IIoT deployment: How quickly is it coming?

How quickly do you see IIoT being adopted in manufacturing? How quickly should it be adopted?

By CFE Media December 30, 2016

Q: How quickly do you see the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) being adopted in manufacturing? How quickly should it be adopted?

Bill Pollock

President and CEO

Optimation Technology, Inc.

Rush, N.Y.

#28 on the 2016 System Integrator Giants List

I believe that effective and major adaptation and adoption are still at least 2 years away. Mark Hoffman President Automation & Control Concepts St. Louis, Mo. #44 on the 2016 System Integrator Giants List They should be piloting many IIoT ideas on a small scale and measure ROI [return on investment]. If the ROI is real, then execute enterprise projects.

Mukund Muley

Managing Director

Cotmac Electronics Pvt Ltd

Pune, India

#12 on the 2016 System Integrators Giants List

In a country like India, with a thrust of "make in India" initiative companies are likely to go for the IIoT adoption. However, the customers also expect proven track records for such installations. It would be 3 to 5 years from now, [but] we see a big surge for IIoT being deployed for majority of the plants.

Michael Lindley

Vice President

Concept Systems Inc.

Albany, Ore.

#20 on the 2016 System Integrators Giants List

At this point, I consider the average-sized company to be in the discovery and evaluation phase, which makes now an exciting time to be involved in IIoT. I expect to see more investment and widespread adoption in 2017, exponentially picking up pace in 2018 and beyond. It is not a small investment to prepare for IIoT; there is a lot of manufacturing infrastructure that will need to be updated to bring old and new machines online. Companies also need to mitigate the risks that come with connecting their manufacturing floors to the Internet. There are IT [information technology] strategies that need to be implemented, ensuring that the proper safeguards are in place.

Zoran Šoškić

Engineering Manager

MIKRO KONTROL

Beograd, Serbia

#43 on the 2016 System Integrator Giants List

The potential of IIoT to improve manufacturing processes and logistics is really great. However, the need for it emerges slowly in our market. Many innovations will be enabled with IIoT. However, it’s not about a sudden big change, it’s more of an incremental change.

Todd Williams

Vice President

Leidos

Walled Lake, Mich.

#2 on the 2016 System Integrators Giants List

Any new idea takes a while to become standard across all projects and initiatives, but the security issues of an IIoT platform will slow adoption of these solutions. A positive business case with good project examples will expedite acceptance of a solution, but proving it secure will be a must. With hardware, software, and network providers creating new devices every day that have more functionality, supporting a lower overall project cost adoption will happen once the security aspects catch up.

Rafael Pezzella

IASTECH Automação de Sistemas Ltda

Sales Manager

Sao Paulo, Brazil

#65 on the 2016 System Integrator Giants List

The industry is looking for IIoT, but we do not believe it will be fast in our country. It should be adopted faster than it is happening.

Matthew Burton, PE

Corporate Director of Automation Technology

Hargrove Controls + Automation

Mobile, Ala.

#46 on the 2016 Systems Integrator Giants List

IIoT seems to be one of the biggest technology advancements in automation at the present time. Once end users fully understand how to implement and develop standards around adopting and using these new technologies, there will be an explosive number of opportunities due to the tremendous new product development.

PC Romano

President

Avid Solutions

Winston-Salem, N.C.

#37 on the 2016 System Integrator Giants List

We see it as an immediate play for OEMs [original equipment manufacturers]. We believe that we can help OEMs make their machines/products smart-enabled. By enabling their machines/products with smart technology, they can have fingertip access to the health characteristics of their equipment, offer better maintenance contracts, and support and provide the opportunity to collect more data. This allows the OEM to crowd source the data, so that they can find ways to improve uptime and efficiency based on larger data sets and run environments. They can either offer subscription services to their customers based on performance or just provide more proactive support and experience. Cloud-enabling these systems opens up vast opportunities to the OEMs and their customers. System integrators can certainly help OEMs with this process.

David Ziskind

Automation and System Integration

The Dennis Group LLC

Duluth, Ga.

#62 on the 2016 System Integrator Giants List

While IIoT has the potential to offer wide ranging benefits from quality control to supply chain efficiency to sustainable practices, most manufacturers won’t pursue an all-in approach which would require significant capital investment to replace all of the sensors and controllers that aren’t network-enabled. Additionally, it is going to take time to overcome significant security concerns of exposing plant floor devices to the network. And IIoT adoption goes far beyond hardware/software changes-it requires significant modifications in the processes themselves. For all of these reasons, IIoT will be phased in slowly and in very specific applications. Most manufacturers will need to demonstrate the benefits of a specific IIoT application in a limited scope to help demonstrate a return on investment and alleviate their concerns before they embrace it on a broader scale.

Nigel James

Director of Business Development & Chief Strategic Officer

Burrow Global LLC

Houston, TX.

#14 on the 2016 System Integrator Giants List

At the risk of being a Luddite-not very and not very. There’s more of an opportunity in industrial manufacturing at this time.

Brent McPhail

CEO

Brave Control Solutions

Windsor, Ontario

#71 on the 2016 System Integrator Giants List

In the last couple of years there has been a major paradigm shift among manufacturers, particularly automotive, when it comes to the adoption of new technology. In the past, the status quo ruled; it was not in a manufacturer’s best interest to take a risk on a new, unproven technology. Now, due to globalization and the influx of international competition, the bar has been lowered on what is considered a "risky" new technology. This has opened the door for manufacturers to be able to explore opportunities like virtual and augmented reality, digital twins, and a whole host of new and cutting edge tech. This shift has had the most profound impact on the key decision makers in the manufacturing industry. The same people that in the past would not risk the adoption of new technology in their operations now all own iPhones, have smart TV’s in their homes, and hands-free navigation in their cars. They no longer fear the risk of new technology like they once did and are, in fact, embracing it as a means of competitive differentiation.


Author Bio: Since its founding in 2010, CFE Media and Technology has provided engineers in manufacturing, commercial and industrial buildings, and manufacturing control systems with the knowledge they need to improve their operational efficiency. CFE delivers the right information at the right time around the world through a variety of platforms.