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Market Trends: Predictive Maintenance Drives IoT in

Manufacturing Operations
Published 13 February 2018 - ID G00350483 - 18 min read

By Analysts Emil Berthelsen

Innovative manufacturers are leading the way with IoT for improved asset
management, operational efficiency and cost reductions. Technology strategic
planners targeting asset-intensive industry markets should standardize integration
products and services, as well as build domain expertise.

Overview
Key Findings
■ Predictive maintenance has become a mainstream industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
benefit adopted by manufacturers. It provides asset visibility, availability and high returns
on asset management.

■ Innovative and profitable IIoT technologies suitable for asset-intensive industries and
environments require new skills and resources within product and service provider
organizations.

■ Organizations will require assistance from product and service providers when faced
with challenges implementing and integrating multiple IIoT solutions, and ensuring end-
to-end operations with enterprise systems.

Recommendations
Technology strategic planners defining the IoT products and services for manufacturers
should:

■ Create predictive asset management solutions as out-of-the-box, standardized services

by designing them with interoperability, ease of implementation and ease of integration,
relying on available asset performance management (APM) platforms.

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■ Strengthen predictive maintenance capabilities by enhancing domain expertise in asset-

intensive industries through recruitment, (re)training or closer collaborations with
ecosystem partners.

■ Develop integration requirements for predictive asset management services, and align
these services to enterprise asset management (EAM) and APM package offerings.

Strategic Planning Assumption

By 2022, spending on IoT-enabled predictive maintenance will increase to $12.9 billion, up
from $3.4 billion in 2018.

Introduction
Asset-intensive industries have accelerated their adoption of IoT as a means to both collect
new and additional operational data and enable improved predictive asset management
through deeper data analysis. Improving operational efficiencies has led to substantial
savings of up to 40% reduction in maintenance costs in some cases. Technology strategic
planners need to identify ways to differentiate and improve their products and services in
asset management and predictive maintenance. This research points to three important
steps for technology strategic planners in predictive maintenance:

■ Commoditizing the products and services

■ Providing expertise to improve the quality of the insights

■ Building integration capabilities into either the tools or the business to support
customers with predictive maintenance

Market Trend
End of Total Entropy in IoT
IoT markets can be characterized as pockets of growing disorder. The fragmented and
disruptive nature of IoT can be attributed to lower sensor and connectivity costs; improved
and less expensive data storage, processing and management; and greater agility in
software development and deployment by some providers. These market developments
have unlocked opportunities and benefits in connecting assets and products. Furthermore,
through applications and further data analysis, these market developments generate
operational improvements and reduce costs, and/or generate new revenue streams.

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The combination of market developments and the opportunities from IoT have accelerated
and increased the interest of technology strategic planners to create and deliver products
and services across multiple industries with multiple applications and differing benefits.
The richness of the opportunities, combined with the diversity of the devices, protocols,
applications and ambitions, has been a challenge for many vendors, who struggle at times
with where to place their development investments and efforts in manufacturing. Figure 1
provides examples of the diverse industries where IoT has had an impact.

Figure 1. Examples of IoT-Enabled and Impacted Industries

Source: Gartner (February 2018)

Technology strategic planners have not had an easy time. Setting aside the excitement
around the opportunities, technology strategic planners have had to manage the (lack of)
maturity of IoT solutions, software or service providers. The encouraging news is that
select segments have started to stabilize and define their requirements more closely, and
this segment includes predictive maintenance.

What is important to recognize is that, in many industries — and, particularly in asset-

intensive industries — the approach to IoT is less from a greenfield implementation
standpoint than one where existing, "brownfield" legacy systems have to be taken into
consideration.

Market Structure Trend

Advancing Passive Asset Management Into Predictive Maintenance Solutions

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Technology service providers have been evolving their services to manufacturing industries
in many ways, dependent mainly on their legacy businesses. Three types of technology and
service providers have emerged based on their background and expertise:

■ For operational technology (OT) companies such as GE, ABB, Honeywell, Rockwell
Automation and Schneider Electric, their focus has been on improving and enhancing
their APM solutions. With deep knowledge of their own produced manufacturing
equipment, improvements have been achieved through additional operational data
ingested from these assets and processed through IoT architectures. These insights
have added to the processes around condition monitoring and risk assessment, leading
to foundations built into earlier asset management solutions.

