As the holiday season gets into full swing, executives like you are polishing off strategicandoperational plans for the New Year. For many manufacturing companies, 2014 was a good year, for some outstanding, and most manufacturers are optimistic for more of the same in 2015. According to MAPI's US Industrial Outlook, "manufacturing will continue to grow faster than the overall economy," with 2015 growing at a higher rate than 2014.

Because manufacturers are looking to get ahead of this growth curve and set the stage for competitive differentiation and advantage in 2015, you are utilizing budgets remaining from 2014 to make smart investments now in new technologies, before the year comes to a close. With strategic investments in operations or R&D/engineering, companies position themselves to be more agile, productive and competitive while the economy slowly but surely continues to strengthen. In an Industry Week report, "Manufacturers are optimistic about their businesses as well as the economy as a whole, and are investing accordingly ... Following a profitable growth strategy, they are controlling costs while introducing new products, increasing sales from existing customers, and leveraging data to make smarter business decisions."

In recent conversations with a few of my Cisco colleagues who happen to be 20+yr Manufacturing / OT (Operations Technology) veterans, these industry gurus describe how they counsel manufacturing clients during the transitional holiday season.Steve Gansenpoints out that for many companies, budgets need to be expended this calendar year-end ('use it or lose it'), which presents a great opportunity to change the prioritization for projects. "Many of my customers see this as an opportunity to reprioritize projects and drive budget to improve R&D or product engineering and offerings." (His comments reminded me of the Sub-Zero's innovative investments in their product development, NPI and processes.)

Jim Fledderjohn and Dwayne Edwardsadd that there are other considerations for a variety of Internet of Things (IoT) proof-of-concept (PoC) projects for production environments and engineering programs that present incremental, re-directional opportunities at year-end. From video surveillance to energy management, to factory wireless and plant virtualization, there are many compelling use cases that can be easily 'piloted' to deliver immediate business outcomes and measurable ROI. In fact, an option recently announced at Automation Fair is Cisco Services Factory Starter Kit, a fast-track, turnkey PoC package of wireless capabilities for your plant environments.

Jim further describes, "Piloting an IoT project on a small scale lets manufacturers test out a concept in their environment and puts them in a better position to win budget and additional investment in 2015." Particularly in the US-where according to the latest ISM Report On Business for November, the manufacturing sector expanded for the 18^thconsecutive month-momentum in the industry just keeps building. And considering manufacturing technologies that include embedded intelligence and IoT, according to the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), orders for 2014 are showing growth of >5%.

Are YOU planning end-of-the-year investments in IoT? Let us know what you think in the comment block below. Thanks for reading.