Big Value of Industrial IoT is Protecting Capital Stock from Damage

source: Business Insider

Lower energy consumption is a value often cited for industrial Internet of Things applications, but protecting expensive equipment from potential damage arguably is the bigger driver of value in the industrial Internet of Things space.

Real time process control is the broad reason why edge computing (fog computing) is important, said David King, Foghorn Software CEO.

The reason process control is so important--beyond efficiency gains--is the value of protecting expensive equipment from damage and downtime.

In some cases, as with high-pressure water pumps, engineers might have only milliseconds to detect and prevent pressure conditions that cause cavitation and bubbles that damage a pump, said Sastry Malladi, Foghorn Systems CTO.

That is hard to do in a traditional cloud computing--rather than edge computing--environment. Communications latency alone can prevent proactive adjustments.

In manufacturing settings, $110,000 machines operate with specific winding tension, said Malladi. Equipment operators have only seconds to take machines offline when the winding tension is off, he added.

The point is that process control managers might have seconds to milliseconds to respond to a problem and modify operations to prevent equipment damage.

In other words, the value proposition includes better energy consumption, or more-efficient operations. But the real value is reducing damage to expensive equipment.