by Gary Mintchell | May 17, 2016 | Internet of Things, Operations Management
Everybody wants into the IoT act. Hitachi announced that it is “accelerating [its] already sizable IoT business.” The company did $5B in IoT-related revenue in 2015 and has 33 solutions in market in areas including public safety and smart city, renewable and sustainable energy, intelligent transportation, precision agriculture and manufacturing, water treatment and building systems, and more. Hitachi will work with AT&T, Eurotech, Microsoft, PTC and SAP on joint solutions for customers.
It also announced “Lumada”—an enterprise-grade IoT platform. “Lumada offers an open architecture and comprehensive framework of key IoT solution building blocks, including edge device and connectivity integration, application integration, data repositories, stream and batch data processing, advanced analytics and tools, solution cores and enterprise services. This is as close as I could find to what the “platform” really is. I suspect a hardware device with embedded capabilities. I’ve asked Hitachi that if someone orders a Lumada what is delivered. If I get an answer that isn’t vague like the press release and the Website, I’ll update.
First, Hitachi announced the formation of Hitachi Insight Group. Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, the new group will drive Hitachi’s unified Internet of Things (IoT) business and go-to-market (GTM) strategy worldwide.
“The newly formed Hitachi Insight Group will be the ‘tip of the spear’ in Hitachi’s quest to capture market share in what IDC projects to be a $1.46 trillion market opportunity by 2020.”
“The greatest opportunity for IoT lies in the enterprise, industrial and public sector markets, which stand to benefit significantly from digital transformation. Although the market is still nascent, digitalization is already disrupting traditional product-based business models, driving demand for solutions and an everything-as-a-service approach,” said Vernon Turner, senior vice president, enterprise systems and IoT research fellow at IDC.
Not at a loss for self-confidence, the release states, “With today’s announcements, Hitachi is making good progress toward positioning itself to be one of the few likely IoT powerhouses as the market shakes out.”
The global team consists of more than 16,000 employees including some from Hitachi Consulting and Hitachi Data Systems.
Core IoT Platform
Lumada is the name of the new core platform. “It” has an open, adaptable software architecture—integrating proven commercial technologies from across Hitachi’s portfolio. Lumada is a comprehensive, enterprise-grade IoT core platform with an open and adaptable architecture that simplifies IoT solution creation and customization. It incorporates expertise in operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT), blending powerful and proven data orchestration, streaming analytics, content intelligence, simulation models, and other Hitachi software technologies.
The platform will serve as the core foundation on which all of Hitachi’s IoT solutions are built and will enable the creation of IoT business ecosystems.
by Gary Mintchell | May 13, 2016 | Internet of Things, Operations Management
Information Technology departments are playing second fiddle to Operations Technology as enterprises tune up for the Internet of Things (IoT).”
Browsing through my news sources, I discovered this provocative lede. It was something that begged for a deeper dive. Especially given the continuing conversations about the IT/OT divide. Then there is the question about the source of innovation in a company. Is IT innovative? Or is OT?
The article was in Computer World. Although a little shallow, the writer nailed it for a generalist writer who doesn’t really get manufacturing. “IoT straddles IT and operational technology, two disciplines that for decades have lived side by side without much interaction. Operations people handle things like lights, locks and machine tools, while IT folks buy the computers and run them.
Now it turns out that very small computers, such as networked sensors, can help a company’s infrastructure work better. But more often than not, IT is not in charge of those systems, the Technalysis survey showed.”
The survey, The Promise and Perils of Change: Enterprise IOT Survey Report, was by Bob O’Donnell, President and Chief Analyst, TECHnalysis Research, LLC. The online survey was conducted in March 2016 of
620 US-based individuals working for companies who are involved with Internet of Things applications for their companies.
50% (310) came from medium-sized companies (100-999 employees) and 50% (310) came from large companies (1,000+ employees). Industries represented included Tech, Retail, Manufacturing,
Education, Health Care and Transportation.
I’m not sure I 100% accept his definition, but it’s a good one—“IOT is defined as a network of non-traditional computing devices that are used to collect data on equipment, people or processes in an organization. Most systems consist of simple endpoints outfitted with a set of sensors that are connected together on a network and deliver data to a central point for additional analysis. Examples of IOT solutions range everywhere from smart lighting systems to vehicle tracking devices to factory production monitoring and beyond.”
