The IoT Use Case Adoption Report 2024 is part of IoT Analytics’ ongoing research into IoT in general. The information presented in this report is based on extensive surveys of IoT end users across manufacturing, healthcare, retail and other industries. Its purpose is to inform other market participants about the current state of IoT use case adoption among businesses.
Evolution of IoT Use Cases in 2021 and Beyond
IoT efforts are becoming more successful, but the payback period is longer: the majority of IoT projects now have a positive ROI, up 13 percentage points compared to 2021. However, the share of projects amortized over two years is declining.
APAC is steadily leading the way, with North America catching up: By 2024, APAC companies will have deployed around 11 use cases on average (+0.9 increase since 2021). North America and Europe will have deployed around 10 use cases each (+3.5 and +1.7 increases, respectively, since 2021).
The report includes 27 IoT use cases across smart operations, smart supply chain and connected products.
Process Automation. Integrate IoT to automate routine processes to increase productivity and accuracy. Quality Management. Integrate IoT (e.g. machine vision) to enhance quality processes. Energy Monitoring. Integrate IoT to monitor energy consumption of individual assets. Operational Planning and Scheduling. Leverage IoT for real-time scheduling and planning to improve operational efficiency. Asset Performance Optimization. Leverage IoT to increase asset operational efficiency and effectiveness. Remote Asset Monitoring. Use IoT to remotely monitor assets in a read-only format and track performance. Condition-Based Maintenance/Monitoring. Use IoT to perform maintenance based on equipment condition. Plant/Worker Safety. Leverage IoT (e.g. smart cameras) to enhance safety measures in plants and for workers. Emissions/Waste Tracking. Integrate IoT to monitor emissions or waste from operations. Remote Asset Control. Use IoT to remotely control assets (e.g. remote troubleshooting). Work Condition Monitoring. Use IoT to monitor worker environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, humidity, air quality) to ensure worker health. Predictive Maintenance. Leverage IoT to predict when maintenance will be required to prevent downtime. Augmented Service/Maintenance. Use Augmented Reality (AR) to improve field service and maintenance. Augmented Operations. Use Augmented Reality (AR) to improve operations. Real-time Inventory Management. Leverage IoT to track inventory levels in real time and optimize inventory to reduce shortages and surpluses. Supply Chain Tracking. Leverage IoT to monitor the location, condition, and status of products and materials along the supply chain. On-site Facility Tracking. Leverage IoT to track and trace assets on a site (e.g., factory or warehouse) in real time. Location Tracking (e.g., GPS). Leverage IoT for real-time location tracking of products/assets/devices. Sustainability and Energy Efficiency. Use IoT to monitor and control energy usage of products to drive sustainability and cost savings for users. Condition/Health Monitoring. Leverage IoT to monitor the condition, status, and health of products/assets/devices. Product Usage Optimization Based on IoT Data. Leverage IoT data to optimize product usage and make recommendations to customers. Predictive Maintenance. Use IoT to predict and perform maintenance on products/assets/devices. Remote asset management. Use IoT for remote management of products (e.g. remote troubleshooting). Product engineering. Use real IoT product usage data from customers to enhance future products. Sell assets/products “as a service”. Use IoT to offer products or assets as a service. Over-the-air firmware updates (FOTA). Leverage IoT for remote firmware updates. Over-the-air software updates (SOTA). Use IoT for remote software updates.
Analysis in the report includes:
Adoption of IoT use cases (by region, industry vertical, and use case group) Detailed breakdown of IoT use case spending (initial costs, recurring costs, hardware, software, and services) Return on investment (amortization by region, industry vertical, and use case) Use case investment priorities (changes by region, industry vertical, and use case) Impact of IoT implementation on company KPIs (e.g., overall equipment efficiency, revenue, quality) Challenges faced while implementing IoT use cases How to secure a skilled workforce Impact of IoT strategy on company sustainability goals Top vendors and vendor satisfaction for IoT use cases (in-depth analysis of pros and cons of most commonly used vendors and pros and cons of most commonly used vendors by technology stack) Detailed case studies of all use cases Details of each of the 27 use cases (adoption, spending, ROI, planned investments, impact on company KPIs)
A detailed overview of all included analyses is provided in the Table of Contents below.
