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Page 1: What is The Industrial Internet of Things?pages.inductiveautomation.com/rs/966-TUX-261/images/What is The... · What is The Industrial Internet of Things? ... when hand production

Integrator Insight Analysis

What is The Industrial Internet of Things?

800.266.7798www.inductiveautomation.com HMI • SCADA • MES Software

In addition to the technologies and skill sets that were identified in our survey of integrators, an-other development has quickly risen in the public consciousness, causing much speculation and anticipation among technophiles and manufacturing-industry watchers: The Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT may be mostly a concept at this point but it is quickly moving towards becoming a working reality.

A Network of Intelligent Devices The “things” in the Internet of Things are computers, devices, applications, and other physical objects with microprocessors inside them. These “smart” or “intelligent” objects will all be equipped with sensors that collect large amounts of data. These data-collecting objects will also be able to connect with each other, thus forming a wide network of intelligent devices that will increase automation in workplaces and in people’s homes. The application of this technology in the field of manufacturing is referred to as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), machine-to-machine (M2M) technology, or Industry 4.0.

A Manufacturing Revolution According to historians, the world has seen three industrial revolutions. The first industrial revolu-tion occurred in the period between 1760 and 1820, when hand production was replaced by machine production, and factories increased their use of water and steam power. The second industrial revolution occurred between 1840 and 1860, when mass production, railroads, and manufacturing machinery changed how goods were made and transported. The third industrial revolution took place between the late 1950s and the late 1970s, as analog technologies were replaced by digital technologies. Now, a number of analysts are predicting that the IIoT will be the catalyst of the fourth industrial revolution. What might this information-driven industrial revolution look like? We can expect that data will become the main driver of the entire manufacturing process. Every part of the manufacturing process will be linked together, even between multiple factories in different geographical areas. Logistics will become more important than ever, as huge amounts of materials and data are synchronized through a complex global supply chain. Pieces of materials will be accompanied by their data as they travel through the manufacturing process: in the factory of the near future, raw materials could arrive with the information about which products they will be made into and what time they will be made at. Kevin Ashton, the technology pioneer who is credited with creating the term “Internet of Things,” once described the concept this way: “If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things – using data they gathered without any help from us – we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss, and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing, or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best.”

Page 2: What is The Industrial Internet of Things?pages.inductiveautomation.com/rs/966-TUX-261/images/What is The... · What is The Industrial Internet of Things? ... when hand production

Integrator Insight Analysis

800.266.7798www.inductiveautomation.com HMI • SCADA • MES Software

Integrators and the IIoT

The IIoT and other disruptive technology trends will change manufacturing facilities as we know them today. It is quite likely that computing devices will be everywhere, machines will be man-aging themselves and communicating to each other, and connection and collaboration will be indispensable to maintaining a competitive edge. Industrial organizations will need help from control system integrators to make this revolution into a reality. To be successful, integrators will need to have the right tools and skills for making informa-tion available throughout the enterprise. Integrators should strengthen their skills in the areas featured in our integrator survey, which are: MES, PLC programming, SQL, networking, software programming, and SCADA system security. It will also benefit them to work with SCADA and MES software that was designed from the beginning to build smarter, more connected enterprises. Ignition by Inductive Automation is a cross-platform HMI/SCADA/MES software that leverages modern IT technologies, connects with databases, delivers genuine real-time analytics, includes rapid application development tools, and comes with unlimited, server-based licensing. It is SCADA software for our Internet-connected world, which is what integrators and end users need right now and in the future. To learn more about the innovative features of Ignition, visit: inductiveautomation.com/scada-software/