THE International Data Corp. (IDC) sees manufacturing companies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) region will ramp up their Internet of Things (IoT) technology investments to over $15 billion by 2019.
Frost & Sullivan, on the other hand, forecasts Philippine spending in IoT to grow from $55.1 million in 2014 to $766.8 million in 2020.
IDC, meanwhile, sees the Asia Pacific robotics market as a whole to continue to grow to reach $93 billion by 2019, accounting for 69 percent of the global market.
“The upcoming wave of IoT and robotics application in manufacturing is for real,” IDC’s Jing Bing Zhang was quoted in a statement as saying.
Zhang, research director of IDC Asia-Pacific worldwide robotics and manufacturing insights added the application “is expected to be broad-based, cross-industry and cross-operations, which will bring about significant changes in manufacturing.”
With manufacturing contributing 21.5 percent to the Asean GDP, the role of technologies, such as IoT and robotics, “has never been as important in transforming the manufacturing industry,” IDC said.
The primary advantage of IoT as a technology enables the various remote monitoring and connectivity services that are required for creating the “Factory of the Future.” On the other hand, robotics lies in its ability to deliver repeatable and consistent quality, to enable greater agility and flexibility in operations, and to increase productivity at reduced cost.
“The mash up of IoT, mobility, cloud and robotics technologies will result in the creation of ‘smart and connected manufacturing’ processes consisting of shorter design cycles, faster assembly lines and flexible supply chains.”
According to JD Montelibano of Globe Telecom Inc., IoT will enable Philippine companies to be more competitive in a global level. Besides being able to monitor and manage different assets across the organization, companies will be able to capture rich data that allows them to understand customer trends, anticipate problems beforehand and improve process and operations efficiency, Montelibano, the head of business applications from the informationtechnology-enabled services group of Globe.
“More and more, we’re seeing IoT become part of the fabric of business, helping converge an organization’s assets, data and processes with people and business systems, ” Herns Hermida of Microsoft Corp. said. “Today, this intersection is allowing enterprises to uncover new opportunities, create new business models and transform their operations—to become truly digital businesses.”