According to the ‘Industry 4.0 Maturity Index’ released by Nokia and ABI Research, electronics and appliance manufacturers are leading in Industry 4.0 technology investments and use case deployment maturity with scores of 73.1 and 79.5 out of 100, respectively. The average industry scores were found to be 66 for technology maturity and 68.8 for use case deployment maturity.
As per the study, technology investments made by enterprises in this sector include the deployment of ruggedised devices to workers, cloud-based warehouse management systems for supply chain and logistics. Digital technologies are being used to support preventative maintenance use cases, data analytics and drones for industrial applications. Other findings show key drivers for implementing digitalisation are optimising workforce operations and safety scoring 7.4 out of 10, and supporting the company’s sustainability goals scoring 7.29, which reinforces the need to improve environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics across industries.
The ‘Industry 4.0 Maturity Index’ delivers key insights from a survey of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) leaders at 500 companies in five key markets. It showcases the Industry 4.0 readiness of Industrial campuses in the chemicals, fabricated metals, petroleum, mining, electronics and appliances, heavy machinery and ports and logistics sectors, and will allow enterprises to benchmark their digitalisation progress on the path toward the industrial metaverse.
Commenting on the results, Michael Larner, research director, ABI Research, said, “We are seeing a market trend for adopting private 5G in an end-to-end approach. For a successful transformation the need to align IT and OT is clear. IT departments will continue to play an important role in digital transformation using IT to support the delivery of OT the most efficient way.”
Meanwhile, Stephan Litjens, vice president, Enterprise Campus Edge business, Nokia, said, “As the global leader in private wireless and industrial edge across an array of industry sectors, we want to simplify and accelerate digital transformation for industries. The industry 4.0 maturity index and self-assessment tool help industrial campuses to understand where they are and how to progress. We see investments scaling up this year, and this is confirmed by this research that show that industries are, on average, moving closer to aligning IT and OT.”
