IIoT for Management Consultants

By Praveen Gupta

An Industrial Internet of Things primer for operations leaders, business advisors and management consultants.

 

This book provides an IoT assessment and solutioning model that non-technical business leaders and management consultants could utilize to advise industries in their automation journey. It would help you or your client drive towards digitally enabled automated operations, while leaving out the technical details in the hands of suppliers who would eventually execute the automation plan. The book has less of IoT technology and implementation specifics for which we have plenty of technical literature, but has more on identifying business opportunities for IoT based transformations, and defining a roadmap driving the change.

This is a book for beginners. The reader of this book does not need competence in software programming or in hardware, though this book should provide a good understanding of the available IoT platform solutions, their capabilities and applicability in various industrial scenarios.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Unwired Digital
• Release date: Sep 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201226916

Praveen Gupta

Praveen Gupta is a transformation consultant and digital evangelist with a hands-on approach to management consulting. He has been assisting companies in manufacturing, logistics and FMCG sectors define their IoT based transformation strategies. Praveen is an Electronics Engineer from IIT BHU, India, and an MBA from IIM Bangalore. He can be found on LinkedIn by the alias guptapraveen

Book preview

How is the automation that we propose to implement using industrial IoT different from the automation which we already have in the industry, using computers and distributed control systems? Computer based industrial automation is not new and has been in prevalence for over 30 years now. The change in recent years is in the way such automation is implemented:

The transfer of computing power from central control rooms to these shop-floor and warehouse end-points means we are no longer restricted from utilizing an automation opportunity due to traditional issues like site restrictions, distance to site, availability of cabling infrastructure, setup cost, etc.

This significant shift in computing power which has made automation portable, distributed and user deployable is what consultants call Industry 4.0, or the fourth generation of industrial revolution.

Here is an attempt to define each generation of industrial revolution in a single line:

Each generation has brought in radical improvements in the way mass-production is handled. The miniaturization and ubiquitous availability of automation at remotely located sites within the larger plant layout makes Industry 4.0 more powerful than any of its predecessors.

Humanizing IoT

Industrial IoT (IIoT) in layman terms is a set of solutions which utilize wireless enabled programmable miniature on-site solutions that have their own eyes, ears and hands in the form of sensors and actuators.

Depending on the industry, IIoT solutions are utilized in various processes like alarm management, feedback control, performance monitoring, energy conservation, asset management, etc. Most industrial IoT components can be seen as being analogous to real-life human roles, as seen in Exhibit 1: Humanizing IoT

In the rest of the book, we will go over various options available for the above roles, the scenarios they are deployed in, and how management consultants can help clients structure and execute an industrial IoT based automation plan.

Exhibit 1: Humanizing IoT

Mine the opportunity

IIoT solutions are better suited for industries which require manual monitoring and control at multiple points or sites. They are like extensions to a Distributed Control System (DCS) and form the leaves of the DCS tree if there is one. Some of the sectors which have successfully utilized IIoT to improve their operational efficiency are Discrete and Process Manufacturing, Transportation, Cold-chain Logistics, Utilities - Gas, Water and Electricity, and Healthcare.

When you see a shop floor or a warehouse where workers or agents are inspecting or counting products, taking weights, measuring temperature, reading out from meters or moving stuff from one place to another – it is likely that you can do it better, faster and cheaper using an IIoT setup, with workers being limited to contingency responsibilities in case of exceptions and system failures.

A major use-case of IoT has been around preventive maintenance, where IoT solutions are used as remote plant-operation inspectors. IoT based devices are attached to various kinds of plant machinery to record vital-statistics like noise, temperature, vibration, etc. on a regular basis. The data is then centrally analyzed to identify any anomalies that could suggest over-wear or a failing machine.

Industrial IoT possibilities are not just limited to industrial sites. IoT has been playing a key role in management of mobile assets of companies, like refrigerated trucks, dumpers, forklifts, etc. It has also been a major driver for remote metering, monitoring and control of public infrastructure and consumer utilities.

Who is my client?

Industrial IoT is a combination of software, hardware and industrial equipment that spans beyond the mandate of any specific CIO or COO. This is why IIoT initiatives rarely see the light of the day unless they have executive sponsorship from the top – by the CEO. Absence of sponsorship across departments is the single biggest cause of failure in adoption of IIoT for automation, so the importance of striking a conversation on industrial automation with the CEO cannot be overstated. The CEO may delegate control to other CxOs, but would still maintain general oversight as the primary sponsor.

Apart from the CEO, COO and CIO who are directly involved in the IIoT automation initiatives, the initiative will require buy-in and efforts from various other stakeholders including the information security office, compliance and corporate procurement. The buy-in and approval of information security and compliance departments, for deployment of IoT systems across the shop floor, warehouse and beyond is likely to be a long-drawn process, as wireless systems are perceived to be less secure than their wired counterparts. A strong security and data protection plan coupled with the right tools and best-practices to secure IoT end-points will make it easier for the information security department or the CISO to approve your IIoT initiative.

Industrial IoT typically requires procurement of hardware devices, nodes and end-points. Due to the nascent nature of this industry, it is fragmented with multiple IoT equipment suppliers, and an equally diverse set of IoT software suppliers. In many cases you may need to go to an offshore supplier in China or Taiwan via a local fulfilment agency. Not doing a detailed due-diligence across the supplier market is a sure way of leaving money on the table and possibly getting sub-standard products and services. IoT procurement will require active involvement of the client’s procurement team in setting up these procurement contracts and ensuring fulfilment.

Do I have the skills?

An IoT system falls under a broad subject called mechatronics, that requires a breadth of skills which includes mechanical engineering, electronics engineering and computing technology. This is why we see most computing software specialist firms keeping away from IoT based solutioning, as they fail to grasp the other branches of engineering that need to be considered for an effective IoT system design. In that sense, an IoT implementation is a technically involving affair that demands know-how of multiple branches of engineering.

In contrast, management consultants and operations leaders do not need to understand the IoT technology specifics to identify an IIoT opportunity. What they need is a clear understanding of the capabilities and limitations of IoT. They should know the basic building blocks of an IoT setup, the IoT supplier landscape, the approximate costs of various building blocks and the methodology to be used from defining the opportunity to finalizing the implementation plan.

The next few chapters will delve upon the basic steps which should be followed as a management consultant to provide actionable recommendations on industrial automation to your clients.

Any workable IoT strategy cannot be executed in isolation from its basic building blocks – Cloud as a platform for IoT applications, and Mobile as a platform for end-user interactions. Before we dive into the stages of IIoT assessment it is necessary to understand the basics of these two.

Cloud

Cloud has been the driver for computing as a service, and has aged-out large and expensive in-house servers and computing infrastructure into obsolescence. Cloud transformation of enterprises is happening at a brisk pace as on date of writing this book, and over the next 5-10 years scale economies of large data centers will drive businesses to the cloud, and will force consolidation within the cloud provider sector. This