The industrial internet of things, or IIOT, is the integration of machinery and infrastructure with IT services. It is associated with automation, machine to machine communication, decision support and remote infrastructure management. None of this is new to the industrial sector where techniques such as orchestrated automation, remote monitoring and control have been used since the 1970s. However, IIOT is associated with evolving and brand new approaches in areas such as artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and robotics to support challenges in the industrial sector such as mass customization.
Industrial IoT is projected to help organizations gather a wealth of actionable data from their operations, which IF properly aggregated and analyzed, the data helps them better control operations, with the potential to:
- Improve worker safety
- Increase production uptime
- Predictive maintenance
- Maintain, improve product quality
- Help ensure regulatory compliance
- Improve operational efficiencies
- Accelerate response times
IIOT offers the ability to connect machines and devices in industries such as manufacturing, transportation, oil and gas, power generation and transmission, mines, and ports. However, failure of IIoT can have catastrophic consequences, creating high risk and potentially life-threatening situations. Downtime of other IoT devices may result in inconveniences, but it does not usually cause emergency situations.
