by Gary Mintchell | Feb 2, 2017 | Commentary, Internet of Things, News, Operations Management
PTC has had an interesting journey of moving from ERP to PLM to IoT through batches of acquisitions over the course of several years. When it announced a series of acquisitions including ThingWorx and Kepware (at premium prices from the looks of things) I had to wonder what was up.
Executives assured me that it was a comprehensive corporate plan for growth that included bringing the disparate elements of the company into a cohesive whole. I saw some things last year that told me it was on the right track. Then came this press release trumpeting 2016 results. Yes, PTC had a good year. And, yes Virginia, there is money to be made in IoT.
PTC expanded its year-over-year IoT bookings in 2016, added new customers and partners to its IoT ecosystem, enhanced its IoT technology portfolio, garnered industry recognition and validation, and substantially grew its IoT academic programs.
PTC ignited its IoT strategy in 2013 with the acquisition of ThingWorx, and, since that time, has developed one of the most robust IoT offerings in the market.
“When we embarked on our IoT journey, we didn’t set out to be a casual participant in this space. Instead, from day one, we committed ourselves to becoming the leading IoT platform company for the industrial market,” said Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO, PTC. “2016 was a banner year for PTC, as we further proved that our vision and offerings resonate with buyers around the world. As we enter 2017, many of the world’s largest, most successful companies are eager to work with us on new IoT projects.”
IoT Bookings Growth
PTC’s IoT business grew in calendar 2016, with total year-over-year bookings growth of 115%, including the contributions from Kepware and Vuforia, and organic bookings growth of 53%. PTC’s IoT business concluded calendar 2016 with revenue of approximately $100 million.
Key Customer and Partner Success
PTC continued to add to its expansive IoT customer base in 2016, surpassing 1,200 companies. Realizing that a vast ecosystem is needed to win in the era of the IoT, PTC has established a network of more than 250 partners that promote the company’s strategy and embrace its technology.
Fundamental to PTC’s growth was the selection of the ThingWorx platform by customers and partners of all sizes and specialties, including:
- GE Digital – PTC and GE Digital furthered their strategic relationship, with the aim to better optimize the combination of the ThingWorx and Predix platforms with a “ThingWorx for Predix” solution for the industrial space, as demonstrated at GE’s Minds Machines 2016.
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Vodafone – Vodafone Group selected the ThingWorx platform in order to build additional Vodafone IoT applications that it can extend to its global footprint of operating companies.
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) – PTC and HPE are collaborating to develop new IoT solutions for industrial use cases. PTC’s ThingWorx software and HPE’s Edgeline Converged Edge System and the HPE Aruba ClearPass network access and security policy software were demonstrated together at HPE Discover 2016.
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VMware – VMware joined the PTC ThingWorx Ready partner program, with a goal of pairing the ThingWorx platform with its own IoT solutions to create new offerings.
Additionally, as part of its expanding partner network, PTC continued to focus on working with the world’s leading systems integrators and professional services companies, which can be a valuable channel for extending PTC’s ThingWorx platform to a wider network of customers. Approximately 100 systems integrators are now part of the PTC Partner Network, including Cognizant, Deloitte, Kalypso, INFOSYS, ITC Infotech, and Tech Mahindra. In 2016, systems integrators developed new IoT solutions based on ThingWorx, including solutions for smart manufacturing, fleet management, smart energy management, and connected care.
ThingWorx Technology Innovations
To maintain and expand the robust functionality of its core IoT technology, PTC announced several enhancements to the ThingWorx platform during 2016. Highlights include:
- AR-Enhanced IoT – ThingWorx Studio (incorporating Vuforia technology) is the first enterprise augmented reality authoring tool of its kind, allowing companies to design, publish, and scale integrated AR and IoT experiences. Since mid-2016, 1,000 companies have piloted new augmented reality projects as part of the ThingWorx Studio Pilot Program.
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Comprehensive Platform – PTC integrated its acquired Kepware industrial connectivity technology and ColdLight machine learning technology into the ThingWorx platform.
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Flexible Cloud Options – PTC expanded cloud support for customers to now include leading device clouds.
- Product Insights – ThingWorx Utilities offers tools to help companies provision and manage their connected assets, to remotely access and interact with those connected assets, and to model and trigger business process flows that integrate with enterprise IT and business systems.
- Data Insights – PTC incorporated ThingWorx Analytics Builder as an interactive user interface, enabling users to create and manage advanced analytics models in ThingWorx-powered solutions.
- IoT at the Edge – PTC introduced enhanced edge computing capabilities to ThingWorx, enabling more robust data collection and management from the site of a connected asset.
