The Industrial Internet of Things(IIoT), the use of IoT technologies in manufacturing, presents two fundamental new best practices for the work place.
First, we need to embrace and move toward an environment of connected sensors which gather data about the shop floor environmental conditions, current work, and equipment status. We need to apply our knowledge and perceptions of social media to the shop floor, in which trends and environmental conditions can be continuously monitored and dynamically presented to any user in any location with a mobile device. Data collected from factory equipment can help determine the health of the machinery and identify potential issues. This sort of predictive maintenance can curb lost productivity and potentially extend the life of the factory machinery.
Second, we should look forward to the democratization of data and insights, in which all company personnel can be involved in monitoring and continuously improving processes. Users must demand new solutions that provide access and visibility to data. Technologies that cannot proliferate information and scale across user bases are becoming extinct.
We feel very fortunate that our specialty and focus is aligned to the emerging field of Smart Manufacturing, what some have proclaimed as the fourth industrial revolution, where automation, connectivity, and the Internet of Things meets manufacturing. This is what Factora will continue doing, as we strive to Think Big and Act every day. Indeed, Factora has set out to become the dominant MES provider by 2020.
