A third of manufacturers across 12 countries will have Internet of Things in operation within the next year, according to a new study.
Business applications provider Infor recently polled the manufacturers, and found that 10 percent of manufacturers having Internet of Things projects running, with 22 percent planning a project within the next year, or already having a pilot.
Approximately 38 percent claim to be investigating its potential.
The report recommends that CIOs should look at device data already being collected and examine what could be done if data analytics was used to investigate this data, and if it was distributed to decision makers, or sold to people outside of the organisation.
The study revealed that IoT is the biggest business priority for 10 percent of manufacturers, with 28 percent having it in their top three priorities. However, 55 percent of manufacturers viewed cost savings from greater operational efficiencies as the biggest opportunity associated with IoT.
The survey showed 20 percent believe benefits will come though productivity; 15 percent believe it will come though better insight and decision-making, 15 percent through equipment and machinery, 13 percent from new revenue streams, and 11 percent from new services.
Companies named nine different functions as primary drivers of IoT: 31 percent was from the executive team; 28 percent was from IT; 13 percent from manufacturing operations; 6 percent from facilities; and 5 percent from marketing. Companies also attributed a lack of skills, and unclear benefits and costs to challenges in IoT implementation.
Andrew Kinder, VP industry & solution strategy at Infor said: “Manufacturers, challenged by the constant need to improve productivity, see the competitive advantage available to them through exploiting IoT technologies. This research confirms that over half of manufacturers recognize the potential and are either piloting projects or actively investigating use-cases”.