OREANDA-NEWS. August 22, 2016. “The Internet of Things represents a scenario in which every object is embedded with a sensor and is capable of automatically communicating its state with other objects and automated systems within the environment,” writes Badrinath Setlur. “IoT holds immense potential and promise throughout the value chain across multiple segments of the manufacturing and logistics industries ? transportation and logistics, energy and utilities, and automotive.” Excerpts:

“A range of possibilities across core functional and process areas also exists, such as in connected supply chain, plant floor control automation, remote monitoring and management of critical assets, energy management and resource optimization, and proactive maintenance.

These possibilities are only limited by the ability of organizations to derive meaning from the vast amount of granular time-stamped data generated by embedded sensors in products and equipment.

No wonder that organizations are investing in getting things on the Internet, as they see the potential for generating business-critical insight from this data. While the challenges can be overwhelming, the following steps can be taken by organizations to address them:

Step Zero: Analyze sensory architecture and assess the embedded sensors already in products. Benchmark the product configuration with competitive offerings. Assess component/subassembly supplier parts range for embedded sensors. Carry out humans-in-loop evaluation for products and services.

Step 1: Create an IoT vision tailored to the organization. Evaluate ROI based on revenue models, efficiency savings and product dif­ferentiation. Design a blueprint for the organization’s connected ecosystem, including suppliers, dealers, connected workforce and partners. Outline a customer experience design for achieving the IoT vision.

Step 2: Initiate engagement and employee communication. Engage and integrate employees, customers, process owners, operators and partners into the IoT program. Communicate with all stakeholders to solicit feedback on touch-points and po­tential benefits to make it a win-win for all stakeholders involved.

Step 3: Focus on application development and infrastructure. Evaluate potential proliferation of personal connected devices within differ­ent stakeholder communities. Create a BYOD (bring your own device) implementation plan (if one does not already exist), since this helps to prioritize employee-based applications. Decide on a common approach to development and deployment across mul­tiple devices.

Step 4: Drive rapid deployment, monitoring and modification planning and agile and flexible deployment with small, step-by-step implementations.

Step 5: Develop innovative new product features and embedded sensors.

IoT promises a new era of automation and data-enabled decision making to create new business processes and revenue models. The proliferation of low-cost sensors and communication on-cloud/on-premise IoT platforms with networking, computation and analytics capabilities from leading vendors are bringing us closer to the vision of an IoT, where the sensing and actuation functions seamlessly blend into the background and new capabilities are made possible through access to new and rich information sources.”