Top 6 findings from IoT Signals: Manufacturing Spotlight – Microsoft Industry Blogs – Microsoft

If you want to gain an edge in today’s dynamic manufacturing world, your organization must be agile, resilient, and sustainable. In this shifting landscape, many manufacturers are investing in innovative solutions to make their products and operations smarter by tapping into advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, plus digital twins for production.
Against this backdrop, Microsoft decided to spotlight the manufacturing industry for our August 2022 IoT Signals report. IoT Signals is a series of impactful thought leadership content curated by Microsoft to inform the community about the latest developments and technology trends in the IoT industry. The first statement, published in 2019, provided a broad view associated with IoT across a variety of industries—from manufacturing plus energy to healthcare and retail—based on comprehensive, survey-based research.
For this edition of the report IoT Signals: Production Spotlight Ms, Intel, plus IoT Analytics surveyed 500 decision makers working on digital transformation initiatives in discrete, hybrid, or process production across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. We conducted more in-depth interviews with some participants in order to gain a deeper understanding of their transformation strategies, execution plans, and challenges.
Six key results about electronic transformation plus IoT within manufacturing
This new IoT manufacturing record reveals insights from real-world manufacturers that have started their digital change journey. It also uncovers fresh learnings concerning the state of industrial IoT devices and technology in manufacturing, specifically within the areas of manufacturing operations and smart products.
During our research, we discovered six key digital modification and IoT manufacturing styles:
- Most manufacturers are advancing their efforts to build wise factories. Three out of four survey respondents (72 percent) said they’re implementing their own smart factory strategy.
- Operational improvement is still the top goal for manufacturers. Four from five survey respondents said they consider overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) to become the most important key performance indicator to measure the particular success associated with their intelligent factory strategy.
- Organizations are moving investments in order to industrial automation-based process control. To date, most producers have focused on quality control and condition-based maintenance for clever factory projects. However, the need for greater agility is leading these organizations to shift their investments over the next three years to industrial automation-based process control—the use of automated manage systems, such as IoT and AI, to automate manufacturing processes.
- Manufacturers face new challenges with scaling sensible factory endeavours. Half associated with the participants said they face challenges in developing new software applications, and the majority (eight out of 10) stated they’re dealing with skills gaps, particularly in data science, AI, and cybersecurity.
- IT-OT convergence is happening in the particular manufacturing industry. With 76 percent associated with manufacturing assets now connected, many producers are moving workloads plus applications from on-premises infrastructure to public and private cloud platforms.
- Producers plan to increase investments in smart linked IoT products. Manufacturing organizations are not only optimizing their own procedures with smart connected IoT products—they’re also creating brand new revenue streams by selling these products in order to customers. Manufacturers that already sell connected IoT items expect to boost investments through 33 percent today to 47 % by 2025, with a strong focus on value-added services, this kind of as predictive maintenance and remote support.
Read the IoT Signals: Manufacturing Spotlight to learn more about what’s driving these six key developments and holistic understanding of six important components of digital transformation within manufacturing.

Accelerating digital alteration and embracing IoT along with Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing
All 6 of the crucial findings from this production IoT review share a common theme: Producers across the globe are usually advancing their particular digital change for better efforts. These organizations are tapping into innovative solutions to reimagine manufacturing plus build a more resilient and sustainable future.
By adopting transformative technologies like IoT industrial products, AI, plus digital twin babies, your manufacturing organization can:
- Transform your workforce. Eight away from 10 manufacturers survey having at least one important skill gap, especially when it comes to advanced information analysis and IT cybersecurity. With this environment, manufacturers are looking for tools that will help them close the particular gap and boost employee productivity. Today’s manufacturers may transform their workforce simply by empowering their own frontline workers with electronic tools plus modern gadgets that enable real-time collaboration, enhance training, and improve worker health and safety.
- Build more agile factories. The ability to adapt quickly to rapid change is a defining factor between manufacturers that simply survive and those that thrive. That’s why manufacturers across the globe are tapping into sophisticated technologies in order to build a lot more agile, better factories .
- Create more resilient supply chains. According to the report, 74 percent associated with manufacturers ranked supply chain resilience as a top priority. This is no surprise considering that, now a lot more than ever, manufacturers are usually under pressure to prevent and minimize provide chain disruptions. Microsoft Impair for Manufacturing is currently helping producers improve end-to-end supply string visibility plus boost supply chain resilience .
- Engage customers in new ways. If you want to gain an edge in the production industry, customer engagement is critical. As manufacturers search for innovative ways to engage clients , many are selling wise connected IoT products. Our research shows that 33 percent of manufacturers’ product revenue comes through smart products today.
- Drive innovation and deliver new services. Manufacturers are purchasing superior technologies in order to create a more resistant future. In accordance to our research, 28 percent of manufacturers have rolled out digital baby twins, and 4 percent of them have fully deployed all of them in their particular factories. Another 45 % of manufacturers are in development and proof of concept (POC) stage for digital twins, and 39 percent are in the same phase for augmented reality (AR).
- Decrease your environmental impact. Most manufacturing board members (59 percent) believe that decreasing their carbon footprint is an important area of focus. Manufacturers are uniquely positioned to drive sustainability while saving costs and improving safety using cloud-based automation, machine learning, and AI.
- Improve security. Security is a main concern for manufacturing organizations, plus 62 percent of manufacturers have strict data privacy policies. Over the next three years, manufacturers intend to decrease the particular mean time to detect cybersecurity incidents by 30 %.
Develop a resilient future with IoT production
Manufacturing organizations are drawing from the lessons learned during COVID-19 to develop strength and build a better future. Digital transformation continues to be top associated with mind for these manufacturers as they work to increase agility, enhance customer engagement, and drive growth. To gain insights from the digital transformation journeys of real-world producers, read the particular IoT Indicators: Manufacturing Limelight report.