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As a subfield of Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things (IoT) has taken the lead in quality control. It is no surprise that the use cases are broad and the benefits materialize quickly, at least according to the Computerwoche study “Internet of Things 2020.” Here is how this result comes about.
Industry 4.0 has to cede its crown. In the current Computerwoche, or IDG study “Internet of Things 2020”, 40 percent of the surveyed companies state that they want to improve their quality control with their existing IoT projects. As a result, IoT, as a subfield of Industry 4.0, becomes more important than the entire concept of the connected industry. That category becomes secondary – the long-standing leader connected production (Industry 4.0) is being displaced.
Overall, the IDG study shows that IoT is gaining momentum in companies. Benefits such as fewer downtimes and lower repair costs, when sensors from the Internet of Things monitor the machinery, convince more and more companies to implement their own or additional IoT projects.
Benefits achieved faster
93 percent of companies are very satisfied or satisfied with their existing IoT projects, according to the study. In more than half of them, it takes no more than three months after implementation before the first benefit materializes. This means the success rate of IoT projects has increased compared to the previous year. While last year 15 percent of companies still could not identify any benefit such as higher productivity or lower costs, this year it is only eight percent. Compared to the previous year, the benefit of the IoT projects also materialized somewhat faster on average. This suggests that companies are working more purposefully on the topic of IoT and have learned from their previous experience. Because in defining use cases, conceptualizing and implementing their IoT solutions, they were on average three months faster than the previous year (15 instead of 18 months).
The companies benefit from their IoT projects primarily through higher profitability, lower costs and rising revenues. Also positive are lower downtimes, higher utilization, faster return on investment (ROI), a better image and a higher degree of innovation.
Reordering of categories
In the ranking of categories that are most important to companies in production, it is not only quality control that has come to the fore. Other areas of the Internet of Things are also becoming more important for companies. Thus, logistics, building management and predictive maintenance also appear at the top of the list, another field from the Industry 4.0 domain that IoT is taking over. The number of IoT projects is also steadily increasing. 30 percent of companies have implemented between three and five projects, twelve percent 10 to 24 use cases, six percent between 25 and 49 applications. As in previous years, the pioneers in IoT applications are still the large companies.
Competent partners in demand
Almost two thirds of companies (65 percent) develop their IoT solution together with an external partner; among mid-sized companies with 500 to 999 employees, the figure is even 72 percent. When choosing an IoT provider, companies place particular value on a good price-performance ratio, trust in the provider and technological expertise. Process know-how, industry competence, innovation strength and scalability also play an important role. Additional criteria when selecting an IoT partner are transparent pricing, good collaboration on another IT/ITK project and a fixed contact person.
Quelle Titelbild: iStock / Wenjie Dong