As the Internet of Things takes shape, factories of the future will have to be ready to deftly manage a cascade of data — a challenge that will put plant operations, infrastructure, and culture to the test.
Things are due to change on the factory floor. The machinery, systems, and processes manufacturers use to produce goods are on track to gain a digital voice, audible courtesy of the next frontier in digital communications — the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Should that come to pass, industry could be turned on its head.
A subset of the Internet of Things (IOT), a growing web of connected, networked communications devices and products, the IIoT, or Industrial Internet, may be the more practical, “blue-collar” version. It references a future where the very means and tools of production are wired up en masse to produce highly detailed and revealing operational data. From there, the hope is that data can be extracted, crunched, shared, and ultimately leveraged by stakeholders far and wide over potentially vast digital networks.