Widespread Industry Recognition
The ThingWorx technology enhancements throughout 2016 further elevated the positions of PTC and ThingWorx in the market, leading to third-party acknowledgement and validation. In its Forrester Wave report on IoT platforms, Forrester Research identified PTC as having the most complete IoT platform offering on the market. Research firms IoT Analytics and Experton Group identified PTC as the IoT platform provider market leader. To top it off, PTC was named Internet of Things Enablement Company of the Year by Compass Intelligence and Industrial IoT Company of the Year by the IoT Breakthrough organization.
Record Participation in Universities and Academic Settings
PTC has established a broad, IoT-focused academic program for students of all grades and levels, developed and implemented by the PTC Academic Program. Since the inception of the PTC IoT Academic Program, over 1,000 universities worldwide have registered. Many leading academic institutions, including 14 of the top 15 engineering colleges in the USA, have adopted the ThingWorx platform in the classroom. On average, a new university joined the PTC IoT Academic Program each day in 2016.
Also in 2016, PTC significantly increased the level of developer participation by delivering what is currently the highest rated IoT course on Udemy, the global online teaching and learning marketplace. The “Fundamentals of IoT Development with ThingWorx” course saw its student enrollment number eclipse 4,200 in just five months, while maintaining a 4.5/5 rating from those who have participated. Excerpts from student reviews of the course include: “This is one of the best online courses that I have ever seen,” and “This course is just what I needed to truly understand what IoT is about.”
“In 2016, PTC proved that it is more than just a force to be reckoned with in the IoT space. PTC solidified itself as one of the leading IoT companies, with an impressive combination of technology offerings through ThingWorx, considerable growth potential, and an expanding ecosystem of reputable customers and partners,” said Dan Shey, Managing Director and Vice President, ABI Research.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 31, 2017 | Automation, News, Operations Management, Software
HMI SCADA software builds the platform of the Industrial Internet of Things. Yet, many of the traditional companies apparently are not pursuing it as actively as in the past as they spend more time on somewhat “higher end” software—business intelligence and analytics.
So, is there money to be made in this business?
To that end, I have been watching the growth of Inductive Automation for more than ten years. It has introduced the Software as a Service, or cloud-based application, to the industrial space greatly lowering costs for customers. At the same time, everything it builds is IT-friendly. So the OT people can make friends with the IT people.
Well, business has been good enough that Inductive Automation has purchased a building for its corporate headquarters that’s 2½ times larger than its current space. The fast-growing company will remain in Folsom, and will move into its new location in July.
Inductive Automation makes industrial automation software that’s used in virtually every industry and in more than 100 countries. The company’s key product is Ignition by Inductive Automation. Ignition is an industrial application platform with fully integrated tools for building solutions in human-machine interface (HMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
The company has grown rapidly since its inception in 2003. Since the launch of Ignition in 2010, Inductive Automation’s revenues have grown at an average annual rate of more than 60 percent. The company’s growth has been fueled by powerful software and an unlimited licensing model, which together remove economic and technological barriers for industrial organizations seeking more data from their operations and processes.
“We’re committed to Folsom,” said Steve Hechtman, president and CEO of Inductive Automation. “When we first moved here from Sacramento, we had 20 employees. Now we have more than 100, and we look forward to continuing our growth at our new site. The larger building will allow us to expand to about 300 team members, as we continue to serve the global marketplace in industrial automation.”
Folsom community leaders are very happy with the company’s decision to stay in Folsom. “We are pleased that Inductive Automation calls Folsom home,” said Evert W. Palmer, city manager for Folsom. “We celebrate their success, and we are thankful for their contributions to Folsom’s strong and growing ecosystem of industry-leading technology companies.”
“Inductive Automation is a shining example of strong leaders with a well-defined vision to grow their company strategically and profitably,” said Joe Gagliardi, CEO/president of the Greater Folsom Partnership. “Their commitment to stay in Folsom and build their business is adding energy to the already-strong job growth we are experiencing in 2017. All segments of the Folsom economy benefit from the success of Inductive Automation.”
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 11, 2017 | Automation, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
Easy way to use the cloud to connect traceability applications from different suppliers across these increasingly complex industrial companies? I received another of those press releases that seem almost too good to be true. So I called the company.
The application uses open APIs, proprietary connectors, and other such technologies to tap into all the different databases. But the key points are easy to set up and use as well as easily bring relevant data to the person who needs it.
Leading2Lean, a cloud-based lean manufacturing solutions provider, introduced TraceCloud, a CloudDISPATCH engine designed to identify possible manufacturing problems across disparate systems in different plants. TraceCloud eliminates the cost and risk of removing existing traceability systems and replacing them with a standardized system across all plants—an expense of upwards of tens of millions of dollars.
