For many years, energy consumption was considered primarily a secondary metric compared with industrial production.
Today, this is no longer the case.
Rising energy costs, growing attention to operational efficiency, and the need to improve sustainability are driving more and more manufacturing companies to demand detailed visibility into what is happening across their production lines.
This shift is also changing the role of machine builders, who are being called upon not only to provide reliable, high-performance technologies, but also tools capable of turning operational data into useful information for decision-making.
Why OEMs Need Real-Time Energy Data
In the industrial sector, a machine is no longer seen solely as a production asset. It is becoming a continuous source of information:
- energy consumption
- process parameters
- operational performance
- usage data
- efficiency indicators
The real value, however, does not lie simply in collecting data, but in making it accessible, contextualized, and easy to interpret.
For this reason, more and more OEMs are integrating monitoring and data collection capabilities directly into their machine architectures.
Industrial Energy Management and Operational Cost Control
In many industrial sectors, energy costs now represent an increasingly significant share of total production costs.
This is leading companies and end users to demand:
- greater visibility into energy consumption
- historical data
- correlation between energy use and production
- tools to identify inefficiencies
- support for sustainability initiatives
The ability to visualize energy consumption and operating costs in real time makes it possible to turn technical information into practical tools for improving plant management.
In this context, energy monitoring is no longer simply an additional feature, but an increasingly integrated part of industrial digitalization strategies. And this is exactly the strategic thought of our estimated customer Ferraro.
Remote Monitoring and IIoT Platforms for Machine Builders
At the same time, the growing adoption of IIoT platforms and cloud services is redefining the relationship between OEMs and end customers.
Remote access to machine data makes it possible to develop:
- structured remote assistance
- proactive support
- continuous monitoring
- data-driven services
- new business opportunities
For machine builders operating across internationally distributed installations, this means being able to provide greater operational continuity and a higher level of service compared with traditional models.
How Industrial Data Enables New Servitization Models
Many machine builders are discovering that the value of a machine no longer ends at the point of sale.
The availability of operational data opens the way to new service models based on:
- continuous monitoring
- advanced support
- performance analysis
- process optimization
- value-added digital services
A concrete example comes from Ferraro, which integrated energy monitoring, data collection, and remote access into its machines, turning operational information into added value for the end customer.
These digital applications were made possible by an automation standardization process that enabled machine control, HMI, and connectivity to be centralized within a single scalable architecture.
Learn more about how this evolution was approached from the automation perspective in the dedicated article.
The Future of IIoT Platforms and Industrial Energy Management
In the coming years, industrial data management will become increasingly central for OEMs and manufacturers.
Digital platforms will no longer be simply supervisory tools, but key elements for:
- improving operational efficiency
- supporting energy sustainability
- simplifying service activities
- developing new digital services
- extracting value from data throughout the machine lifecycle
For this reason, more and more machine builders are moving toward ecosystems capable of natively integrating machines, data, and connectivity.
