Feb 25 2025
Meta Description: IoT in manufacturing and IoT in agriculture is the driving force behind the transformation of these industries - and our article breaks it down in detail.
The Internet of Things remains one of the most popular technologies among businesses in manufacturing and agriculture industries. According to McKinsey, the global spending of IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) will reach $500 billion in 2025, and the agriculture IoT market will grow to $16.77 billion in 2025 as per the Business Research Company. These numbers clearly indicate that companies recognize the value of IoT and are willing to reorganize their processes to make them more technology-driven.
But in order to adopt new technology, it is important to understand its potential value for your business. Below, we discuss how exactly IoT in agriculture and IoT in manufacturing impact the way these industries function and what tangible benefits they can deliver to businesses.
You might have heard of the term “smart farming” - but did you know that it’s directly related to the use of IoT in agriculture? Let’s break it down. Smart farming refers to the use of technology for data-driven farm management. The main goal of smart farming technology is to increase the quality and quantity of produced goods while optimizing costs, energy consumption, and human labor. This can be achieved through constant collection of various data, like soil acidity, air humidity, and even state of the cattle. And guess what - all this data is usually collected with the help of IoT sensors and IoT development services by SoftTeco to form tech-driven smart farming solutions. Hence, smart farming is closely linked, though not limited, to the Internet of Things.
Other agriculture technology examples are:
So what do farmers do with all this data and how exactly does IoT help them improve efficiency while cutting costs? Here, we list the biggest use cases of IoT in agriculture:
IoT sensors, installed in the greenhouse, can perform several important tasks. First, they help monitor if the humidity and temperature are at required levels and can notify farmers immediately if these levels change. Second, the changes in humidity and temperature can trigger automatic spraying to bring the metrics back to normal. In this case, IoT and automation work hand in hand, freeing farmers from the need to manually manage routine greenhouse activities.
Another big advantage of smart farming IoT is data collection from livestock (location, temperature, heartbeat) and crops (soil acidity, humidity, etc.). Same as with greenhouse management, IoT sensors can monitor the state of your livestock and crops and immediately alarm you in case of an emergency or an issue.
With livestock, the sensors constantly monitor the vitals of the animals, thus allowing farmers to take better care of the animals’ health. The farmers can also remotely monitor the location of the cattle and even keep track of its preferred grazing spots.
As for the crops management, smart sensors can help monitor the state of the soil, set up smart and automated irrigation, and help farmers always know the state of the crops. Among other agricultural technology examples is computer vision that helps farmers detect crop diseases without manual inspection.
One more use case for IoT in agriculture is predictive maintenance. The costs of repairing damaged or outdated equipment are quite high so farmers do their best to manage arising issues in the beginning. Better, farmers try preventing these issues and IoT aids them greatly.
By placing sensors on the machinery, farmers can always know about its state and get notified if any metrics become uncommon or alarming. This can be monitored through oil analysis, level of vibration, and other important indicators.
Now let’s turn our attention to the use of Internet of Things in the manufacturing industry. Similar to agriculture, IoT in manufacturing helps control the equipment, monitor the assets, and automate certain processes. Here are the main IoT use cases in manufacturing:
Proper and timely maintenance of equipment is critical for any industry, but especially for manufacturing. Smart sensors help identify occurring issues, remotely monitor the state of machinery, and immediately alarm employees if any machine needs attention.
Another highly valuable benefit of using IoT in manufacturing is effective and remote asset tracking and optimized inventory management. Here are several examples of tasks that IoT sensors perform:
By always knowing what exact goods are available and their state is, manufacturers can avoid surplus or understock, maintain proper warehousing environment, and speed up the whole production and delivery process.
With the help of IoT, companies can also improve their quality control - here is how. By placing sensors on the equipment, manufacturers can monitor such parameters as heat, vibration, temperature during the production process. Naturally, any deviation from the norm will alarm employees and they can immediately check if the production process remains within the defined standards. As well, manufacturers can place sensors on the produced components to double-check its correct positioning during the assembly process.
The production floor can be quite dangerous so it’s critical that business owners ensure the highest level of safety. IoT can help a lot through monitoring the air quality, temperature, and other important indicators. So in case of any danger, employees can be notified immediately and leave the dangerous area.
All these points above lead to the ultimate advantage of using IoT in manufacturing, which is optimization of processes and increased efficiency. Because manufacturers can monitor the production floor and other departments 24/7, it becomes easier to timely detect issues and malfunctions while also automating certain processes. As a result, the whole production process becomes safer, more efficient, and automated.
While IoT indeed brings lots of benefits to the agriculture and manufacturing industries, its adoption should be planned in advance and in full correspondence with your current work environment and available resources. Here are the main things to pay attention to:
Remember: before adopting any new technology, it’s vital to define how exactly it will benefit you, what current pain points it will resolve, and how. Also, we recommend partnering with a reliable software company who has experience in IoT development and implementation to ensure everything goes smoothly and in a secure and timely manner.
Tell us what you need and we'll get back to you right away.