The Industrial Internet of Things
What is IIoT?
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) (also known as Industry 4.0) involves connecting devices and sensors together in order to gather and aggregate information and present it in a meaningful and useful way.
Traditionally this has been the job a of localized SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system. An IIoT solution can be stand alone, or be a part of an existing SCADA. The overall goal of an IIoT system is to notify personnel of alarm conditions and to have access to historical data in order to analyze and given process. Ultimately this allows maintenance personnel to respond and take corrective actions quickly to an alarm condition. Providing business executives access to real-time production data can help to identify areas for possible cost savings.
IIoT can be challenging, but BlueBay can help guide you to a solution.
Recent advances in cross-platform interoperability have made it much easier and less expensive to deploy an IIoT solution. Historically, it was always a challenge to share data from industrial controllers and sensors due to proprietary and industrial specific protocols. Now, this is much simpler with through OPC UA and MQTT for example. These IIoT protocols are extremely efficient and offer a low payload (especially important for edge connected devices that might be on a cellular network).
There are several strategies to consider when considering an IIoT solution. BlueBay can help to determine the right fit for a given application.
IIoT & Industry 4.0 Considerations
How Does it Work?
First we need to decide what we're connecting to. Sometimes additional hardware is required to access the data from existing devices. Now we need to know what method we are going to employ to access it. This will define how we get to the data. There are many industrial protocols that may need to be translated into an IIoT protocol like MQTT or OPC/UA. Don't worry if you don't know what these are, we will help to guide you.
What Data?
What data are we trying to access? The are likely many variables we would like to access. These need to be defined and the data needs to be organized so that we can send it where it needs to go.
Where Will the Data Live?
Where do you want to store the data? Sometimes this might be locally at the device itself, but more often you are going to want to be able to access the data remotely. Today, more people want instant access to visualize the data from an online dashboard in the Cloud that can be accessed from any device and from anywhere. Additionally, you may want to store the data either locally or remotely in something like a SQL database so that historical data can be mined at a later date.
When To Collect?
How often do you want to send this data? The frequency of sending data can affect the amount of data that is stored as well as cost if you are paying for a cloud based service to store and visualize your data. If you are sending data from a cellular connection, this can also affect the cost depending on the plan you have with your provider.
Featured Partners
Exor
Exor manufactures HMI and IIoT products for many industrial applications. All utilize their J-Mobile programming platform for screen developments and protocol conversion setup. They offer economical versions as well as hardened multi-touch interfaces with the eX700 series units. These units are created within the X Platform and hence with an unsurpassed ability to offer access and scalability into Industry 4.0. The tremendous technical flexibility is backed by a company with 45 years in the industry. The eX700 Series represents a groundbreaking product to come to market: This revolutionary controller permits a prudent investment into the implementation of IIoT and hence Industry 4.0 compatibility.
Red Lion
IIoT-ready solutions from Red Lion help you meet the immediate promise of the industrial internet of things with an eye toward complete industrial IoT security and reliable process automation. The best part? Red Lion can accomplish these ambitious goals by gathering data from both new and legacy devices throughout your facility. Today’s floor communication protocols should be able to transmit data in a cloud environment, even when network connections are constantly dropped. They should also offer consistent, robust security and easy scalability. The cellular network medium is proving to be highly reliable and secure, offering traditional data encapsulation like VPN tunnels, as well as more advanced methods to secure data like private access point names (APNs) or Software Defined Networking (SDN).