A Survey of Industry Professionals on the Transition to Industry 5.0: Perceptions on IoT Role in Operational Excellence

Combining quantitative surveys of 150 experts with qualitative case studies, this research uses a mixed-methods approach to explore how industry professionals see the influence of the Internet of Things (IoT) on operational excellence (OpEx) and competitiveness throughout the transition to Industry 5.0. While noting adoption hurdles, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the study’s goals include evaluating IoT’s role in process automation, data-driven decision-making, and sustainability. The research used Spearman’s correlation (\u03c1 = 0.76, p < 0.05) to test hypotheses using a cross-sectional design using non-probabilistic sampling across manufacturing (30%), logistics (25%), healthcare (20%), and information technology (15%) sectors. Although notable adoption differences exist (SMEs 25% vs big enterprises 82%), key findings show that 75% of users see quantifiable OpEx benefits via predictive maintenance and quality control automation. Particularly stressing SME accessibility via modular solutions and worker upskilling, the study finds that IoT is a strategic differentiator in Industry 5.0 when applied via staged frameworks addressing technological, organizational, and human elements. Among the suggestions are creating uniform interoperability standards, government-backed IoT adoption initiatives for SMEs, and living laboratories for ongoing innovation. While considering cybersecurity and ethical concerns of industrial IoT ecosystems, future studies could use longitudinal designs to monitor IoT’s total cost of ownership and explore 5G-edge computing synergies. Received: 26 March 2025 | Revised:12 June 2025 | Accepted: 23 June 2025 Conflicts of Interest The author declares that he has no conflict of interest in this work. Data Availability Statement Data sharing does not apply to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study Author Contribution Statement Gabriel Silva-Atencio: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.