Manufacturing Sector Can Leverage IIoT Both to Compete and to Ensure Regulatory Compliance, Says Info-Tech Research Group

The manufacturing industry faces challenges in effectively tracking and tracing products throughout the supply chain, resulting in a slower process for adding new products to portfolios.

TORONTO, March 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - The manufacturing industry continues to face demand for timely and accurate decision making to ensure business growth. However, despite this pressure, many manufacturing units still rely on manual processes and lack the necessary skills and knowledge to meet expectations. A significant factor hindering growth is the separation of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) as distinct silos. To address this issue and enable data-driven decision making, it is essential organizations remove these silos and create a comprehensive connection among factories. To help revitalize factories and leverage the potential of the industrial internet of things (IIoT) through the implementation of supervisory control, global IT research and advisory firm Info-Tech Research Group has launched a new blueprint titled The Connected Factory.

Currently, manufacturing environments are often filled with a mix of new and old equipment with proprietary and open connectivity tools, leading to complexity. However, in the digital and ESG-conscious era, business leaders should be cautious when making decisions, as developing a connected factory exposes the business to new threat actors and requires entirely new skills for both setups and users across the environment. Unfortunately, many organizations are unaware of the negative consequences of having noncompliance flagged by regulators.

"The competitive landscape has become highly charged by the onslaught of new technologies entering the market and SaaS," says Kevin Tucker, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group. "Many businesses are implementing cloud-first and cloud-only models, which has elevated the need for CIOs to broaden their engagement across the business."

The firm's research advises that simply capturing mountains of live data through IIoT is not enough to drive success in manufacturing. A well-defined data strategy is crucial to turn the captured data into meaningful insights for live decision making. Info-Tech's blueprint recommends the following approach for manufacturing organizations to consider when developing a plan to implement IoT and IIoT in their factories:

• Evaluate: Formulate the initiative by identifying an opportunity to reduce costs, drive revenue, or improve safety while prioritizing an initial timeline.
• Resource: Take into account all resources and capabilities that will be affected by the changes, including tools, people, processes, and costs.
• Define Data: Specify the data requirements that are immediately necessary and how the data will scale out later as opportunities expand.
• Plan Security: Leverage IoT to elevate and broaden the exposure footprint necessitating upfront planning.
• Build Solution: Develop the infrastructure and environments that will be used or impacted on-premises, in the cloud, or hybrid.
• Model & Test: Perform a series of dry runs in a test environment to ensure all errors are captured and corrected.
• Go Live: Execute the communication plan and parallel runs with live comparative analysis to provide production reports to management.

Info-Tech explains in the research-backed resource that small-scale niche factories have made their operations more vigilant, which has compelled large enterprises to modernize their processes and leverage customer satisfaction ratings as a competitive advantage rather than a liability during audits.

To learn more about Info-Tech's research and the firm's recommendations for the application of IIoT in the global manufacturing section, download the complete The Connected Factory blueprint.

For more about Info-Tech Research Group, visit infotech.com and connect via LinkedIn and Twitter

Info-Tech Research Group is one of the world's leading information technology research and advisory firms, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals. The company produces unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. For more than 25 years, Info-Tech has partnered closely with IT teams to provide them with everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

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SOURCE Info-Tech Research Group