A "perfect storm" of both technology advancements and changing business conditions is emerging leaving many manufacturers at a crossroads of the old and the new: The convergence of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), enhanced Mobility, Cloud, and Big Data and Predictive Analytics is creating revolutionary opportunities for businesses, particularly in the asset intensive industries. Likewise, the generational shift to the millennial workforce is bring certain technological prerequisites to satisfy this tech-savvy demographic.

In this Research Spotlight, LNS Research provides a roadmap for developing Smart Connected Assets to enable new business models for success as the fourth industrial revolution comes into view. Faced with the prospect of being left behind by competitors in their industry, LNS gives recommendations for implementing the technology for Smart Connected Assets to understand:

• Why Smart Connected Assets will break down the hierarchical structures and systems in the enterprise to enable better communication and information gathering
• Why reactive maintenance must be abandoned for today's organization's to keep competitive
• Why companies that are able to measure real-time metrics like mean time to repair exhibit huge improvements in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)