In a recent article for Manufacturing Digital,"Cisco highlights Internet of Everything potential in 2014," the manufacturing industry has been touted as a one of the top sectors benefitting from the Internet of Everything (IoE) and Internet of Things (IoT) trends. Along these lines, I recently discussed the transformative power of IoT in manufacturing in a blog on this Cisco IoE blog,Making Smarter Manufacturing and IoT a Reality Today.  It's becoming apparent to me that the propensity of leading analyst and press coverage around these topics is evolving beyond far-off visioning or thought-provoking industry trend discussions into the practical exchange of ideas and experiences around real-life scenarios and applications for the production environment, supply chain, voice of customer (VoC) and all the critical business interests of a typical manufacturer.Manufacturingis leading a charge to create the next generation of real-time,connected and smart factories, integrated supply chains, in-context collaboration and work flows for global design teams and more, and IoE is a critical building block for the transformation of these business processes to excite greater revenues and profitability.

On the subject of VoC and design flows, you may have seen a TV commercial from Cisco illustrating the very real example of how IoE is transforming product innovation in manufacturing.  While the example scenario in this ad may seem fanciful, what is truly exciting is that the technology and capabilities for this use case exist today and are being leveraged by savvy manufacturers now. It's remarkable that when products, design, supply and production are connected very directly to the customer, manufacturing business is really taken to the next level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIQd6ZFMaTk

Earlier this week, I participated with a manufacturing customer advisory group, where line of business (LoB) senior executives from a variety of global automotive, consumer packaged goods, machinery and equipment and life sciences manufacturing companies exchanged insights on the business imperatives that are driving their focused investments. With the sustained momentum and positive economic outlook in 2014 for the industry, global manufacturers are clearly reemphasizing and refocusing their strategic execution around the longer-term differentiators of product, business model and process innovation. It's also clear that, like the example illustrated with the 'Sneaker Ad' above, best-in-class manufacturers are leveraging IoE to advance their offering portfolios and to balance between sustaining and disruptive innovations.

What are your thoughts about manufacturing as a driving sector for IoE and IoT? We'd love to hear from you! Please share your manufacturing value chain examples and business scenario use cases that are driving your adoption in your particular production environment.