Some years ago an analytics system made by Schneider Electric predicted failure of a powerful compressor 25 days before it had happened. This warning saved millions of dollars for one European oil-processing company. Nowadays such a system of manufacturing equipment monitoring is included in a vast technological complex, called Industrial Internet of Things (or IIot). IIoT ensures the creation of digital twin, safety enhancement, a business efficiency increase and optimization of internal business processes.
According to Global Market Insights, IIot market reached $312,79 billion in 2017 and will have risen to $700,38 billion in the next five years.
A lot of the world’s biggest corporations have already benefited from IIoT technologies. Harley Davidson is an example. The company decreased the time of one unit production from 21 to 6 days due to the implementation of new technologies. A well-known General Electric developed a remote monitoring system that controls all industrial equipment in a real-time mode. It saves the company at least $100 million annually.
High-level technologies
IIot is a rapidly developing industry, where new technologies are constantly appearing. One of the most demanded is the digital twin (a special digital system, which doubles all manufacturing processes). Such a twin is usually based on huge amounts of data collected from a production space including such nuances as vibration frequency and sound level.
Another important challenge for all manufacturers is the location of all moving objects (like people, vehicles and assets) inside an open space. A business would like to know exactly what is going on in their factory in each period of time. That is why they need a real-time locating system (RTLS) which recorded every worker’s and asset’s history of movements, marked the building into zones to track movement inside/outside each zone and the number of hits in the zone facilitated the search for employees and assets on the building map.
So, IIot technologies provide an opportunity to enhance the efficiency of all business processes and to reduce costs. Advanced technological solutions allow manufacturers to reduce equipment downtime (up to 10%) and maintenance costs.
Indoor navigation as a part of IIoT
Indoor navigation technology was introduced to the market a decade ago. Producers spent a lot of time trying to find out the most relevant ways on how to implement this technology in the industry. Nowadays indoor navigation becomes a crucial part of a common digital interface helping businesses to improve efficiency, cut costs and monitor staff.
Firstly, indoor navigation facilitates communication with temporary staff. Some companies deal with thousands of temporary workers every day. Indoor navigation services assist such companies in helping temporary personnel, preventing them from entering dangerous zones and swiftly responding to emergencies.
Secondly, indoor navigation contributes a lot to efficiency improvement. Managers and supervisors want to know everything about the work process, including personnel and assets movement. Cutting-edge technologies provide answers to all these questions.
Thirdly, indoor navigation helps companies to monitor workers responsible for regular equipment maintenance. Sometimes these employees miss scheduled checking, what entails additional repair expenses. One of our clients has two machines which are vital to the manufacturing process. The failure of one would result in a profit loss of $460 000 per day. It is easier for such businesses to implement a special monitoring system than spend money on equipment repair.
The future of IIot
Nowadays all companies are interested in automation. Managers would like to work with one platform which combines all useful technologies for staff monitoring, safety enhancement and remote asset control and management. All these solutions are present on the market and the next step will be to combine all of them in one system.
The Navigine team has already created a unique platform that can work with different hardware producers. Clients can use our platform as a common interface, from which they can access all the data from their machines and sensors.
