What are the benefits of IIoT?

Early implementers of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have reported increased insight into customer behavior and preferences, improvement in staff safety, better protection of assets, and raised levels of reliability and performance. That’s good news for the manufacturing industry, which is the top user of IIoT, as well as for the maintenance teams that support them.

It probably comes as no surprise that the manufacturing industry is the number one user of the IIoT, spending more than twice as much as the second place industrial user in terms of IIoT implementation. The industry as a whole has been pursuing related efforts such as Industry 4.0 and engaged in the next so-called industrial revolution for years. IIoT follows suit logically, solving a host of problems for maintenance teams within manufacturing.

Several leading-edge manufacturing companies have realized return on investments quickly once IIoT is implemented. The facilities experience true digital transformations and reap rewards in terms of automation, efficiency, and customer knowledge. Ultimately, the data collected through IIoT helps companies make smarter decisions that lead to big impacts to the bottom line.

Increased Customer Insight

According to one industry survey, 76 percent of the companies that have implemented IIoT have found that they have better information about their customer’s preferences and can better predict what kind of decisions they will make. That means manufacturers have the data to offer more tailored products and services.

Improved Employee Safety

In addition, roughly two-thirds of early implementers use IIoT tools to gauge risks, which, in turn, improves employee safety and protects assets. For example, IIoT sensors can monitor temperature, pressure, or other indicators on equipment and alert maintenance before employees are in danger or assets suffer significant damage.

Better Reliability and Performance

Finally, about 60 percent of manufacturing facilities that have implemented IIoT technology have been able to see their reliability and performance improve. The ARC Advisory Group found in one of its studies that more than 80 percent of failures happened on a random basis and were unrelated to routine maintenance tasks. IIoT, on the other hand, can anticipate these failures before they actually occur, improving overall performance and reliability.