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Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), which now has 180 members in 26 countries, had its summer conference last week in GE Research facility in Niskayuna, NY. The event was sold-out with 500 people registered. Two activities occurred concurrently – the conference with presentations and an IIC Members Quarterly meeting.
IIC’s objective is to accelerate growth of the Industrial Internet by identifying, assembling and promoting best practices. Various organizations and technologies are brought together through its membership which comprises emerging and established companies, universities and governments.
The conference contained a series of presentations in an open forum for sharing strategies, insights, ideas, case stories, and practices. The quarterly meeting comprised of working committees for:
Highlights from the Conference Presentations
In his conference presentation, Keith Marzullo, Director of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program (NITRD) defined IoT as intelligent machines and services, big data, and human interactions. He made the case for the industrial internet being an international activity that can break-down boarders. Joe Salvo, Director of the Industrial Internet Consortium and Director GE Global Research continued this theme stating, “the Industrial Internet will be a revolution; an international revolution. IoT will improve productivity and lift the world to a higher standard of living.”
Roger Pilc, EVP and Chief Innovation Officer, Pitney Bowes provided a case story about its implementation of Industrial IoT (IIoT). Pitney Bowes has transformed from a postage meter company to an innovative product and service provider with IoT. It uses IIoT to better serve its customers. For field service, it uses GE Predix to monitor the condition of its machines and improve mean time to repair. In production, Pitney Bowes uses Predix to collect information about the machines it is making before they ship. This information is used to optimize production and to provide an as-built record to support field service.
Brian McCarson, Senior Principal Engineer, Intel Corporation noted that “Computing has become cheap enough where it has become ubiquitous.” He did raise a concern that “the ‘trough of disillusion’ for IoT will occur when security breaches happen. We must address security.” He encouraged using distributed computing to identify a threat at the point of entrance of the threat. Brian then discussed using test beds to prove concepts in the IIC’s Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA).
Chris O’Connor, General Manager, IBM Internet of Things stated that “IoT is transformative unlocking new revenue, new processes and new business models.” He made the point that the vast majority of data is not used. But, “Every industry is racing to use the data in ‘the bit bucket on the floor’.” He described four foundations of IoT:
Chris used the example of an average aircraft with 6 million parts from 3 thousand suppliers to drive home his point. He noted, “An aircraft that has good maintenance and supply records is worth 25% more.”
Paul Didier, Solutions Architect Manager, Systems Internet of Things Group, Cisco stated, “Industrial IoT is much bigger than devices. For businesses, it is transformative and disruptive.” He continued, “More things you have, the more difficult it is to maintain reliability. That’s one reason why we need IoT systems.” Cisco teamed with Fanuc America for predictive maintenance of its robots at customer sites to make repairs before a failure occurs.
Mobeen Khan, Executive Director, Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T Business Solutions provided an interesting case story about an OEM of ovens used in fast-food restaurants. Each menu item has its cooking recipe stored in the oven. The restaurant chain used to have technicians visit each site to load the recipes via an USB port. By adding IoT to the ovens, the chain can download recipes for the new menu items via the internet. This lowers costs, reduces quality issues do to outdated recipes, and speeds introduction of new products.
Bill King, Chief Technology Officer at the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute at UI LABS noted that, “Manufacturing generates more data for IoT than any other sector of the economy by far.” This occurs across the lifecycle of the product. He continued that the business case for IIoT involves cost reduction or revenue increase. “Mfg. on the brink of a digital disruption which will transform the sector over the next 10 yrs.”
IIC’s objective is to accelerate growth of the Industrial Internet by identifying, assembling and promoting best practices. Various organizations and technologies are brought together through its membership which comprises emerging and established companies, universities and governments.
The conference contained a series of presentations in an open forum for sharing strategies, insights, ideas, case stories, and practices. The quarterly meeting comprised of working committees for:
- New industry use cases and testbeds for real-world applications
- Reference architecture and frameworks necessary for interoperability
- Influence standards process for internet and industrial systems;
- Consider and adopt approaches to security
Highlights from the Conference Presentations
In his conference presentation, Keith Marzullo, Director of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program (NITRD) defined IoT as intelligent machines and services, big data, and human interactions. He made the case for the industrial internet being an international activity that can break-down boarders. Joe Salvo, Director of the Industrial Internet Consortium and Director GE Global Research continued this theme stating, “the Industrial Internet will be a revolution; an international revolution. IoT will improve productivity and lift the world to a higher standard of living.”
Roger Pilc, EVP and Chief Innovation Officer, Pitney Bowes provided a case story about its implementation of Industrial IoT (IIoT). Pitney Bowes has transformed from a postage meter company to an innovative product and service provider with IoT. It uses IIoT to better serve its customers. For field service, it uses GE Predix to monitor the condition of its machines and improve mean time to repair. In production, Pitney Bowes uses Predix to collect information about the machines it is making before they ship. This information is used to optimize production and to provide an as-built record to support field service.
Brian McCarson, Senior Principal Engineer, Intel Corporation noted that “Computing has become cheap enough where it has become ubiquitous.” He did raise a concern that “the ‘trough of disillusion’ for IoT will occur when security breaches happen. We must address security.” He encouraged using distributed computing to identify a threat at the point of entrance of the threat. Brian then discussed using test beds to prove concepts in the IIC’s Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA).
Chris O’Connor, General Manager, IBM Internet of Things stated that “IoT is transformative unlocking new revenue, new processes and new business models.” He made the point that the vast majority of data is not used. But, “Every industry is racing to use the data in ‘the bit bucket on the floor’.” He described four foundations of IoT:
- Industry specific transformation
- Applications and solutions
- Platforms
- Devices and networks
Chris used the example of an average aircraft with 6 million parts from 3 thousand suppliers to drive home his point. He noted, “An aircraft that has good maintenance and supply records is worth 25% more.”
Paul Didier, Solutions Architect Manager, Systems Internet of Things Group, Cisco stated, “Industrial IoT is much bigger than devices. For businesses, it is transformative and disruptive.” He continued, “More things you have, the more difficult it is to maintain reliability. That’s one reason why we need IoT systems.” Cisco teamed with Fanuc America for predictive maintenance of its robots at customer sites to make repairs before a failure occurs.
Mobeen Khan, Executive Director, Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T Business Solutions provided an interesting case story about an OEM of ovens used in fast-food restaurants. Each menu item has its cooking recipe stored in the oven. The restaurant chain used to have technicians visit each site to load the recipes via an USB port. By adding IoT to the ovens, the chain can download recipes for the new menu items via the internet. This lowers costs, reduces quality issues do to outdated recipes, and speeds introduction of new products.
Bill King, Chief Technology Officer at the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute at UI LABS noted that, “Manufacturing generates more data for IoT than any other sector of the economy by far.” This occurs across the lifecycle of the product. He continued that the business case for IIoT involves cost reduction or revenue increase. “Mfg. on the brink of a digital disruption which will transform the sector over the next 10 yrs.”