Q&A: There’s More to IoT Than Tracking Million-Dollar Assets

Please describe a recent IoT project you have worked on that was substantially better, faster, smarter or more efficient than an older technology?

Glenn Graney, Senior Marketing Manager at QAD: Many of our customers are embracing IoT in terms of better production data capture from the plant floor. This includes more timely reporting against production orders and faster time to knowledge that is the basis for critical decisions.

What do you see as the biggest potential of the Internet of Things?

Graney: Manufacturers universally want clearer and more uniform visibility into the live status of their production environments.

What do you see as the biggest problems involving IoT deployments at large?

Graney: I think that the IoT buzzword hype-machine has done the concept a disservice by focusing on asset monitoring. It is perfectly understandable why GE or ABB would want to focus on large assets and the benefits of preventative/predictive maintenance—they sell large assets. So much of manufacturing today is still done with flexible semi-automatic equipment that does not lend itself nor need “Big Data” analytics. There are still IoT opportunities in these manufacturing environments that are not wrapped around million dollar assets.

What kind of policy changes or societal shifts do you think are needed for the Internet of Things?

Graney: I think that we are on our way and the technology is being embraced at the ground floor often times without the need to call it IoT.

What is your advice to other industry professionals looking to deploy an IoT solution?

Graney: Do what you have always done and focus on where there is the largest opportunity to improve and add value. In most cases, manufacturing environments are already connected to their critical physical assets so the question to ask is: Are you converting that access to actionable knowledge?