物联网可能是“最新”的大事，但这并不意味着它被客户接受。以下是针对物联网项目构建业务案例的提示。
Alan Griffiths, Principal Analyst, Cambashi
“物联网”涉及从半导体到云计算和人工智能的一系列技术。企业可以利用这项技术来提高其流程效率，并且可以利用物联网的数字技术来改变其业务和行业。物联网的潜在机会包括客户和供应商关系以及内部流程。
Manufacturers are defining and prioritizing IoT projects in the same way as they would treat any new technology – “it can be done” doesn’t mean “it should be done.” The proposer needs to build a business case.
瑞典的医疗设备制造商Elekta伙伴ed with PTC and ServiceMax to implement Connected Field Service. In the first year of the project Elekta carried out more than 600 preventative actions, which translates to uninterrupted treatments for more than 14,000 patients.
But IoT projects can offer whole new business models such as product-as-a-service, so the right group of people need to be involved to assess the opportunity and develop ideas to fit their organization’s priorities, timescales, budgets and culture.
例如，为了介绍其“ Sigma Air Utility Operation Model”，并根据压缩空气的消耗量，构建工具连接的机器所需的Kaiser压缩机。如果机器失败，收入将停止，以便与所有“ AS-A-Service”业务模型一样，都有构建可靠机器并最大程度地减少维护停机时间的压力。这种方法需要广泛参与决策过程。
Existing processes to gather requirements and define plans for projects of this type may not be sufficient. As the apocryphal quote attributed to Henry Ford explains, “My customers would have asked for faster horses.” However, what counts as transformational can depend on your point-of-view. For example a new (IoT) remote access system that allowed authorized process engineers to log in to their factory production lines triggered the comment, “It changed my life,” from a process engineer. This individual had previously struggled to accept night-shift stand-by duties. For him, the change has been transformational – even though the remote access needed is hardly new technology. Now, he volunteers for the night shift “…and if I can’t handle it online, I can usually guide the onsite team to fix problems.”
远程访问是入门级物联网。下一步是将资产数据提供给分析和控制系统。Taking an IoT approach rather than a traditional machine-to-machine approach pays off here, because in addition to solving remote and multi-site communication questions (an internet connection is all that’s needed), it also simplifies connection to suitable analysis software hosted in the cloud. The IoT approach supports many configurations, so, for example, if low latency response must be guaranteed, an IoT approach can integrate local (so-called ‘edge’) servers.
In its customer story on Rolls-Royce, Microsoft quotes Richard Beesley, Senior Enterprise Architect Data Services at Rolls Royce: “With the increase in the volume and velocity of data that we’re looking at, Microsoft Azure IoT Suite has a key part to play in our ability to reliably aggregate data across our customers fleets.”
This sums up the evolution Rolls-Royce has experienced in the years since it introduced TotalCare Services. From an innovative commercial approach to maintenance – known worldwide as “power-by-the-hour,” this service now offers options such as Efficiency Insight, which can combine data from real-time engine health monitoring and identify emerging patterns allowing aircraft operators to see and respond to trends on aircraft, routes and airport performance.
The spectrum of capabilities was recently summarized by Brett Murphy of RTI as a range from ‘monitoring’ at the simple end, to ‘optimization’ where data from one or more assets can be analyzed and the results used by an operator to adjust settings for better performance, up to ‘autonomy’ where the IoT software makes the adjustments automatically.
这些监视，优化和自主示例正在制造商的组织内部发生，并且可以是生产组的本地。它们可以变革性，因为它们可能会为精益制造计划开辟下一步。
However, it can be easier to see transformational effects from projects that offer something new to customers. Field service and asset management are the low-hanging fruit here. For example, GE Digital and PTC have formed a partnership to provide innovative solutions to companies like Elekta. Here, the transformation is due to the connectivity of the machines Elekta sells to its customers, not the connectivity of the machines it uses in its factories.
预见性维护可以有关machines in the factory, and also to products sold to customers. Rolls-Royce introduced its TotalCare Services some 20 years ago. TotalCare uses a “power by the hour” model in which customers pay for service based on engine flying hours. Rolls-Royce engineers analyze engine data to manage customers’ engine maintenance and maximize aircraft availability. For security and availability reasons, ground-to-aircraft communications are independent of the Internet, using a specific Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). Since its introduction, the scope of TotalCare has grown in parallel with the growth in sensors-per-engine, and the capacity to analyze large volumes of data per engine per hour. Now, the Efficiency Insight service includes Engine Health Monitoring, and tracks the health of thousands of engines operating worldwide.
以前仅与低单位体积，高单位成本的行业（如航空航天）相关，传感器的急剧下降和通信成本范围扩大了这些概念对其他行业的潜力。例如，食品加工机械制造商Minerva Omega创建了启动DSC Nexus，该Nexus将物联网功能带到了机械上，包括在零售肉类和奶酪柜台上发现的切片机。对于这些相对较低的成本机器，传感器在启动，无负载和切割时监视电流/电压轮廓。因此，改造现有机器的新电源线具有集成传感器和Wi-Fi连接性。当电力波形证明是时候进行新刀片时，可以安排适当的操作员或技术人员的操作。
While predictive maintenance takes center stage in the industrial machinery sector, there are other highlights in other sectors. The common theme is business justification based on achieving goals familiar to manufacturers since long before IoT:
–Reduce costs and improve operations
–Achieve competitive advantage by offering customers a better experience
–Open up new revenue streams
The balance of these three goals varies, but they are always there, whether it’s a connected car in automotive, cloud services for voice control of consumer goods, or smart metering and smart grid architectures in utilities. In agriculture, use of equipment across the whole business network is changing, from the supply of agricultural machines to the operation of fleets in the field using GPS, automated harvest collection and product identification and tracking.
In construction, the trend towards off-site manufacturing and on-site assembly is being taken to the next level in OPTIMISED, a €7m EC (European Commission) funded H2020 Factory of the Future project focused on advanced manufacturing. According to Graham Herries, the EU ‘OPTIMISED’ Project Coordinator, this will apply a range of IoT technologies including RFID, edge computing, drones and deep learning to item tracking, personnel management using wearables, all based on building information modeling (BIM) management.
在零售业中，物联网正在帮助实现每个供应链经理的可见度梦想，而与IBM合作的沃尔玛（Walmart）正在借此机会将“区块链”技术集成为分布式分类帐，以通过供应网络确保食品安全。
As success stories such as these – from the ‘early adopters’ – become common, the technology will be taken up by the majority in that industry, and it will become mainstream. But there are still challenges that need to be overcome, and different possible futures for industry.
Cambashi
www.cambashi.com
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