Author: Land Rover MENA used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
Software AG has surveyed 125 North American manufacturers primarily in the heavy industry and automotive sectors and says it shows they are unable to scale their industrial IoT investments across their enterprises.
As a result, it says they are losing millions of dollars in potential profits, and falling behind competitors that have invested in enabling technologies that support IIoT across the enterprise.
According to Software AG the majority of manufacturers queried reported that their IIoT investments are limited – locked in one small department or sector of their company.
“This has caused these manufacturers to lose millions of dollars in potential profits as they fall behind more forward-thinking competitors that have invested in predictive analytics and innovative integration strategies that scale IIoT across the enterprise,” Software AG said.
Eighty percent of survey respondents said processes around IIoT platforms need to be optimised or they will face a competitive disadvantage, but very few are doing this.
OT and IT integration is hard!
Information technology and operations technology integration was considered one of the most difficult tasks – with 57 percent of automotive manufacturers saying this had prevented them from realising full RoI from their IIoT investments.
Sean T Riley, global industry director, manufacturing and transportation at Software AG, said manufacturers placed a high value on IIoT but were encountering serious difficulties in unlocking the complete intended value to unleash their innovation across their organisations.
“By investing in the right IT-OT integration strategy that leverages sensors, predictive analytics, machine learning, control applications and product quality control, manufacturers can fix this problem in less than 6-12 months while realising other key benefits, namely extended equipment lifetime, reduced equipment maintenance costs and accessing more accurate data for production-quality improvements,” he said.
Riley outlined five best practices for manufacturers to follow when looking to scale their IIoT investments across their enterprises. These, he said, would give them immediate profits and competitive advantage.
- Ensure clear collaboration between IT and the business by leveraging a step by step approach that starts focused and has clear near-term and long-term objectives to scale.
- Create a transparent rollout process and don’t let other plants or departments move ahead outside of it.
- Give IT the ability to connect at speed with a digital production platform that is proven to be successful.
- Leverage a GUI-driven, consistent platform to enable an ecosystem of IT associates, business users and partners around the platform.
- Enable the plant or field service workers to work autonomously without continual support from IT through GUI-driven analytics, centralised management and easy, batch device connectivity and management.