It’s common for companies to use different traceability systems for each of its plants. Discovering issues and tracking them across various systems can take days and tie up precious IT resources ultimately needed in other areas. Some discovery processes may even include shutting down production. With TraceCloud, companies can access aggregated data from multiple systems and find issues in just minutes.
When a problem is detected—because of a faulty product, for example—TraceCloud is able to quickly alert production teams about the problem, and allow for quick access to the data necessary to identify the root cause. Manufacturers can then contain the suspect material, ultimately preventing the quality issue from being perpetuated or shipped. Once the system has contained the material, TraceCloud enables quick decision-making based on facts and data collected from systems at various production plants and even suppliers.
“TraceCloud is drastically cutting the time to identify, solve and contain quality problems, saving companies millions of dollars,” said Keith Barr, CEO of Leading2Lean.
TraceCloud offers seven key components:
- Traceability and genealogy: Manufacturers can trace all the way through source material to make decisions based on facts. TraceCloud brings simplicity to creating a complete birth certificate of your products, both serialized or lot based.
- Unites existing systems: TraceCloud combines data from multiple systems and sites, enabling easy standardization and eliminating the need for costly replacement of current systems in existing or newly acquired plants.
- Ease of use: No need to make requests to IT. Simply go into TraceCloud’s easy, point-and-click, intuitive system and get the answer back in minutes from the convenience of your office. TraceCloud enables quality engineers to easily identify opportunities for improvement much more quickly.
- Alerting and containment: With TraceCloud, you can notify all relevant parties upon discovering a lot-based or serialized issue. The system will identify the location of all corresponding product issues, and contain the faulty product.
- Dynamic data collection: Leading2Lean’s dynamic-schema architecture lets manufacturers collect variable data length and type, as well as counting to extend product trace detail to any degree desired. Collect machines used, participating operators, settings or readings in the process, and combine bill-of-materials (BOM) from both serialized or lot to create the complete genealogy tree.
- Eleven9s: Leading2Lean performs above industry benchmarks, with Eleven9s durability of historical data. Traceability data is kept above safety standards with little to no risk of data loss.
- Year-Long-Term data storage: Maintain your data for 20-plus years. TraceCloud maintains your data for as long as needed, and the system allows anyone to retrieve data instantly when required.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 16, 2016 | News, Operations Management, Organizations, Standards
Interoperability, standardization, and collaboration were the key words for OPC Foundation in 2016. Tom Burke, OPC Foundation President, recently recapped a busy 2016 for the Foundation. Adoption of OPC UA has been gaining momentum in the market. Collaboration with other groups is growing. And the technology is finally beginning to show significant use beyond industrial automation.
Burke says, “It has been a very exciting year. We have seen record growth in adoption of the OPC UA technology across multiple domains and vertical markets. The OPC Foundation policy of being truly open has expanded the reach of the OPC technology. The specifications are available to everyone, the technology is open sourced, and now we have opened up our certification labs to non-members.”
The OPC Foundation byline since the beginning has been recognized as the “The Interoperability Standard for Industrial Automation.” With the significant international membership growth and adoption of the OPC UA technology across multiple vertical markets the byline of the OPC Foundation has been ratified as “The Industrial Interoperability Standard.” This byline recognizes the case that OPC is no longer just for automation.
OPC UA specifications and technology are actively being deployed across global boundaries supplying the key infrastructure for everything related to the Internet of Everything (IIoT, Industrie 4.0, China 2025, IIC, M2M…); inclusive of:
- numerous testbeds with the OPC UA technology being standardized in the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC)
- being recognized as the communication and information modeling standard for Industrie 4.0
- OPC UA being finalized as a Chinese National Standard
In May 2016, BSI (German Federal Office for Information Security) conducted a thorough security analysis of OPC UA and found it exceeded the security requirements for Industrie 4.0.
Collaboration with numerous organizations beyond industrial automation is the strategy and path forward to allow information integration from the embedded world to the cloud.
New members and new products are emerging as end users are looking for information solutions for IIoT, and the OPC UA technology is well-positioned to address the needs of the Internet of Everything.
Numerous organizations continue to partner with the OPC Foundation and/or develop companion specifications for their respective information models to seamlessly plug into OPC UA.
