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Having ‘the talk’ with management

Getting management on board with IIoT implementation can be difficult. Ray Miciek explains how to bring up the concept to them.

By Bob Vavra, CFE Media January 15, 2018

One of our favorite articles in recent months was the piece from Ray Miciek of Aquitas, where he discussed how to get your management team on board with implementing the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), particularly in terms of enterprise asset management (EAM) where IIoT shows the greatest promise. Miciek’s premise—that you need to have “the talk” with your plant leadership to get them to understand the benefits of IIoT—presents challenges not too different than that other “talk” we’ve had with our children.

Miciek’s thoughts were to emphasize the positive aspects to the organization as a whole, and not just to the maintenance team. “IIoT is not just the next come and go hot topic. It has staying power. It is a topic whose discussion that has a trickle-down effect from the boardroom to the plant floor, but more and more it is bubbling up directly from maintenance operations. From a maintenance department standpoint, it is a much different discussion and easier discussion with management than, “we want to upgrade or need to upgrade our enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or EAM system.”

The maintenance benefits of IIoT is in knowing what is about to happen before it happens. This saves money, time, and people, and improves operational efficiency. Those are all the things management loves to hear.

Bob Vavra is the Content Manager for Plant Engineering at CFE Media.