Reduction technical skilled capacity at site, accessing new sites, equipment with limited technical skills “calls for the Industrial Internet of Things”

For the past couple of weeks I have been engaged in opportunities / projects from Coal Seam Gas fields where the expectation is to plug in a well, and the system must self-discover and set up, to farms where the fields are being monitored, the solos and storage vessels being monitors, to cattle waring health senses. With many other applications in between, but all came with two major requirements:

1/ No dependency on technical skilled people on site or close to site, so the system must be plug and play, at a commodity “throw away” price.

2/ Transparency to operational information, and asset health awareness across the value chain, (more than often across different legal companies contributing to product value).

The Industrial Internet of Things, provides the opportunity, as long as it thought through, not just thrown out there. Considerations on:

• Cost and sustainability of devices e.g. the tendency is to go for throw away but with that comes the need to characterize the devices for the situation
• How do you configure and set up the devices with no skill on site, but do it in a sustainable way
• How do you manage 1000s of devices so they are operationally coordinated?
• How do you understand health and availability of devices so you can take action to maintain operational continuity
• That is before you get to the data / information getting to a location that can leverage it.

But this is classic Industrial Internet of Things where we are seeing tiny, simple devices with connectivity, but with a processor with Linux operating system which we can down load and engine provide character for the role, at a cost of less $50, often less $20. No site skill needed to “plug and Play” and enable the device now the opportunities are coming real and immense.

I found this diagram summed up the opportunity and obstacles well:

What hit me was the two obstacle of:

• ·         Insufficient skills of technology staff.
• ·         Use of Legacy Systems

But the IIOT must resolve these by providing edge devices that do not need technical skills on site, and can connect and enable legacy equipment to integrate. But the IIOT service fabric must provide the expertise and capability to remotely enable devices with the required character.

The more and more I look places that where not enabled at all, transforming to agile efficient business through IIOT being applied in Industrie 4.0 logic.

Perfect example was this week when I visit a person who had 2 dairy farms that he has to transform the value he is delivering beyond just milk to the service he can deliver and good “gate margin”. He has now got his paddocks with moisture senses in them using devices that last 10 years and cost less than $10 to connect a year, to trucks, and vehicles all being monitored. All the cows are being wired up for health awareness, and the milk capture and processing is being monitored. But he does not have a PC on plant, all the data goes to the cloud and he can have eyes for decisions across the two dairies as if they were one. He had a strategy to align two properties look for the “edge” but now you have typical location that was not automated now Information driven. But not with more people, and the cost in opex so he can budget it into his “gate Margin”.

But he has a strategy and took and an opportunity, which he is still on journey. The fact that only 25% of companies in the above survey had an IIOT is indicative of the market not really understanding the opportunity, which will become a requirement to survive in the future. The key is it is not about IIOT it is just one of the enablers, it is the requirement to become “hyper agile” in a dynamic world.