Organizations announcing releases of their companion specifications in 2016 for the OPC UA technology included:
• AutomationML
• PLCopen
• AIM
• VDMA: Injection Molding (status: release candidate)
• VDMA: Vision Cameras (status: in foundation)
• VDMA: Robotics, starting with the help of KUKA (status: in preparation)
VDMA is very active standardizing on OPC UA information models and expects to rollout a multitude of additional information models in 2017, leveraging OPC UA information integration communication as it’s strategy for seamless information integration and interoperability.
Board of Directors
Board members are elected as individuals for a two-year term. Elected to new 2-year terms were: Russ Agrusa, (ICONICS), Veronika Schmid-Lutz (SAP), Stefan Hoppe (Beckhoff) (also VP of OPC Foundation), and Matthias Damm (Ascolab). Also on the OPC Foundation Board of Directors are Thomas Burke (OPC Foundation), Thomas Hahn (Siemens) (also VP of OPC Foundation), Matt Vasey (Microsoft), and Ziad Kaakani (Honeywell) (also Treasurer of OPC Foundation), and Shinji Oda (Yokogawa).
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 15, 2016 | News, Operations Management, Software
Data Science has gotten us to the point of collecting servers full of manufacturing data. We can do some analytics. But there are miles to go before we sleep.
This press release crossed my email stream last week. I haven’t time to interview the founder–that will come later. But here is a teaser.
Data Science Pioneer Drew Conway Closes $2.5M in Seed Funding to Bring Machine Learning to Industrial Operations
New venture Alluvium delivers “Mesh Intelligence” to close the machine-to-human gap
Alluvium, developers of Mesh Intelligence solutions that harness machine learning insights for real-time applications in industrial use cases, today announced $2.5 million in seed funding led by investors IA Ventures, Lux Capital, and Bloomberg Beta. The machine learning venture is running pilot projects of its Mesh Intelligence technology in fleet management, and oil and gas, among other vertical industrial applications.
Alluvium aims to conquer one of big data’s greatest unsolved challenges for complex industrial operations with expert human operators. Alluvium’s breakthrough Mesh Intelligence solution frees the data from these proprietary systems, transforms it into rich information streams, and provides real-time insights to human operators for immediate action.
“The commoditized big data stack is fundamentally broken for complex industrial operations,” said Drew Conway, Founder and CEO at Alluvium. “Modern industrial assets and hardware are continuing to be instrumented by OEMs who have not considered how these heterogeneous streams of machine data should be leveraged in the overall workflow and data strategy of the organization. And the modern analytics ‘stack’ — where data is moved and crunched in back end systems — does not meet the real-time requirements of human operators at the edge.”
Conway, who earned his PhD at NYU, is a leading expert in the application of computational methods to social and behavioral problems at large-scale. He started his career in counter-terrorism as a computational social scientist in the U.S. intelligence community and is known for his venn diagram definition of data science as well as applying data science to study human decision making.
At the core of Alluvium’s Mesh Intelligence platform is unique technology for extracting data from all elements of complex industrial operations — tablets, sensors, as well as industry-specific assets — with no expectations of compute resources or network bandwidth. This breakthrough allows machine learning processing to occur at the edge of systems where human operators need data most — in-real time.
“The early days of big data were about capturing and storing the vast amounts of new information streaming from devices in manufacturing, transport, medicine and more,” said Mike Olson, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Cloudera, and a seed investor in Alluvium. “As that technology has matured, the more important and more interesting problem has become: What can we learn from all that data? Alluvium is focused on extracting meaning from streaming data coming from hardware that instruments all sorts of industries. The company augments human expertise with its powerful machine learning technology to make customers smarter and help them operate better.”
Independent research and surveys show the massive economic opportunity for IoT and machine learning across industrial use cases. A report by Jabil found that “$1.9 trillion dollars of economic value could be created by the use of IoT devices and asset tracking solutions.” For U.S. oil and gas suppliers — an industry where Alluvium has had significant early traction — the daily cost of unplanned downtime at a refinery can reach $1.7 million per day, and the daily cost of unplanned downtime for liquid natural gas drillers can top $11 million per day. A recent McKinsey report found that “car data monetization could be as high as $750 billion by 2030” — which has far-reaching implications for fleet management. Analyst firm Gartner forecasted more than 6 billion connected devices will be in use worldwide in 2016 supporting more than $265 billion in services. And in a 2015 “Moving Toward the Future of the Industrial Internet” report by GE and Accenture, 84% of executives expected Big Data to shift the competitive landscape within the next year.
“Bringing machine intelligence into the physical world is an incredibly difficult task,” said Shivon Zilis, partner at Bloomberg Beta. “We were excited to back Alluvium because of their unique insights into how complex industrial systems could be transformed by predictive engines.”
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Read Alluvium Founder’s Perspective on Starting the Company
