Electrical Connection Spring 2016

28 / 116

28 E L EC TR I C AL CONNEC T I ON S PR I NG 20 1 6
enabling businesses to store test reports
in the cloud and access them remotely
from any location. Users will also be able
to monitor and test their emergency
lighting installation from anywhere in
the world.
In the energy efficiency sector, the
IoT can provide facilities managers
with real-time information on total
energy consumption in their commercial
installation broken down into sub-
categories relevant to that installation.
This information can then be used
to identify potential areas of further
energy savings. The IoT is also powerful
in the sense that it can take all these
inputs and fully automate room
management while allowing for manual
intervention via mobile devices.
INDUSTRIAL
When the IoT is applied to industry
it is commonly referred to as the
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). It is
currently making its presence felt
in several industry sectors by helping
to streamline operations and
identify inefficiencies.
In November 2015, Schneider Electric
surveyed approximately 3,000 business
leaders in Australia and overseas and
compiled a report named IoT2020 .
The report identified three key areas
in which the industrial processes
can be streamlined by incorporating
IoT functionality.
“The first area is asset performance.
We talk about the IoT but, from an
industrial perspective, these connected
‘things’ we’re talking about are ‘assets’.
One of the big changes in perspective
that will be heralded by the IoT is an
increased focus on the complete lifecycle
cost of assets as opposed to their
immediate, up-front cost,” says Brad.
In industry, buildings and even in
our own homes this is becoming more
and more relevant. The actual lifecycle
costs of an asset can be much more
(15-20 times more) than the upfront
purchase cost and as things become
more commodity-driven, lifecycle costs
become more important.
The ability to monitor, measure and
articulate what an asset’s lifecycle
costs are and then have a measure
of control over that is what becomes
really important: a specific focus around
performance over the complete lifecycle
of an asset.
The second key area outlined in the
report is operations. The uptake of
the IoT, combined with an increasingly
transient workforce, is causing many
businesses to rethink traditional
knowledge hierarchies and
operational frameworks.
“We can’t rely on the models of
yesteryear any longer. Businesses often
used to have long-term employees who
knew their company’s system back to
front – they were the unofficial decision
makers and the people who would bring
new employees up to speed – those guys
are starting to leave and the new guys
coming in have only been there a couple
of years and will probably be moving on
in a couple of years because we have a
more transient workplace. This means
the smarts now have to be into the
systems themselves,” says Brad.
Systems with built in smarts can
provide automated direction to
relatively inexperienced operators;
enabling actionable insights to be made
by delivering crucial information at a
specific time and location.
“Getting the piece of information to
the operator right when they need it –
instructions to conduct a preventative
maintenance task as they’re walking
past the relevant machine for example –
can make all the difference on whether
IIoT systems make a positive impact
on processes or just generate useless
data. It’s not about the information itself
but the actual actions the information
drives,” says Brad.
The third area where industrial
processes can be streamlined according
to IoT2020 is the creation of an
enterprise control layer that combines all
the various aspects of the business.
“Previously, individual silos have
all had separate supply chains – the
product lifecycle people are only
concerned with their department, the
customer relationships department only
deal with customers etc. Now we can
bring all that information in and combine
it at an enterprise level which is where
you get some extreme value.
“An interesting example is what’s
happening with supermarket milk.
People aren’t buying the generic, home-
brand milk anymore. They’re all buying
the branded milk and the supermarkets
can’t meet up with demand. However,
if the supermarkets had a really smart
IoT system that could have forecast that
shift – if customer relationships had
identified there was going to be a major
shift in customer buying patterns prior
and immediately, without a manual
interaction, fed that information into
the supply chain – there would have
been milk on the shelf ready to go,”
says Brad.
There can be no argument that the
IoT brings a lot of rewards but there
is no reward without risk. Greater
connectivity inevitably creates a higher
level of risk in the cyber security space.
“In the industrial IoT world, it’s the
operations that need to be prioritised.
So protecting the operations of all
these connected devices is going to
be something that becomes very
important and certainly ingrained in our
thinking,” says Brad.
“I think cyber security will be the
difference between those who are
successful and those who just try to
jump on the IoT bandwagon and leave
their poor customer exposed.”
> Legrand Australia
> Schneider Electric