 100, on average, for technology investments (infrastructure rollout) and use case deployment (infrastructure activity), respectively. ABI Research polled 500 companies in five industrial ‘markets’ to rank seven industrial disciplines on two scores; the average across the board was 66 and 68.8 out of 100 for infrastructure deployment and usage. Companies producing fabricated metals (71 and 73.6) rated higher than average.
Petroleum (65.2 and 70.5) companies rated lower on average for infrastructure rollout, but higher for infrastructure usage. Chemical manufacturing trended lower than average; at 65.6 and 67. Ports and logistics companies, which have featured prominently in high-profile private 5G case studies, were also below-average; they scored 60.9 and 67.3, respectively. Mining companies, quite familiar with private cellular historically, scored 59.5 and 61.6.
Manufacturers of heavy machinery were further behind, scoring 55.9 and 57.8 out of 100. A press statement about the research noted “opportunities… for manufacturers of heavy equipment to advance their digitalization plans by closely aligning IT and operational (OT) environments”. Broadly, Nokia and ABI Research said early momentum is focused on cellular comms and data analytics for workforce optimisation, worker safety, and sustainability efforts.
They highlighted deployment of ruggedised devices, cloud management systems, preventative maintenance apps, and drones. Nokia and ABI Research have developed a self-assessment benchmark tool for companies to benchmark their progress, and “understand how to innovate and advance their digitalization capabilities toward the industrial metaverse”. Nokia took the opportunity to flag its DAC, MPW, and MXIE solutions for private edge comms. The research is available here.
Stephan Litjens, vice president of the firm’s ‘enterprise campus edge’ business, said: “We want to simplify and accelerate digital transformation for industries. The industry 4.0 maturity index and self-assessment tool help industrial campuses to understand where they are and how to progress. We see investments scaling up this year, and this is confirmed by this research – which shows industries are… moving closer to aligning IT and OT.”
Michael Larner, research director ABI Research, said: “We are seeing a market trend for adopting private 5G in an end-to-end approach. For a successful transformation the need to align IT and OT is clear. IT departments will continue to play an important role in digital transformation using IT to support the delivery of OT the most efficient way.”
