Manufacturing worldwide is on the cusp of a revolution. New information technologies are suddenly offering not only to make the management of manufacturing more effective, as we saw with early versions of plant and enterprise software, but the work itself smarter.
When two technology researchers said they had wirelessly hacked a Jeep Cherokee through its internet-connected system, taking control of the engine, brakes and even steering under certain conditions, automakers scrambled to reassure customers that security was a top priority.
Big data is providing supplier networks with greater data accuracy, clarity and insights, leading to more contextual intelligence shared across supply chains.
Prescriptive analytics is a bit of a unicorn - a thing of beauty, but rarely seen. That's about to change, with prescriptive analytics and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) enjoying their teenage years together.
The increasing adoption of IoT within industrial settings will result in a substantial growth of the number of connected industrial devices, in particular industrial control devices like PLCs, according to ABI Research. The research firm estimates that over the period from 2014 to 2020, the number of connected industrial controllers will triple, growing at an average rate of 20 percent.
Could it be that the Internet of Things is actually under-hyped? Yes - it could have a total economic impact between $3.9tr and $11tr a year by 2025, including $410bn to $1.2tr per year in retail environments.
The manufacturing CIO has long been associated with managing new technology implementation, strategic IT planning and keeping tabs on the latest solutions that could boost productivity. The job entails much more than that today.
IBM says it will invest $3bn over the next four years to establish a new Internet of Things (IoT) unit, and that it is building a cloud-based open platform designed to help clients and ecosystem partners build IoT systems.