■ For IT vendors such as IBM, SAS and SAP, their focus has been on bringing the strengths
and capabilities of data processing and analysis through analytical tools to operational
data, as well as working with heterogeneous environments of assets. With the growing
numbers of connected assets and advances in the amounts of data, the scope of the
data, and machine-learning capabilities, these established providers and new innovative
startups developed tools to derive greater predictive maintenance insights from the data.

■ A third group has strategically developed and focused on predictive maintenance

solutions, recognizing as well the heterogeneity of asset environments. These include
Bentley Systems, Braincube, C3 IoT and Uptake. Such companies have concentrated on
developing analytical tools to detect and analyze specific industry and manufacturing
operational characteristics.

For further insights on some of the vendors in APM, see "Market Guide for Asset
Performance Management."

From a market where asset management has developed into more specific predictive
maintenance solutions, a second development is the increasing number of industry-
specific solutions, designed specifically for manufacturing, oil and gas, rail, aviation,
utilities, and mining. Here, larger technology service providers such as Hitachi, SAP and
IBM, as well as startups like Ambyint (in oil extraction), Predikto (in aviation) and IPS
Intelligent Process Solutions (in power distribution) have followed this path. This is
illustrated in Figure 2 where industry specific predictive maintenance are more of an
indirect development as part of the overall maintenance technology flow.

Figure 2. Improved Maintenance Technology Flows

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Source: Gartner (February 2018)

The market trend reflects the growing adoption of predictive maintenance solutions,
moving from general to industry-specific solutions. To deliver these solutions, technology
strategic planners have leveraged new approaches in artificial intelligence and machine
learning that have delivered additional opportunities to manage more varied datasets.

Recommendations:

■ Create predictive asset management solutions as out-of-the-box, standardized services

by designing them with interoperability, ease of implementation and ease of integration,
relying on available APM platforms.

■ Strengthen predictive maintenance capabilities by enhancing domain expertise in asset-

intensive industries through recruitment, (re)training or closer collaborations with
ecosystem partners.

■ Develop integration requirements for predictive asset management services, and align
these services to EAM and APM package offerings.

Create Predictive Asset Management Solutions as Out-of-the-Box, Standardized Services by

Designing Them With Interoperability, Ease of Implementation and Ease of Integration, Relying
on Available APM Platforms

Early predictive maintenance approaches have leveraged fundamental approaches in

machine learning, including cumbersome modeling, supervised learning models and testing
processes. For greater and wider adoption of predictive maintenance to occur, the ease of
implementation, use and integration of predictive maintenance models becomes a barrier
to be overcome through commoditization. This situation is particularly the case for
enterprises with fewer or no available data management resources, or with an absence of
having implemented standards, such as OPC or PackML. Technology service providers
should look to design these predictive maintenance and asset management services in
collaboration with APM providers.

Strengthen Predictive Maintenance Capabilities by Enhancing Domain Expertise in Asset-

Intensive Industries Through Recruitment, (Re)training or Closer Collaborations With Ecosystem
Partners

To innovate and improve predictive maintenance solutions, technology strategic planners

must look at either training in-house resources in the new approaches and requirements of
data analysis, or recruiting new resources to be able to extend their capabilities in this area.

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Such new skills may include overall data programming skills, data aggregation and
analysis, model building and testing, all of which are part of the greater need for an IT/OT
convergence. One other way for technology strategic planners to nurture this domain
expertise is to work significantly closer with asset-intensive manufacturers and their own
ecosystems. Hands-on experience in recognizing faults, along with building on that
knowledge, remains key for all.

As predictive maintenance becomes even more sophisticated and manages even more
specific industry data aggregated with other data sources, the domain expertise of many
technology service providers will require these enhancements.

For technology service providers, brownfield implementations remain significantly more

complicated than greenfield implementations. Integrating new IoT technologies and
insights from predictive maintenance solutions with existing enterprise systems such as
EAM, the main system for maintenance execution in manufacturing operations remains the
key to success for predictive maintenance. Yes, it will be possible to implement stand-alone
solutions. However, the real value from predictive maintenance emerges when, as part of
an APM solution, predictive maintenance makes optimal use of data from existing and new
operational data sources, and it is able to execute the insights through EAM. For
technology service providers to address this integration challenge, developing the skills and
capabilities to deliver integration solutions to existing legacy systems will be crucial.

