The Internet of Things: How manufacturers balance the risks and rewards

The Internet of Things (IoT), which enables data exchange and analysis between equipment and devices, offers manufacturers opportunities to become more flexible, efficient, and cost-effective across supply chains.
However, manufacturers have integrated smart technology or embedded intelligence into only about one-quarter (median) of their production equipment and processes, according to a study from The MPI Group. Often manufacturers lack the infrastructure to make IoT usage within their operations possible or cannot readily justify the costs.
More than three-quarters of manufacturers said they would increase implementation of IoT in the next two years to achieve various objectives, such as to "improve product quality, increase the speed of operations, decrease manufacturing costs, improve maintenance/uptime, and improve information for business analytics," according to Packaging World.