A recent article in Supply Chain Digest noted that it was Time for Manufacturers to Take Stock of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Strategies. The logic is that M2M — which leverages connectivity to communicate directly with one another — carries the potential to serve as a “game changer” that can dramatically reshape a company and how it goes to market.

Done right, M2M could enable companies and their customers to make faster and better decisions as there would be real time visibility into the status of each machine and production line it is part of. It will allow the development of closed-loop applications and processes where decisions can be transmitted and the results retrieved to verify the implementation of those decisions. It could reduce service costs as real-time monitoring of systems will indicate when preventative maintenance is required and could also reduce fuel expenses associated with fleet management.

It’s certainly something worth looking into if your production costs are high.