Industrial IoT is Not the Future, But the Present
In 2020 more and more businesses are moving towards Industrial Internet of Things adoption with the aim of boosting efficiency and technological advance. Here is what you need to know if you consider IIoT an option for your business, too.
Where is IIoT being adopted?
While Industrial Internet of Things is gaining popularity, early adopters mainly come from the manufacturing industry, oil and gas, and building & transportation sectors. A significant number of them put focus on plans for connecting devices and equipment or data monitoring and control.
Although such projects are reported to have a great impact on businesses, they are still far from using the full potential of IoT in engineering. For example, according to machinedesign.com, less than 30% of the companies take steps to automation after collecting sufficient data in real-time monitoring. However, most of them are optimistic about IIoT and plan for increasing investment in the near future.
What’s the purpose?
Implementation of IIoT goes through several stages with the greatest efficiency being achieved at the last ones. Usually, the journey starts with the device connectivity and transmission of data which is stored for analysis. Later on, with real-time monitoring, the data is being used to bring awareness for equipment status and to suggest business process refinement. At the next stage data analytics enables insights, prediction and optimization thanks to machine learning and AI. Then comes the automation process across different internal systems followed by the stage that brings the highest efficiency and includes the processing of data on the connected devices or equipment. The last one is also known as edge computing.
Where to start from?
Businesses still feel unsure about IIoT and the best way to adopt it. Here are some useful guidelines on where to start from and how to make the most of it:
- Once you connect to the machines, you can use it in multiple tools
Be aware of the most common uses of IIoT and estimate its potential for your business. Some popular examples for applications of IIoT are inventory planning, energy consumption, preventive or predictive maintenance, batch optimization and some more.
- Make use of all this data
Bear in mind that with IIoT several devices are connected to monitoring systems and sensors gathering a large amount of information. Make sure that you or end-users will be able to use all of it and take real advantage of the project implementation.
- Bring this information to business
The combination of information technology and operation technologies is what sets the bright future for IIoT. Ensuring ways to correlate information for different business processes could lead to reduced cost or time for manufacturing, and generally optimized production cycles.
- You need a good network
Take care of your network security and stability. With IoT solutions, you will usually handle a significant amount of data and a greater number of users. Here is why you need to keep your network up-to-date.
- Make the data accessible
So far IIoT tools were focused on providing the solution, UX was not on the table. However, it is already time to think about it. It is important to make the data accessible for end-users and to make the system easy to use.
- Go to the cloud
Try to collect as much as more information online, so none of the interested users would not miss it or would not miss contributing to it. Good data is useless if it is accessible and therefore is not being used.
- Find the right partner
Consult with a specialized IoT solutions provider to make sure of the right choice for an implementation method or technology.
- Keep up with the trends
Observe and identify actual improvements that result from IIoT adoption. Only when you know that the systems have an impact on your costs, schedule and business processes, then you will be able to estimate the benefits of Industrial IoT and move on with the next stage of adoption.