Develop Integration Requirements for Predictive Asset Management Services and Align These
Services to EAM and APM Package Offerings

Technology strategic planners should begin to look further ahead, and work with existing
APM providers to build solutions integrated seamlessly and efficiently with enterprise
systems or, at a minimum, the skills to deliver the integrations. These solutions should
transition from stand-alone maintenance systems to EAM systems (that is, fully integrated
solutions, optimizing workflows in terms of work order management and spare parts
management). To make these integrations work, technology strategic planners should look
to identify, develop and address the skills and all integration requirements, particularly the
integrations that relate to enterprise systems, and homegrown and nonstandard systems.
Mobile devices and more innovative technologies, such as augmented reality options,
should also be integrated.

Buyer Trend
Implementing and Achieving the Benefits of Predictive Maintenance

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As manufacturers continue to explore, trial and implement IoT solutions, they have started
to gravitate to solutions focused on key internal initiatives, such as optimizing operations,
and improving reliability and asset management.

In a July 2017 IoT manufacturing survey involving over 200 respondents in manufacturing,
respondents were asked: "What internal IoT initiatives has your organization implemented
or plans to implement by year-end 2018?" Ninety-two percent responded that they had
currently implemented or were planning to implement by year-end 2018 the optimization of
IoT solutions. This was followed by another significant and identified solution: asset
management, including predictive maintenance. For this solution, 50% had implemented,
with a further 40% planning to implement by year-end 2018. In particular, respondents in OT
roles in manufacturing held this internal IoT initiative in high priority. Figure 3 illustrates the
findings from the top-line survey.

Figure 3. Top-Line Results of IoT Manufacturing Survey, July 2017

Source: Gartner (February 2018)

The overall responses reflect a relatively high degree of implementations or planned

implementations of IoT-related solutions in manufacturing operations. The findings reflect

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both the increased interest in IoT within manufacturing and how manufacturers have
started to identify the focal points of IoT applications in the industry's processes.

Recommendations:

■ Leverage the growing interest in IoT-enabled asset management solutions, including

predictive maintenance in asset-intensive industries.

■ Build a compelling portfolio of asset management services, including predictive

maintenance, and highlight the higher levels of financial payback involved.

Regional Trend
Emergence of New Industrial Consortia
As technology planners reflect on the nature of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where
production and network connectivity via the internet become one, it is important to
recognize the efforts and developments within such alliances and institutions (see Figure
4), including:

■ Industrie 4.0

■ Industrial Internet Consortium

■ Made in China 2025

■ Industrial Value Chain Initiative

Figure 4. Government- and Consortium-Driven Industrial Productivity Initiatives

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Source: Gartner (February 2018)

In both North America and Europe, IIoT initiatives in manufacturing have been boosted by
pilots, proofs of concept, shared reference architectures, and emerging protocols and
standards, and collaborations within organizations such as:

■ Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC)

■ Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Initiative (CESMII)

■ Industrie 4.0

■ Industrial Internet Consortium

At the same time that IIoT startups and a growing number of established businesses have
developed their IoT capabilities in Europe and North America, manufacturers have had their
pick in an oversupplied market. For more insights, read "Market Trends: 5 Strategies for IoT
Vendors to Thrive in a World of Rampant Oversupply."

In China and Japan, similar initiatives have been driven by governmental bodies through the
Made in China 2025 and the Industrial Value Chain Initiatives. While Made in China is a
national initiative to improve the manufacturing industry — initially up to 2025 but then
onward to 2035 and 2049 — the Japanese Industrial Value Chain Initiative is more about
promoting smart manufacturing for connected industries. For more information, read "More
Than Digital Is Driving the Factory of the Future."

Europe and North America (see Figure 5) continue to lead the IoT forecasts for connected
manufacturing solutions up to 2025, closely followed by China. These four geographies
share between 74% and 76% of the world's connected manufacturing numbers.

Figure 5. Forecast: IoT Connections per Geography in Extended Manufacturing Segments,

2018-2025

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Source: Gartner (February 2018)

Recommendations:

■ Establish collaborations and partnerships with partners in North America, Europe and
China to build global predictive maintenance insights.

■ Identify, if any, differences in predictive maintenance requirements per region and

industry, and evaluate the suitability of the company's asset-intensive solutions for the
different customers.

■ Collaborate with suitable implementation resources in North America, Europe, China and
Japan to accelerate the implementation of predictive maintenance solutions in those
regions.

