Manufacturers leveraging observability for AI & IoT advancements

A recent report by New Relic has revealed that manufacturers are increasingly relying on observability to drive advancements in security, artificial intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. The "State of Observability for Industrials, Materials, and Manufacturing" report, based on insights from 285 technology professionals, offers an in-depth analysis of observability adoption and its business impact.

The findings indicate a significant investment in observability technologies to optimise uptime, enhance productivity, promote cross-team collaboration, and facilitate strategic decision-making. Full-stack observability implementation has been linked with a higher return on investment (ROI) for these manufacturers. Notably, 65% of the respondents reported an improvement in their mean time to resolution (MTTR) following the adoption of observability practices.

The primary strategies identified in the report for driving observability adoption include improving security, with 50% of respondents citing it as a key factor, while AI technologies and IoT technologies were also significant drivers, reported by 44% and 43% of respondents respectively.

"As manufacturers across the Asia Pacific region accelerate their digital transformations, they are recognising the critical role of observability in optimising operations and customer experience. Forward-thinking manufacturers are gaining a competitive edge by leveraging full-stack observability to enhance operational efficiency, mitigate risks, and deliver superior customer experiences," said Peter Marelas, Field CTO, APJ at New Relic.

AI and observability are seen as pivotal in providing industry advantages. With the manufacturing sector entering the Fifth Industrial Revolution, there is substantial emphasis on adopting new technologies for competitive gains. Nearly half (44%) of manufacturing organisations surveyed stated that AI technologies were driving their need for observability. The integration of observability and AI offers deeper insights into telemetry data, which is crucial for managing the complexities associated with large data sets. Observability aids in understanding telemetry data, improves MTTR, and helps developers efficiently address code-level errors in their integrated development environments (IDEs). Additionally, it facilitates rapid automation for alerts and improves incident detection and resolution.

Organisations that have achieved full-stack observability report significant improvements in reducing outages. The report highlights that 34% of these organisations saw an improvement in MTTR by 25% or more after adopting observability. Furthermore, these organisations experienced fewer high-business-impact outages, with 30% reporting such outages at least once a week compared to 32% on average. A notable 12% estimated that outages cost their organisations more than USD $1 million per hour, compared to 21% overall.

The report also underscores the productivity benefits of observability. Over half (51%) of manufacturing organisations indicated that observability enhances cross-team collaboration and strategic decision-making. Nearly half (47%) of practitioners noted that observability increases productivity, enabling faster issue identification and resolution.

Mitsuhiro Mabuchi, Ph.D., Group Manager at Toyota Motor Corporation, remarked, "New Relic is a critical component in our DevSecOps cycle. New Relic will allow us to normalise the process of driving continuous application and service improvement through observing the user experience, which is key for any project and moves beyond setting and forgetting after deployment."