IIoT, also known as the Industrial Internet of Things, is basically how devices process and communicate information in the industrial sector. General Electric says IIoT, “brings together brilliant machines, advanced analytics, and people at work. It’s the network of a multitude of devices connected by communications technologies that result in systems that can monitor, collect, exchange, analyze, and deliver valuable new insights like never before.”
IIoT is the more specific industrial side of IoT. We know what IIoT is now, but where is it going? What will it look like in the next several years?
Engineering.com says the “promise of the connected factory,” or the way IIoT can be best used in that setting in the future, involves better predictive maintenance, more ability to control operations remotely, improved internal collaboration, artificial intelligence (but doesn’t everyone think A.I. will be big in technology in the future?), and digital transformation that involves fully revamping business models to work with digital technology.
The Internet of Things Agenda, through Tech Target, says the IIoT field will offer the ability for quicker, smarter decision making in the future. The blog also predicts that cloud-based processing will be big, and that risk awareness and security will have to change and catch up to meet the challenge of new threats.
Speaking of GE, Bill Ruh, the Senior Vice-President and Chief Digital Officer of GE and CEO of GE Digital, recently told Gulf News in a telephone interview that the company sees IIoT as a huge focus, and that for GE, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific markets will be key in the future.
But Ruh also argued that the use of A.I. isn’t going to be enough all by itself. He said, according to Gulf News:
News by itself is not going to solve problems. You have to tune it with domain data and domain knowledge to take advantage.”
Finally, Design News says that factories in the future will look “different” thanks to the implementation of IIoT. The outlet predicts an increased pace of automation, collaborative robots, and A.I. in industrial applications, and that all those things will change manufacturing both for products and for workers at factories.
It seems like a lot of outlets and experts have similar ideas about where exactly IIoT is going and what it might look like in the future, but the specifics on details differ. The truth is, as technology grows and changes, when it comes to IIoT and the way it can be used, anything could happen.