"As a consultant who helps clients build solutions
in the cloud, it may come as a surprise when I say
that not everything belongs in the cloud."
We are now witnessing the next chapter in cloud
adoption, and that is with increased cloud intelli-
gence at the edge. What's more, the ability to use the
same cloud technologies, programming languages,
and models — regardless of location — creates
increased flexibility and efficiencies in development,
maintenance, and operations costs.
Does it make sense for a production line to rely on a
call to the cloud to determine whether or not to shut
down a production line? No more than it does for an
autonomous vehicle to act on the need to step on the
brakes before colliding with the car in front of it.
Much of IIoT's potential comes from real-time, local
decision making and action on the basis of sensor
data. Yet, the cloud still has an important role to play
in helping enterprises look across locations, improv-
ing their decision algorithms, and effectively “honing
the edge” to make better local decisions.
Recall the scenario with temperature readings every
second. What is the “right” temperature threshold for
a production line to slow down or be taken offline?
The combined knowledge and experience across
many locations and outputs from many predictive
analytics algorithms helps lead to control algorithms
that can be deployed at the edge, and in the process
make best practice-based, data-driven local
decisions.
Field Service Engineering
Field service team enablement and utilization are
both critical components and benefits to an indus-
trial IoT solution.
tied to proper scheduling and deployment of field
service teams. This, however, is just the beginning of
the impact: access to real-time sensor data can actu-
ally help field service teams make repairs and cali-
brate operations.
We are seeing the emergence of augmented reality
and voice solutions as valuable tools in helping field
service engineers do their jobs. Having headset or
tablet access to exploded, 3D CAD drawings with
detailed installation and configuration procedures,
along with real-time sensor data, can significantly
reduce repair times while increasing quality and
safety.
And if holding a tablet in front of a machine part to
examine its contents isn’t necessarily the most prac-
tical way of making repairs, a hands-free voice inter-
face providing both instructions and real-time con-
figuration/sensor data can be extremely helpful.
Summary
In many ways, the Internet of Things is still just get-
ting started. With the arrival of the cloud and aiding
technologies that can be deployed securely at the
edge, we are witnessing OT gain confidence in imple-
menting solutions that expand beyond their four
walls. CTP, with our expertise in deploying both cloud
and IoT solutions, along with our incredible team of
experience designers, is well-positioned to assist you
in operationalizing your industrial IoT needs.
To learn more about industrial IoT, visit
cloudtp.com/iot
Sensor-enabled operations can tell when something
has broken or is about to break, which in turn can be
FALL 2017 | THE DOPPLER | 9