Key Findings
- IOT usage is reasonably widespread, but still most popular with tech-related companies
- IT is heavily involved in IOT, but operations is the group most typically responsible for IOT
projects
- Two-thirds of all IOT projects will be managed outside of IT
Top IOT applications are:
- Employee monitoring
- Security and identification
- Energy savings
Most organizations are more focused on improving processes than saving money. This is an interesting finding. Improving processes must have financial metrics, too, but the results are usually longer lasting than a simple cost saving.
Of those who do expect to save money, top savings areas are:
- More efficient operations
- Monthly utilities
- Saving employee time
- Reduced downtime
- Business cost of goods/supplies
When managers were projecting purchases, they looked first at edge devices or endpoints. Then they looked at networks—you’ve got to be able to connect the devices or you really won’t have Internet of Things, right?
One last thing had to do with type of networking. The origins of IoT lay with M2M, which was architected with cellular wireless communication. Three-quarters of all IoT connectivity reported was composed of WiFi and Ethernet. I’m not shocked.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 19, 2016 | Internet of Things
Dell, Fog IoT Alliance
I’ve been writing about Dell’s entrance into the manufacturing/industrial space since last October. It introduced its Internet of Things products, Edge Gateway, at Dell World. Recently its embedded computing line was announced. (Disclaimer: Dell is a client.) Several people wrote to me after that last announcement to say something like, “About time.”
Internet of Things Partners
Further expanding its efforts, Dell is launching the Dell IoT Solutions Partner Program for the advancement of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and solutions. The program builds an ecosystem of partners to help customers navigate the fragmented IoT landscape and identify the right technologies to develop their IoT solutions. Dell will offer participating partners access to its robust and reliable product portfolio, world-class support and increased opportunities for incremental business growth.
The program will combine a global, multi-tiered (Executive, Associate, Registered) network of experienced Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) with Dell’s broad portfolio of IoT assets, including purpose-built intelligent gateways, embedded PCs, security and manageability tools, data center and cloud infrastructure, and data integration and analytics software like Boomi and Statistica. These assets will help organizations develop, deploy and maintain leading-edge IoT solutions.
“Dell believes that opportunities increase when you help others win,” said Andy Rhodes, executive director, Commercial IoT Solutions, Dell. “We are passionate about collaborating with this strong group of companies and believe ISVs are critical in building the bridge between the exciting industry potential of IoT and profitable market reality.”
Dell works with Information Technology (IT) and Operations Technology (OT) organizations to create a unifying IoT strategy for bridging their differing business approaches. The IoT Partner Program will include companies across a wide range of industries that further strengthen Dell’s expertise in areas such as industrial and building automation and transportation. It launches with more than 25 partners including GE, SAP, Software AG, Microsoft, OSIsoft and others, many of which are utilizing the Dell Edge Gateway 5000 Series to power their own IoT solutions. Dell also continues to build relationships with systems integrators (SIs) with vertical expertise and deployment scale.
Additional partners include Azeti, Blue Pillar, Datawatch, Eigen Innovations, Flowthings, Flutura, GE, Kepware, Lynx Software, Microsoft Azure, OSIsoft, Relayr, SAP, Software AG, and Thingworx.
Kepware’s Role
Creating use case blueprints is one of the many ways Dell is working with partners to help customers speed up their Internet of Things projects and make sense of the vast ISV landscape. Dell, Kepware, and Software AG are collaborating to develop IoT enabled predictive maintenance models utilizing distributed analytics to address the industry’s biggest operational challenges, such as unplanned downtime, overall equipment effectiveness, maintenance cost and return on assets.
Specifically looking at Kepware’s role with the Partner Program and the Predictive Maintenance model, I had the opportunity to interview Eric Dellinger, Kepware’s IoT manager. We’ve met several times, most recently at the Industry of Things conference in San Diego last February. We caught up by phone this time.
Dellinger told me he had been talking with Dell for six or seven months about various partnership and collaboration opportunities. “One great benefit,” he said, “is getting access to hardware and being part of marketing initiatives. Another great thing with program has been ease of working with them. Sometimes companies hold you at more of an arm’s length. Dell is dealing in a more strategic manner. For example, our work with Dell on the predictive maintenance model where it outlines how to go to market. And it shows how various vendors can go together to create a solution. This is a really nice approach to collaborate on an initiative.”
