Industrial Internet of Things, Essential Support Systems and A Few Difficult Questions

 

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) is a technology that enables real-time monitoring of people, any assets, or products. All that information needs to flow to other essential systems so that it benefits the organization. Those systems typically include:

-          Computerized Maintenance and Management Systems (CMMS)

-          Asset Management Systems (APM)

-          Predictive Maintenance Systems (PDM)

-          Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)

-          Distributed Control Systems (DCM)

-          Etc.

Over the past several decades, vendors of automation systems introduced many types of automation management systems. There are many legacy systems in operation today. In many cases, the integration of those systems with IIOT is going to be more costly than building new systems from scratch.

A successful transformation requires clarity when it comes to ROI. In today’s uncertain legislative, economic, and political environment, a reliable calculation or ROI might not be possible. Strong and visionary leadership might be necessary. But then, several questions might not be easy to answer even if perfect managerial practices are in place.

First, is it possible to train and hire the workforce that will be supporting and working with the new technology? Based on my experience, industrial systems are evolving towards a more user-friendly operation. But my belief is often shaken when I spend days trying to troubleshoot a system only to find out that my documentation is wrong. IIOT will exponentially increase the complexity and maintenance needs of the systems. Back end data processing under the umbrella of SCADA or DCM or anything else will need AI algorithms, SQL and NoSQL data solutions, security, and many other components. By the time IIOT is in the mainstream, we will probably need blockchain to ensure consistency and continuity of data and applications. I’m not sure how academia, consulting organizations, and vendors can prepare the workforce for this impressive mixture of complexity.

Secondly, technological maturity is a known problem. The success rate of organizational adoptions is correlated with how mature the technology is. The risk is steep at the beginning. Currently, IIOT is a hot topic in the media, and it usually means that it is a new and insufficiently tested idea containing advanced software and machinery. I have seen cases in which network security people rejected specific networking solutions for new automation hardware, rightfully citing untested and undocumented features that they discovered. It is not a big secret that sometimes pieces of equipment come with surprises when it comes to cybersecurity, application programming interfaces, or other characteristics.

This post was inspired by my recent reading of the https://www.automationworld.com/ portal. The articles often go very deep into cutting edge technologies. It is difficult not to be excited to read about new waves of hardware and software. But sometimes, I wonder if too much of a good thing is what we need at this time…