As the need for actionable data has grown, the barrier into collecting, processing, and storing this data has lowered.  Sensors have gotten cheaper, smaller, and more interconnected while the boom in cloud infrastructure has enabled flexible and scalable backend tooling.  This acceleration in IoT technology and opportunities makes it the perfect time to invest in smart technologies for your business. 

There are many smart technological tools to choose from, making it easy to find one that fits your needs.

In our last IoT blog post, we discussed identifying opportunities for IoT solutions. Once a business problem is identified, a daunting hill to climb is finding the right tools and technology to answer your questions. Luckily, there are now many options to choose from for all your different needs.  Some common sensors include: 

  • Environmental sensors such as temperature or humidity 
  • Location sensors such as GPS 
  • Vibration sensors 
  • Other specialty sensors 

These sensors are low cost and easy to set up, which means exploring options has a minimal impact on overhead and operations. This will allow you to find the sensors that best fit the use case of your business. 

Device interconnectivity is another technological decision that has more options than most people realize. 

It is not always possible to run an ethernet cable out to the machines on the floor. The advancement in wireless protocols allows for many communication technologies that can best support your operation needs. Bedrock technologies such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth allow you to easily stand-up devices without added hardware costs. Distributed mesh networks allow for expansive device networks which were fault tolerant and long range. Finally, with the advent of new low-power, cellular chips, devices are no longer limited to a defined network. 

 

The final piece of getting to your data is the processing and storage infrastructure.

A diverse selection of software tools enables the smart handling of messages from your sensors. Pairing this with cloud capabilities that allow for effortless scaling (up and down!) and getting the infrastructure side stood up, developed, and validated is faster than in the past.  In addition, accessing your own data is no longer limited to being on site, which allows decisions to be distributed to where they make the most sense.  

In practice, we were able to provide a solution to a client who had temperature related quality issues.  Normally, operators were required to hand record temperature reading, which tended to always reflect the set point instead of the real point.  To solve this issue, we found off-the-shelf temperature hardware that was easy to set up and could be connected to the cloud for reporting.  The hardware set up took less than an hour and temperature readings were immediately being reported.  We were then able to pipe these results into Power BI for a live updating temperature reading, along with historical data for quality analysis.   

 

Give us a call!

AMEND has a proven track record of being an IoT leader and delivering a competitive advantage by creating a strategy and seeing it through to implementation. With a focus on speed and efficiency, we enable businesses to quickly implement and validate IoT solutions, ensuring rapid returns on investment. If you’re interested in learning more, please request more information below! 

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