There are other benefits to Dell’s approach such as sharing go-to-market strategies, leveraging training, and leveraging each other’s channel, continued Dellinger. “Then there is what it looks like to embed a solution in the IoT box. Maybe we can include ThingWorx (another PTC company) app development platform. Or we can go off-the-shelf with Software AG and SAP on a solution. This open program offers a way of thinking from customer’s perspective, bringing innovative solutions. There is less pushing products specifically and more on finding solutions.”
Part of joining the partner program is certifying products run on the platform. Dellinger said, “So on the certification process, we installed our product on the Dell IoT Gateway connecting to a Rockwell Automation PLC using the MQTT protocol to send data to the cloud and had it up and running in 10 minutes.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 10, 2016 | News
A new study by the MAPI Foundation (Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation) analyzes productivity growth in manufacturing over the past 25 years and provides “compelling statistical evidence on the importance that capital investment and educated labor have on productivity performance.”
I guess what this study highlights are factors that should have already been well known. Plus the study was financed by Rockwell Automation—a technology developer and supplier—which is an interesting caveat. MAPI is an organization composed of manufacturers and suppliers. I’d really see one of the follow-ups discuss what manner of investment makes the most difference.
The research explores the drivers of productivity performance on subsectors. In particular, the study looks for ways that manufacturers who have already invested in capital equipment can increase productivity and innovation.
Productivity Series
The report is the first in a series on productivity that the MAPI Foundation is producing this year. Cliff Waldman, director of economic studies at the MAPI Foundation, produced the study using well-accepted theory and regression analysis of several decades’ worth of data. The study reveals evidence that innovation and capital investment play a significant role in driving multifactor productivity growth (i.e., output per unit of a combined set of inputs including labor, materials, and capital) in a wide range of manufacturing subsectors. Capital investment is the mechanism by which productivity-enhancing innovation spreads through companies, supply chains, and the broad economy.
“In the manufacturing sector, strong productivity performance is needed to meet the globally driven challenges of cost pressures and competitiveness,” Waldman observes. “For both manufacturing and the economy as a whole, the recent slowdown in productivity causes concern, because it contributes to both slow output and wage growth.”
“Isolating the critical investments required to improve productivity performance is an important foundational element in the MAPI Foundation’s first study,” added Joe Kann, vice president of global business development at Rockwell Automation. “We look forward to the conclusions regarding industry-specific productivity drivers that will be identified in the remaining studies.”
Educated Labor
Waldman’s research finds that another key link to productivity performance is the labor force participation rate of the population holding a B.A. degree or higher, in effect the economy’s supply of educated labor.
The manufacturing sector, a traditional driver of overall productivity, has seen its pace of productivity growth slow over the last 15 years. As Waldman notes, part of this is due to slowing productivity growth in the computer and electronic products industry, which has played an outsized role in driving manufacturing productivity growth in recent decades.
According to the study, industry subsectors that have experienced relative improvements in productivity performance since 1993 include machinery, transportation equipment, and printing. But their growth has not been enough on an absolute basis to replace the decline in computer subsector productivity. Industries with a noticeable drop since 1993 in their relative pace of productivity growth include primary metals and petroleum and coal products.
Sector Correlations
The paper reveals strong cross-subsector correlations for both labor productivity growth and multifactor productivity growth. The apparent interconnectedness of productivity performance across industries, says Waldman, is likely the result of supply chain linkages, innovation spillovers, cluster impacts, and trade channels. Such evidence suggests that, where investments in any one industry lead to faster productivity growth, such expenditures can have impacts that extend to other subsectors as well.
Waldman concludes that a beneficial policy response must consist of a coordinated program that stimulates manufacturing equipment investment as well as innovation investment and increases the supply of educated labor in the broad economy. The MAPI Foundation’s next study on productivity builds on this work and will reveal the findings of a national survey on technology and automation investment that was conducted to determine the drivers and pace of change in various manufacturing industries.
Summary of major findings include:
- While the computer and electronic products subsector has historically played an outsized role in the relatively strong productivity performance of the broader manufacturing sector, productivity growth in the information technology space has slowed dramatically in recent years. This has happened as the high-impact innovation that led to persistent and rapid increases in computer processing speeds, which are necessarily accounted for in the calculation of computer-sector productivity growth, naturally reached physical limits. This is reducing manufacturing’s rate of productivity growth.
