Interview
Talking IIoT with Jeff Winter
We spoke with Jeff Winter, an expert in IIoT and digital transformation, about his view of this industry. He is one of the top thought leaders for Industry 4.0 and sits on the board of about half a dozen industry associations and standards groups.
This article focuses on the importance of IoT, which is very useful in the industrial sector, especially in manufacturing.
The context
An overview of data, IoT and companies
Enterprises are waking up to the wider opportunities that IoT can bring to their organizations.
Most companies include enterprise IoT initiatives in their strategic roadmaps, including initiatives to improve service operations.
According to Domo, an estimated 1.7 MB of data is created every second for every person on earth, and that is nothing compared to what a machine can generate. If a company is not ready to handle and analyze this amount of data, it will never be able to fully appreciate the advantages of IIoT.
IIoT generates a tremendous amount of data. This is why IoT and big data are so intertwined. What does this ultimately get you? Faster and better decision-making.
With IoT, you will:
- increase your productivity;
- improve process efficiencies;
- reduce asset downtime;
- improve product quality;
- reduce operational costs, and much more.
The opportunity
Discovering IoT
According to Analysys Mason, 24% of SMEs are unaware of IoT and 36% are not interested, which is about half of large enterprises.
- 24%
- of SMEs are unaware of IoT
- Analysys Mason
- 36%
- of SMEs are not interested in it
- Analysys Mason
That is an opportunity for the companies that are hesitating. Incorporating IoT into your business does not have to be expensive, and there are many ways of doing it. An IoT platform such as Thinger.io, for example, lets you develop your IoT project to your own specifications, whatever its size.
According to Jeff Winter, now is the right moment to start making these changes in your company:
IoT is here to stay, and the projects have a real ROI and payback, often within 6 months or less.
Costs
Key aspects that will impact costs
Three aspects weigh on the cost of an IIoT project.
Network infrastructure
Security
Cloud computing
On security, the areas to consider include access management, secure execution environments, data encryption and validation, and authentication between sensors, gateways and the software orchestration platform.
Thinger.io runs in the cloud, in a private cloud or on premise. See Security & Operations.
Why projects fail
Why do nearly 70% of IIoT projects fail at the proof of concept?
According to Cisco, in 2017 nearly 70% of IIoT projects failed at the proof of concept stage, despite taking all these factors into consideration.
We asked Jeff why he thinks this happens. In his opinion, there are three main reasons.
Poor overall data strategy
Cultural issues: companies are not ready
The wrong approach
If you need to start an IoT project, go with a company that fits your needs. In many cases, trying to do it by yourself is a waste of time.
Getting started
Tips to start your IoT journey
Start with business objectives
Have a digital transformation strategy
Develop a data strategy
Your digital transformation should focus on the data. Most companies are not prepared to handle that amount of data.
Adoption
Facts you cannot avoid
The adoption of many IoT use cases is on the rise.
- 8
- IoT use cases per company, on average
- IoT Analytics, 2021
- 15
- use cases on average in oil, gas and energy, ahead of the rest
- IoT Analytics, 2021
- 6 of 10
- top IoT use cases are about making operations smart
According to a 2021 IoT Analytics study, the average number of use cases per company is 8, with the exception of the oil, gas and energy industries, which are ahead with an average of 15.
Six of the top 10 IoT use cases today are about making operations smart: improving production processes in manufacturing, enhancing maintenance operations or advancing any other operations.
Our take
Focus on your business, not on reinventing the wheel
After this insightful conversation with Jeff, we could not agree more: if your company does not have the capacity to process and analyze huge amounts of data, you will never see the full potential of these technologies.
If it does, and you are planning to work with IoT, also consider the costs and the optimal way to do it. We strongly recommend Thinger.io as your ready-to-go, scalable cloud infrastructure, which lets you focus on the core of your business rather than reinventing the wheel.
Start your IIoT project on ready-to-go infrastructure
Every plan runs the full Thinger.io platform on a dedicated instance, so your team can work on the data and the business instead of the infrastructure.
