One of the earliest pioneers in what is now called the IoT is the oil and gas industry. With advances in the IoT technology, oil wells can more easily connect sensors located throughout the well. Data readings can also be sampled more frequently, every 30 seconds as an example.

In combination with edge analytics on sensor data, companies can do things such as optimize the oil well plunger lift cycle. As reported in an Intel industry article, this can increase the production up to 30 percent. Edge analytics refers to applied analytics that operate either on the device itself or at a nearby device that supports a hub of units. The analytic processing occurs at multiple locations at the boundary of the network or the edge, versus occurring at a centralized location.

The same information is used by companies to optimize their asset portfolio management. They can reuse the data to rank wells by production efficiency.