-TECHNOLOGY AUTHOR-
TIBAZARWA
Chapter 11: Emerging Frontier for Industrial Innovation
The current landscape of technology disruptors shows an emerging frontier of innovation for automation centered on (1) Digital Plant, (2) Internet of Things, (3) STAMP, and (4) App Store. To enable and deliver Digital Transformation for manufacturers, automation incumbents will likely have to undergo business model and innovation transformation. As the value proposition of the Digital Plant becomes increasingly realized, and as Internet of Things takes hold, automation vendors will need better vertical integration to deliver manufacturers the full potential value of interconnected capital equipment. The frontier is broad enough that vendors must not only prioritize but also determine opportunistically the portfolio of pursuits.
11.2 IoT (Internet of Things): Capital Equipment Lifecycle
The convergence of Internet of Things (IoT) and Digital Plant promises to transform automation from an operational best practice to a boardroom must-have platform for capital equipment acquisition due diligence. Greengard (2015) defines Industrial Internet as the “heart of Internet of Things …the integration of machines with sensors, software, and communications systems that enable the Internet of Things”, while Deloitte (2014) and Laney (2014) expect manufacturing processes to be “studded with multitude of sensors”. McKinsey (2015) reports the greatest value created by IoT applications will be in factories, and projects that by 2025 IoT will have an annual business impact of $1.36T-$4.6T on factories and worksites in “operations, optimization, predictive maintenance, inventory optimization, health and safety”. The minimum opportunity for vendors is to offer systems capable of processing more I/O points and new I/O types as the physical world becomes increasingly digitized in real-time into information systems. The key to how automation should empower all major disciplines lies in holistic perspective of the manufacturing lifecycle and processes.
The emerging innovation opportunities can be found by extending automation concepts and solutions to other key manufacturing enterprise functions for (1) Capital Investment Analysis, (2) Integrated Engineering, (3) Capital Equipment Lifecycle Management, and (4) Systems Theoretic Accident Modeling.
