Just been reading a report on the Industrial Internet of Things from the World Economic Forum. For those who are interested the report can be downloaded from here.
A really interesting report covering a lot of the aspects of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT).
A few highlights from the report:
The adoption path and impact of the IIOT
- Operational Efficiency
- New Products & Services
- Outcome Economy
- Autonomous Pull Economy
Every company in Chemicals has been looking ant & improving OEE for a large number of years so at least we can say as a industry we are at stage 1. But with the increasing connectivity and the ability to analyze the data that is being collected, we can do a lot better that we have been doing
Some of the companies I deal with are starting to look at how new products and services can be created using the information from IIOT to generate new solutions and service. Companies are even looking at "leasing" chemicals.
Additionally some companies have already start addressing the Outcome Economy by looking at pay per performance. Dow Poly-Carb introduced Pay-for-Performance Warranty Striping in New Mexico in 2002
So within Chemicals we have examples of most of the adoption path and its impact. However, the report says that 79% of the respondents indicate that “optimizing asset utilization” is a “very to extremely important” driver for adoption of IIOT, and that 74% say the same thing about creating alternative revenue streams through new products and services. So we are still most at the initial stages of the adoption.
What I did find interesting were the barriers to the adoption of IIOT.
- Lack of interoperabilty standards
- Security
- Uncertain ROI
- Legacy Equipment
- Technology Immaturity
- Privacy Concerns
- Lack of Skilled Workers
- Societal Concerns
I fully expected the concern around standards and security as you a can hardly pick up a news paper with seeing an article on a security breach and lack of standardization has plagued the IT industry as long as I have been work (too long). And the lack of connectivity of legacy equipment has been know for years as chemical companies fit / retro fit sensors and monitors into the various processes, was not a surprise. But the concern around the lack of skilled workers does surprise me as this would be one area that the new generation of worker would find appealing, what this being the bleeding edge of manufacturing. Could it be that manufacturing itself is not in vogue anymore.
There is also a very nice piece of the report on Outcome based Agriculture on page 19, but I will let you read that yourself.
Happy reading
