As businesses around the globe begin building and implementing IoT projects, it’s very clear from a new report what those companies are hoping to achieve via IoT – increased operational productivity and efficiency.
In the new 80-page analyst report – The Rise of the Internet of Things: Connecting Our World One Device at a Time researched and written by analysts John Myers and Lyndsay Wise – just published by business/IT research firm Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), 45% of respondents (2.6 times more than any other use case) cited operational productivity and efficiency as the top IoT use case.
And, while some IT departments might be taking a wait-and-see approach to IoT implementation, that’s becoming much less common. From the 250 panelists surveyed, the study identified 700 different IoT implementations in progress. Of those 700 projects, nearly 30% were focused on Process Optimization (14.1%) or Supply Chain Monitoring and Management (13.6%).
“The most surprising aspect of the research was the importance of business oriented use cases and champions. IoT is a VERY technical initiative, but an “expensive” one in terms of resources and commitment,”said John Myers, co-author of the report, in an interview with Internet of Business. “The focus on business oriented use cases shows that business interests are driving IoT initiatives in general and IoT based projects in particular.”
Over half of respondents (52.4%) have between two and three different IoT projects underway.
“For organizations with 1 or 2 IoT projects, the clear “winner” is the area of “process optimization” for project implementation goals,” Myers said. “This means that organizations will take information from their IoT ecosystem and use it to map out the efficiency of their existing processes in a more detailed fashion than their current measurements allow and use that information to reduce their cost structures.”
IoT projects span many verticals, and EMA’s new report took a look at IoT projects across multiple industry verticals.
Healthcare IoT
The most popular use case (32.7%) for healthcare IoT implementations was increasing productivity and efficiency in hospital, laboratory, and clinical operations.
The top sensor devices for medical IOT currently are medical implants (16.3%) and patient information recording devices (15.2%).
Manufacturing IoT
Supply chain productivity and efficiency took the top spot for IoT use case in manufacturing (16.1%), followed by manufacturing process management (15.3%), plant floor automation and control (14.8%), operational visibility of assembly operation (13.7%), and integrated plant management (11.9%).
The top two IoT sensor devices in manufacturing are commercial devices (20.3%) to record material and supply information, and mechanical devices (13.7%) to record machinery operating values such as RPM, speed, or temperature.
Retail IoT?
Retail IoT is focused on operational productivity and efficiency with enhanced response to product recalls (13.8%) and fraud management (13.5%).
The top retail IoT sensors include dynamic in-store signage (16.9%) and in-store refrigeration units (14.4%).
Transportation IoT
Top use cases for transportation IoT were productivity and efficiency in operations (22.4%) and determining the failure – root cause management (16.6%).
Not surprisingly for transportation, the top IoT sensors in the transportation sector included geolocation sensors on vehicles (21.8%) and infrastructure assets such as pallet movers (21.8%).