- Though the machinery and transportation equipment subsectors have shown notable improvement in their productivity performance over the past 15 years, it has not been enough on an absolute basis to make up for diminishing computer subsector productivity; overall manufacturing productivity growth is therefore languishing at historically weak rates.
- More than two decades’ worth of government statistics and regression analysis demonstrate that innovation and capital investment are directly correlated to and thus play a significant role in driving multifactor productivity growth in a wide range of manufacturing subsectors.
- An increase in the labor force participation rate of those with a B.A. degree and higher correlates to faster labor productivity growth in multiple industries. The supply of educated labor plays a definitive role in driving labor productivity growth across diverse subsectors.
- Statistical analysis shows a strong interconnectedness of productivity performance across subsectors. This evidence supports the hypothesis that because of supply chain linkages, innovation spillovers, cluster impacts, and trade channels, productivity determination is not independent across manufacturing industries. When changes are made in one industry that promote productivity, these can affect productivity performance in other industries as well.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 22, 2016 | Automation, Education, Internet of Things, Networking, News, Operations Management
What was once called Information Technology (IT) and then Manufacturing IT (for the IT jobs directly working with the plant such as MES applications) now seems to be falling under the Internet of Things label. Probably part of the reason that there is confusion as to what the IoT term really means.
Terminology aside, Rockwell Automation and the Industrial IP Advantage (industrial-ip.org) group it has formed have been investing much in providing training on a variety of networking and IT topics. In today’s news, Rockwell Automation and Sunset Learning Institute (SLI) are teaming up to improve and increase access to continuing education and certifications surrounding the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT).
Rockwell Automation has rolled out several courses and a certification program over the last year with its Strategic Alliance Partner Cisco. New courses and certifications can help both IT and OT workers gain the skills needed to manage, administer, design and operate converged industrial networks–now becoming known as industrial internet of things networks. These include the Managing Industrial Networks with Cisco Networking Technologies (IMINS) training course; Managing Industrial Networks for Manufacturing with Cisco Technologies (IMINS2); and CCNA Industrial certification.
SLI specializes in delivering and developing authorized Cisco training. SLI has been a top-tier Authorized Cisco Learning Partner for 20 years. The courses and certifications supported by Rockwell Automation-SLI collaboration include:
- Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices Part 1 (ICND1): A five-day course on how to install, operate, configure and verify basic IPv4 and IPv6 networks.
- Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices Part 2 (ICND2): A five-day course on how to install, configure, operate and troubleshoot a small enterprise network.
- Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices Accelerated (CCNAX): An advanced, five-day course consisting of ICND1 and ICND2 content in its entirety.
- Implementing Cisco Unified Wireless Networking Essentials: A five-day course designed to prepare for the CCNA wireless certification, an associate-level certification specializing in the wireless field.
Students can register for courses via the Rockwell Automation and SLI websites.
Take Advantage of Industrial Internet of Things Opportunities
“Our customers are tasked with building and managing networks and information systems that are different from anything their predecessors confronted,” said Glenn Goldney, global business manager for training services, Rockwell Automation. “Pairing SLI’s qualifications with our own expertise in OT provides IT and OT professionals with premium quality IoT training. These are the skills workers need to take advantage of IoT to drive new opportunities, and unite traditionally disparate practices.”
“The convergence of IT and OT makes it critical that we partner with the very best in the OT space,” said Rick Morgan, CEO, Sunset Learning Institute. “Combining our in-depth knowledge of IT and Cisco markets with Rockwell Automation expertise in the OT space creates an unrivaled partnership in the emerging IoT marketplace.”
SLI also provides a distinct training delivery platform with its High-Definition, Instructor-Led Training (HD-ILT) Network. HD-ILT is SLI’s proprietary video conferencing and patented, remote-lab training modality. Students using HD-ILT have interactive training sessions with two-way, high-definition video and real-time audio, giving instructors and students easy and full visibility of one another.
With over 50 locations across the U.S., Canada and Latin America, the SLI HD-ILT network significantly increases options for IT and OT professionals looking for training without the travel costs. Training is also available in person at Rockwell Automation and SLI facilities across North America. Rockwell Automation and SLI expect to add joint course offerings in the years ahead. All courses are open for registration.