Technology Trend
Automation of Manufacturing Industries as the New Objective
The opportunities and benefits from IoT in manufacturing have been closely nurtured by
both the vendor community and end users. From monitoring the condition of assets and
managing their performance, IoT has delivered additional value to end-user enterprises —
both owners and operators of assets — through predictive maintenance. By minimizing
downtime (via fewer disruptions to operational performance) and increasing the utilization
and performance of these assets, end-user enterprises have increasingly explored and
adopted predictive maintenance as a significant driver behind IoT initiatives within their
respective enterprises.

Technology strategic planners will continue to enhance and develop the solutions for
manufacturing industries. One goal will be the complete automation of integrated
manufacturing processes.

Recommendations:

■ Consolidate various asset management and operational efficiency solutions, including

predictive maintenance, into a unified smart factory solution.

■ Introduce automation as the next-step solution to enterprises having implemented asset

management and operational efficiency solutions.

Contrarian View

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If Complete Manufacturing Automation Continues, These Trends Change

IoT has continued to move the needle in manufacturing maintenance from a "break/fix"
approach to preventive maintenance and to one of condition monitoring and predictive
maintenance. Improvements in manufacturing operations will continue with IoT. These
improvements will include integral and prescriptive maintenance considerations, such as:

■ When best to replace assets operationally and economically

■ How best to meet the balance and requirements between operational and maintenance
needs when a comprehensive total plant view becomes available

Where predictive maintenance begins to take a necessary and foundational role is when
IoT achieves a significantly broader and wider impact on integrated industries or, as
termed, "system of systems." Already witnessed on smaller scales, automated distributed
manufacturing is becoming a reality, allowing immediate and seamless flow of production
requirements from one location to another — and from one process to another.

The priority of manufacturing operations at present is the optimal utilization of individual

manufacturing assets to gain cost reductions and benefits. This optimal utilization through
the network of connected manufacturing equipment will begin to take place at a more
aggregated level, the plant level rather than the individual machine level. Consequently, the
"priority" of predictive maintenance will change from a blanket asset approach to more
select and critical assets. Such a change will not diminish the value of predictive
maintenance, but it will include this predictive maintenance solution as a larger
improvement base within manufacturing operations. However, this automation is far from
an easy development because technology service providers must be aware of clients and
prospects wanting scale. Furthermore, heterogeneity of factory systems (even between
factories that are producing like products) will be an obstacle.

Vendors to Watch
The ever-expanding market of technology service providers includes well-established
manufacturers of manufacturing equipment, as well as leading traditional IT vendors and
new innovative startups in this market space. Table 1 provides an overview of some of the
vendors addressing global end users with their requirements in predictive maintenance.

Table 1: Overview of Vendors with Predictive Maintenance Solutions

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
 
Source: Gartner (February 2018)

Evidence
In June and July 2017, Gartner's Secondary Research Services provided comprehensive
desktop research and analytics support for this report, exploring the following three topics:

■ IoT manufacturing case studies: For this part, Gartner Secondary Research Services
conducted secondary research to gather case studies and examples of IoT
implementation in manufacturing. As suggested, Gartner Secondary Research
segregated information in three parts: business objective/challenge; application/solution
deployed; and results/benefits.

■ IoT manufacturing solutions: Using web search, Gartner's Secondary Research Services
identified types of IoT solutions available for manufacturing (major focus on production),
such as IoT platforms, manufacturing equipment maintenance systems and facility
management systems We provided you a brief for these solutions and gather details,
such as IoT manufacturing solutions, vendor, solution category, solution description and
web sources.

■ Articles/reports on IoT in manufacturing: To give insights on IoT implementations in

manufacturing, Gartner's Secondary Research Services included articles and industry

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reports on IoT in manufacturing that provide information on overall IoT manufacturing

market sizing, end-user adoption, trends and best practices.

Also in the second quarter of 2017, a primary research survey was launched, surveying
more than 200 manufacturing executives. The research provided insights on the drivers
behind IoT in manufacturing, and it was compiled in the IoT Manufacturing Survey report,
dated 5 July 2017.

Besides the qualitative analysis, this report has leveraged Gartner's Machina Research
Internet of Things Forecast Database, identifying the forecast market growth trends in
terms of connections and revenue. For the area of extended manufacturing, the following
segments were included: manufacturing and processing; warehousing and storage;
construction equipment monitoring; construction site monitoring; and extractive industries.

Hundreds of interactions with manufacturing enterprises and technology service providers

have also provided to the series of insights outlined in this report.

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