Keys to effective IIoT design
How does the IIoT change the way industrial products and services are designed? What types of opportunities should companies seize and which challenges should they expect to tackle? Petri Asikainen, Director of Core Technology Development at Konecranes, shares his insights.
Machines report on their usage and condition. Maintenance interaction data is combined with equipment engineering information. Remote-controlled cranes. Logistics chains are truly transparent, as each link is programmed to anticipate the next steps, optimizing flow across the entire chain.
As low-cost sensors and powerful software turn the IIoT from buzzword to reality, the opportunities for new product and service design seem endless. But where should companies start?
Focus on customer value
“The starting point for successful design is a deep understanding of the client’s processes and needs.”
According to Petri Asikainen, Director of Product Development at Konecranes, the key to great IIoT design involves taking a step back from all the cool things that technology can do, and focusing on where it can offer clients the most value.
“Buyers in industrial companies are usually highly rational. Most of them do not care for fancy new gadgets or features just for the novelty of it,” says Asikainen. “The starting point for successful design is a deep understanding of the client’s processes and needs. What is essential and useful for them? Can you make significant improvements in efficiency or work safety? How can you make their life easier?”
Sometimes the solution might not be selling new equipment, but rather retrofitting old equipment with sensors that connect it to intelligent networks to extend its lifespan. Or, it may not mean new sensors but developing software to utilize the sensor data already available in a new way.
“When you have a solid understanding of the user environment, there’s quite a lot you can do by developing the software instead of adding new hardware or sensors – and it’s often more cost-effective too,” he continues.
Design products that communicate
It’s important to note that in the IIoT environment, your products are just small pieces of a larger network. To offer real value, they must fit into, communicate with and improve the client’s existing system.
“With any type of new product, you need to ask the basic questions: How will it communicate with its surroundings and other intelligent systems like enterprise resource planning software? What type of data should it gather and for what end?” explains Asikainen.
Not all data is equally useful either. With increasing amounts of automation, and more smart machines and programs being used at industrial sites, the human operators’ ability to handle new information is often already at its limit. As Asikainen points out, “Especially in user interface design, you should be careful to present only the most crucial information at each given moment.”
Another aspect concerns the high demand for data security in the industrial setting.
“Unlike on the consumer side, you cannot monetize customer data by sharing it with third parties,” Asikainen says. “Data security is a huge issue in IIoT design, as the possible risks with data breaches are often severe.”
Use data to deepen understanding of client needs
“With a clear focus and insight into client operations, IIoT solutions can produce tangible gains for most industrial clients.”
While there are challenges in designing for the IIoT environment, there are also huge opportunities. For one, the influx of new information allows designers to form a deeper understanding of clients’ real needs and to offer them optimized solutions.
“Before, we had an incomplete view into how clients actually use our equipment and services. Now, we can start the design process from facts and real-life data. That is a great advantage for both sales forces and product development.”
In practice, this can mean creating new service concepts or equipment models that fit the clients’ use patterns more precisely. Or it could include offering complementary services that improve safety and quality such as staff training sessions on how to use the equipment efficiently.
The good news, says Asikainen, is that with a clear focus and insight into client operations, IIoT solutions can produce tangible gains for most industrial clients.
“In heavy industrial settings where production volumes and material flows are large, optimizing equipment and tweaking processes with the help of new data can bring in significant savings,” concludes Asikainen.
Petri Asikainen works as Director of Core Technology Development at Konecranes.