Creating visibility in the plant a major benefit of IIoT

Sal Spada of ARC Advisory Group delivers a view of information management at CFE Media Webcast.

By Bob Vavra, Content Manager, CFE Media June 9, 2016

With the existing network of sensors and gauges on the plant floor today, getting data has not been the issue. The challenge for manufacturers is to analyze that information to allow manufacturers to make better plant floor decisions, said Sal Spada, research director for ARC Advisory Group during the June 2 CFE Media Webcast on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

Part 2 of CFE Media’s year-long series on IIoT focused on information management. The on-demand version of the Webcast is now available online.

The Webcast is sponsored by Beckhoff, Epicor, Kepware, Red Lion and Rittal. "With the Industrial Internet of Things, we have seen already companies are identifying a machine not operating properly or inefficiently, or the way the operator is performing at the machine," said Spada. "So that’s a critical part of the Industrial Internet-creating that visibility."

Spada said the information gathered by machines is reaching into all parts of the manufacturing operation, including machine design. "Machinery operators are actually gathering information to improve the next generation of their own equipment," Spada said during the Webcast.

Rather than just collecting random data, or overloading operators with too much data, the analytics tools at the core of IIoT are helping bring focus to what’s really happening on the plant floor. "Quite a bit of it is about knowledge discovers, or machine learning, which is the term used in this particular market," Spada told the CFE audience. "There are a tremendous number of analytical tools being created today. What’s driving the market today in terms of knowledge discovery is that companies want to create larger numbers of data sets utilize these analytics."

And the end result? Spada said the proper analytics, used properly, will "reduce the time to identifying problems in production operations to (allow manufacturers to) start up more quickly in new product development or to take faster corrective actions."

To see the full Webcast, to register for the 2016 IIoT Webcast series or to view other IIoT archived Webcasts, learn more here.