Building IIoT Systems - October 2024

A survey by IIoT World

IIoT World would like to better understand your experiences in building IIoT systems. We would like to hear from project managers, architects, development managers, and senior technologists who are working on or researching IIoT projects. This 8-minute survey explores the challenges, opportunities, and technologies used to build IIoT systems.

The deadline for taking the survey is Friday, November 15, 2024. We will publish the highlights from the survey in a future report on IIoT World.

If you'd like to receive a full copy of the report, let us know at the end of this survey what's the best way to contact you.

Question Title

* 1. What is your role in your company?

Developer

Architect

Systems Engineer

Project Manager

Product Manager

Technical Manager

Technical Executive (Director, CTO, CIO)

Business Executive

System Integrator / Consultant

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 2. How many employees are in your company?

Less than 500

500-1000

1000-5000

5001-10,000

Greater than 10,000

Question Title

* 3. What industry are you in?

Smart Manufacturing

Renewable Energy

Power & Utilities

Oil & Gas

Transportation

Logistics

Mobility

Smart Cities

Smart Buildings

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 4. What statement best describes your current Industrial IoT strategy?
Definition of IIoT: Sensorizing industrial devices, collecting and consolidating the data onto an enterprise location so that insights could be applied on them. This typically is part of an enterprise digital transformation effort which brings all the relevant data into one centralized location be it on premise or the cloud.

We are implementing our IIoT strategy and have new systems in production.

We have just begun development but have not deployed any systems into production.

We have developed a proof of concept for our IIoT strategy.

We are actively developing our IIoT strategy.

We have some implementations of IoT in certain locations, not part of IIoT strategy.

We are still researching IIoT.

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* 5. How have you implemented/planning to implement your IIoT strategy?

Internal Resources

Using System integrators

Using Value Added Retailers

Using a consulting firm like Deloitte or Accenture

Not Applicable

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* 6. What best describes the greatest benefits you expect from implementing IIoT systems? (select up to 2 responses)

Improve over equipment effectiveness (OEE)

Improve labor efficiency

Increase productivity

Reduce costs

Increase revenue

Increase supply chain resiliency

Improve regulatory compliance

Decrease in energy usage/cost

Improve safety

Increase automation

Reduce downtime

Increase flexibility and responsiveness

Increase customer satisfaction

Other (please specify)

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* 7. What are the key challenges to implementing a new IIoT system? (select up to 3 responses)

Leadership/vision/management support

Governance/processes

Company dynamics

Infrastructure limitations

Cybersecurity

Integration of data sources

Installation of new hardware

Data interoperability

Lack of skills and knowledge of existing staff

Lack of budget and uncertain ROI

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 8. Who is leading your IIoT strategy?

Staff from OT

Staff from IT

Project team from OT/IT

Product R&D

Executive

Outside consultants

Other (please specify)

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* 9. Which of the following protocols do you use today to connect your equipment? (select all that apply)

Modbus

OPC-UA

KNX

BACNet

Profibus / Profinet

MTCOnnect

MQTT

MQTT Sparkplug

HTTP

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 10. MQTT is an OASIS standard messaging protocol for the Internet of Things (IoT). It is designed as an extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport that is ideal for connecting remote devices with a small code footprint and minimal network bandwidth. What best reflects your experience with MQTT?

We use MQTT in our deployed IIoT systems.

We are planning to use MQTT in our IIoT systems.

We are considering MQTT in our IIoT systems.

We need to learn more about MQTT.

We’ve never heard of MQTT.

Question Title

* 11. If you are using an MQTT broker or plan to use one, which one fo you have/plan to consider?

HiveMQ

Open source broker like Mosquitto

Hyperscaler brokers like Azure IoT or AWS IoT core

Not applicable

Other MQTT brokers (please specify)

Question Title

* 12. Unified Namespace(UNS) is an IIoT data framework that defines the structure of the company’s business, all of the events and acts as the single source of truth for all information about the business. Have you considered UNS for your IIoT use cases?

We use UNS in our deployed IIoT systems.

We are planning to use UNS in our IIoT systems.

We are considering UNS in our IIoT systems.

We need to learn more about UNS.

We’ve never heard of UNS.

Question Title

* 13. What are some of the IIoT data challenges that UNS might help overcome (select all that apply)

Data Silos and Fragmentation

Legacy System Integration

Real-Time Data Access

Data Contextualization

Scalability

Data Accessibility

Security and Governance

Complex Data Relationships

Avoiding Vendor Lock-In

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 14. What of these IIoT trends are you most interested in learning more about? (select all that apply)

Edge Computing and Real-Time Data Processing

Digital Twins

5G Connectivity for Industrial Applications

AI and Machine Learning for Predictive Analytics

Cyber Security in IIoT Networks

Unified Namespace (UNS) for Data Integration

Robotics and Autonomous Systems

Blockchain for Industrial use cases

AR/VR Technologies

Edge to Cloud hybrid architectures

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 15. Are you using or planning to use AI for your industrial use cases? If so, what are the use cases you are using/considering (select all that apply)?

Predictive maintenance

Generative design

Price forecasting of raw material

Robotics

Edge Analytics

Quality Assurance

Inventory Management

Process Optimization

Digital Twins

Generative AI use cases

NA as I don’t plan to use AI for the foreseeable future

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 16. What are some of the challenges in adopting AI for your industrial use cases (select all that apply)?

Data Quality

Data Privacy

Lack of skilled AI talent

Integration with legacy systems

Lack of tools for developing AI models

Ethical use of AI

Employee job security concerns

Trying to do too much too quickly

Trust and Transparency

NA as I don’t plan to use AI for the foreseeable future

Other (please specify)

Question Title

* 17. If you'd like to receive a full copy of the report, please include your email below.

Thank you for participating in this survey. Once the results of the survey are released, we will send an email.