With the price of sensor technology dropping, manufacturers are designing and delivering more Internet of Things enabled smart products and assets than ever before. As the technology moves its way further along the adoption curve, IoT hype is giving way to real-world IoT implementations. Today we are well past the proof of concept stage. The time for IoT is NOW.– and with real-world IoT implementations proceeding apace, we can now see the vision of Industry 4.
With IoT driving Industry 4.0 forward, machines and business processes are now interacting without human intervention – freeing enterprises to focus on business outcomes. This is enabling organizations to increase business automation, improve business agility, and enhance the customer experience. The rise of applications and platforms capable of bringing in vast amounts of big data from connected devices via the cloud is a major step forward in this regard. But what about cases in which no connection is available? And what about cases where low latency is key?
With IoT data coming from assets in the field, for example, companies using augmented analytics and machine learning can predict machine maintenance requirements and take action to prevent downtime – otherwise known asBut this is just a starting point. Incoming data can yield valuable information on how customers use the assets, and what they expect moving forward. Leading companies are using this data to dramatically improve the customer experience.