Navigating Challenges: Embracing Smart Industrial Asset Management

The rapid growth of technologies like IIoT has played a massive role in digitizing industries across the world, where data is converted into actionable insights. These technological advancements have revolutionized how industries monitor, analyze, and maintain their assets.

Statista states that the IIoT segment is expected to exhibit a strong annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2028) of 12.68%, culminating in a market volume of US$525.20bn by 2028. The segment is playing a vital role in the industrial sector with offerings such as IoT-based smart industrial asset management that optimizes the production process like never before.

Why IoT IoT-based industrial Asset Management Required?

IoT-based industrial asset management addresses several critical challenges that traditional asset management could not address.

Firstly, IoT enables real-time monitoring of industrial assets, providing insights into asset performance, health, and usage patterns. This proactive monitoring allows organizations to detect potential issues before escalating, minimizing downtime, and reducing costly repairs.

Predictive maintenance made possible through continuous data collection and analysis, ensures that your assets are serviced precisely when needed, optimizing their lifespan and operational efficiency. You no longer have to stop the entire production process and completely check the faulty equipment thoroughly. Along with that if you do not have the replacement parts in your inventory, you may also have to wait for the parts to come. This causes the entire production process to shut down and results in massive losses. Predictive Maintenance can help you detect possible failures and prepare for them, which reduces downtime considerably.

Read out case study: Remote Pump Monitoring Solution

Secondly, IoT-based asset management revolutionizes decision-making processes by providing actionable insights derived from the wealth of data collected from sensors and devices. Businesses can identify trends, anomalies, and optimization opportunities by analyzing this data, allowing for more informed and strategic decision-making.

Thirdly, energy costs are a major factor that affects the overall production cost. If your equipment does not undergo optimal maintenance, it tends to consume more energy with time. By continuously collecting and analyzing data on energy consumption, organizations gain insights into usage patterns and opportunities for optimization. IoT-enabled gateway systems dynamically adjust equipment settings based on real-time conditions, optimizing energy usage while maintaining operational efficiency.

Additionally, participation in demand response programs allows businesses to adjust energy consumption in response to price fluctuations or grid conditions, further reducing energy costs and contributing to sustainability objectives. Several studies indicate that companies can achieve energy cost savings of around 20-30%, which results in long-term profits.

Fourthly, smart industrial asset management can help you minimize wear and tear on equipment, reducing the likelihood of unexpected breakdowns, and extending the lifespan of critical assets. Additionally, IoT-based asset management systems can optimize operational parameters such as temperature, pressure, and speed based on real-time data and environmental conditions, ensuring that equipment operates within optimal ranges. By avoiding excessive stress or strain on machinery and components, businesses can mitigate premature wear and prolong the life expectancy of their industrial assets by a couple of years.

Furthermore, IoT facilitates remote monitoring and control of assets, empowering businesses to manage operations from anywhere, improving agility, and responsiveness to market changes. Overall, IoT-based industrial asset management is essential for enhancing operational efficiency, reducing costs, ensuring regulatory compliance, and thereby gaining a competitive edge in today’s dynamic industrial environment.

Then Why Are We Seeing Struggle with Adoption?

IoT-based industrial asset management is imperative for modern businesses seeking to maximize operational efficiency and maintain a competitive edge. However, as with any groundbreaking innovation, the path to implementing IoT in industrial asset management is marred by challenges.

According to Technavio, the industrial IoT gateway market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 19.8% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 2,288.46 million. There is no denying that the IoT-based industrial asset management industry is growing steadily, however, adoption is still seen as one of the major challenges by many enterprises. And that is exactly what we are going to address further.

Barriers to Adoption of IoT-based Industrial Asset Management

Most organizations do see potential in IoT-based industrial asset management, however, they are hesitant when it comes to adoption.

Cost of Ownership: One of the major challenges of industrial asset management is the cost attached to it. For many organizations, especially small and medium-sized enterprises with limited budgets, the perceived cost of implementation and uncertainty about the ROI can deter them from exploring IoT solutions. The organization can approach exploring innovative financing models, strategic partnerships, and phased implementation approaches to make IoT adoption more accessible and financially feasible for businesses of all sizes.

Proven ROI: Many enterprises look for proof of ROI that early adopters have gained. However, most enterprises may not publish proof of the ROI in the public domain. Since there are very few examples of proven ROI readily available, most organizations hesitate to adopt asset management. But one thing we need to understand is that asset management requirements vary from company to company, and the value you generate from asset management may differ. So instead of looking for examples of proven ROI, organizations need to spend more time defining a clear ROI for themselves.

Read More: Transforming Asset Management: A Roadmap to Higher ROI

Skill Gap: Implementing and managing IoT solutions in industrial asset management may require a diverse skill set spanning data analytics, cybersecurity, and network management. These skill sets are required for optimizing asset performance, addressing security concerns, and informed decision-making.

The shortage of talent with these specialized skills poses a significant barrier to IoT adoption in industrial settings. Organizations often struggle to find professionals with the required expertise, hindering the effective implementation and management of IoT solutions. Addressing this skills gap requires investment in training and education programs to upskill existing employees and attract new talent with expertise in data analytics, cybersecurity, and network management.

Lack of Awareness: One of the barriers can also be a lack of awareness. Let’s take an example of an organization, if the stakeholders are mechanical engineers, they may have limited knowledge of IoT and asset management. Without a clear understanding of the value proposition and potential return on investment offered by IoT, businesses may be hesitant to adopt asset management. Addressing the lack of awareness requires proactive efforts to educate stakeholders about the benefits and opportunities associated with IoT-based industrial asset management.

Technical Support: In many cases, you need post-deployment support for asset management vendors or you may need to have skilled personnel onboard. Without access to skilled personnel or external technical support services, organizations may struggle to overcome technical challenges such as integrating IoT devices with existing infrastructure, troubleshooting connectivity issues, ensuring data security, maintaining system reliability, or even leveraging data for further decision-making.

Read out case study here: Cooling Tower Monitoring

Security: Industrial environments enabled by IoT exchange data on a continuous basis. These environments are subject to stringent regulations regarding data privacy and security. Organizations may be faced with navigating complex compliance requirements while leveraging data to drive insights and decision-making.

Resistance to Change: Cultural factors within organizations can also impede your IoT adoption efforts. It is not necessary that everybody would be on board with the change. Resistance to change, fear of job displacement, and lack of buy-in from key stakeholders can stall progress and hinder successful implementation. Key stakeholders need to instill confidence in their workforce about how IoT-based asset management can add value to their processes.

Conclusion

There are barriers to adoption as we discussed, but they can all be mitigated with the right mindset and culture. Organizations need to think about the long-standing benefits rather than the immediate challenges and prepare their workforce to achieve continued growth and effective management of their industrial assets. Embracing smart asset management helps you to achieve long-term success and also helps you to thrive in the impending competition.