5 Common Myths about Implementing Industrial IoT

Introduction

For a long time, connectivity barriers have created limits in businesses, leading to the rise of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) which promises a new network of connected technologies that will bring billions and billions of new devices online during the current decade, helping businesses flourish. Today the IIoT industry is primarily focusing on the IIoT industrial applications such as manufacturing, power plants, agriculture, oil, and gas. Despite the need for total digital transformation, the misconceptions are making businesses postpone their IIoT initiatives due to some concern points.

Planning for the worst is fundamental, yet overcalculating the risks and shying away based on false assumptions won’t help. Since there is a lot of confusion about what precisely IIoT is and how it will function exactly in reality, we want to clarify these misconceptions. Here are some key misconceptions about IIoT technology that businesses can reflect to make smart choices.

Here are the Misconceptions about IIoT

Myth 1:  IIoT is only for large manufacturing organizations

Fact: IIoT applies to organizations of all sizes

Many SMEs generally think that IIoT is only for large enterprises. Misconceptions mostly stem from things like small companies may not have sufficient data, capital, and other resources to implement IoT.

In any case, organizations of all sizes can implement IoT solutions. IIoT consulting services, such as Azure IIoT, allow SMEs to build IIoT solutions without the requirement for dedicated IT teams or a comprehensive IoT infrastructure.

Myth 2: IIoT can never be secure

Fact: IoT can be safe and secure.

Due to the misleading information about IoT’s security recently, manufacturing companies argue that it is impossible to secure the technology. Fortunately, many enterprises, security vendors, startups, and device manufacturers are already making IIoT security a priority. In addition, security standards bodies are aggressively developing processes and security frameworks IIoT for secure identification of IIoT. By working and working closely with hardware manufacturers and IoT solution providers, it is possible to design & create secure IIoT devices and ensure secure data transmission between devices

For manufacturing companies, managed security & processes offer incentive to applications and assist production in reducing threats that could pose a risk to secure data movement.

Myth 3: IIoT is only about device connections

Fact: IIoT is all about creating functional data

Connecting multiple devices is the best way to collect device data. Multiple device connections in a manufacturing plant are indeed involved and that is the building block or foundation of lol.

Nonetheless, valuable results from generated real-time data streams can enable actionable insights to improve decision-making. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can utilize actionable insights to schedule preventive maintenance, predict outcomes, and prevent asset & operational failures to better optimize uptime system operation.

Myth 4: Manufacturing industries don’t need IIoT

Fact: Implementing IIoT helps to gain business insights that increase business productivity and operational efficiency.

It’s such a big misunderstanding that even starting to think that manufacturing industries don’t require IIoT. On the contrary, it is this region that needs this technology the most.

Since the multiple manufacturing units are not necessarily located in the same facility, connecting them provides actionable insights to increase efficiency and effectiveness and boost productivity. 

Myth 5: Implementing IIoT for production involves huge costs

Fact: IIoT allows companies to build new revenue streams over the long term.

Perhaps, one of the biggest myths that a manufacturing company can get is that IIoT is costly. For the matter of fact, it is not expensive when looking at a detailed angle and perspective. Investments that include IoT will indeed require funding, yet that is only half the story.

After IIoT implementation, the significant insights harvested from IIoT solutions will ultimately reduce manufacturing costs thereby increasing efficiency and productivity, giving more growth, and increased profits.

Preconfigured IIoT solutions like Azure IIoT Central & Azure IIoT suites and open source software enable manufacturing companies to easily deploy IIoT solutions without using engineering teams/ Dedicated IT or creating an IIoT infrastructure.

Conclusion:

Many manufacturing plants in the US are more than 20 years old. Less than 14% of the machines in the production area are interconnected. That implies they don’t have sensors or monitors that can extract data on how the strain is performing. These older machines are prone to failure and they account for up to $50 billion (annual) in downtime, according to a survey and synthesis by Deloitte US.

The hype surrounding IIoT, leads manufacturers to believe that they must immediately invest in transformative technologies such as machine learning, augmented reality, or artificial intelligence to achieve any efficiency benefits. However, that is in theory versus reality. We say, while manufacturers need to start building a connected platform to extract and leverage data, it doesn’t require a major overhaul overnight.

By leveraging a machine-based platform, many manufacturers are starting to focus on manufacturing centralized management (MES/MOM) – Production management systems help production managers to achieve standardized products and processes, allowing manufacturers to achieve quality goals and meet regulatory requirements. It manages and monitors all production information in real-time and enables best practices to be shared to increase value across the enterprise while reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO). Essentially, MES/MOM will reduce design deviations ensuring that managers can produce the right product – a product that is both competitive and of high quality – at the right time, in the right quantity on budget.