Gartner defines the asset performance management (APM) software market as the software and applications that optimize the reliability and availability of industrial operational assets. The market is particularly attractive to asset-intensive industries, including power, utilities, manufacturing, oil and gas, natural resources, telcos, and transportation (excluding aviation, which has specialized requirements). In these industries, asset failure can have a significant impact on service delivery, the bottom-line revenue, and safety and reputation. APM is primarily deployed on industrial assets, including fixed industrial plants and equipment, linear assets or infrastructure, fleets, and facilities.
Enterprise asset management (EAM) is a business application used most comprehensively by asset-intensive industries to execute, track and optimize inspections, maintenance and repair of industrial plants and equipment. Examples of these industries are heavy discrete and process manufacturing industries, oil and gas, rail, and power and utilities. An alternative term used for EAM is “computerized maintenance management system (CMMS),' which generally consists of small-scale, single-site applications with less functionality around parts management and resource scheduling.
The global industrial IoT platform delivers multiple integrations to industrial OT assets and other asset-intensive enterprises’ industrial data sources to aggregate, curate and deliver contextualized insights that enable intelligent applications and dashboards through an edge-to-cloud architecture. The global industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform market exists because of the core capabilities of integrated middleware software that support a multivendor marketplace of intelligent applications to facilitate and automate asset management decision making. IIoT platforms also provide operational visibility and control for plants, infrastructure and equipment. Common use cases are augmentation of industrial automation, remote operations, sustainability and energy management, global scalability, IT/operational technology (OT) convergence, and product servitization of industrial products.
Manufacturing process management (MPM) and model-based manufacturing (MbM) bridge the gap between the virtual design realm and the physical product/process manufacturing realm as part of an organized software architecture. These technologies are not only applied within the four walls of a plant or a corporation's multiple manufacturing sites. They can be applied holistically, with workflow to manage multiple recipe variants and labeling change/requirements, and/or handle certificates of compliance (CoCs) and certificates of analysis (CoAs) from suppliers.
Gartner defines manufacturing execution systems as a specialist class of production-oriented software that manages, monitors and synchronizes the execution of real-time physical processes involved in transforming raw materials into intermediate and/or finished goods. These systems coordinate the execution of work orders with production scheduling and enterprise-level systems like ERP, product life cycle management and quality management systems. MES applications also provide feedback on process performance, and support component and material-level traceability, genealogy and integration with process history, where required.
The meter data management systems (MDMS) market is used by utility companies in the electricity, gas, water and thermal sectors to support metered commodity measurement at customer premises. This data is used for billing, customer service, consumption management (forecast and demand), operations (outages and losses) and finance. Other buyers of MDMS products include energy service companies for audits and efficiency projects; energy management providers for consumption reporting; outsourced or local energy providers for production planning and engineering; and commercial and industrial users for accounting and finance. Additionally, municipalities and government agencies use MDMS products for public works and regulatory compliance. MDMS are essential IT components of advanced meter infrastructures that facilitate the meter-to-cash process by collecting and managing consumption data for utility services such as electricity, water, gas and thermal energy. MDMS collect meter data; apply validation, estimation and error corrections; and store and process the data into billing determinants based on the customer’s product before sending it to a billing engine. MDMS can support various analytics use cases, including consumption profiles, trends, alerts, revenue protection and basic meter asset management. It can be delivered through on-premises or cloud-based solutions, enabling real-time data access and analytics that enhance operational efficiency and customer engagement.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) Software is a digital solution designed to monitor, analyze and optimize manufacturing processes by calculating the OEE metric - a key performance indicator that measures how effectively production equipment is utilized. It tracks three core components: availability (downtime vs planned production time), performance (operating speed relative to maximum potential), and quality (defect free output vs total production). By integrating with machinery via IoT sensors, PLCs, or manual data inputs, it collects real time data to automatically compute OEE, offering visibility into inefficiencies such as unplanned stoppages, speed losses, or defects. It transforms raw data into actionable insights through dashboards, reports and alerts, enabling manufacturing to identify bottlenecks, prioritize maintenance, and streamline operations. Ultimately OEE Software empowers organizations to reduce waste, enhance productivity, and align with lean manufacturing principles by turning operational data into measurable improvement in equipment utilization and overall production efficiency.
Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software is essential for industries such as manufacturing, energy and utilities, transportation etc. to control the processes, collect & monitor real-time data, and communicate system issues. The software communicates with devices such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) to interact with industrial equipment and processes. SCADA software can be run virtually, which allows the operator to supervise the industrial processes even from a distant location. The software provides real-time data insights through Human Machine Interface (HMI) to maximize efficiency, reduce overhead costs, and streamline operations. The software also warns the operator of any hazardous conditions such as blocked processes and failing systems.