Navigating the increasing global competition among the industrial landscape requires a constant balance between capturing new business opportunities and ensuring sustainable operations. Leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT) allows you to understand areas of increase production and efficiency, understand and improve processes, and even predict faults in processes before downtime occurs. Companies that take advantage of connected technology will thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution/Industry 4.0.
Growth in Industry 4.0 - Industrial IoT
HVAC
Smart HVAC controls are expected to grow at a 19% CAGR for 2018 – 2024 with an end value of USD $25 billion.
Submeters
The electric sub-meter market is projected to cross the value mark of USD $7.7 billion by the end of 2030.
HMI
TThe HMI market is expected to reach USD $5.6 billion by 2025, primarily driven by industrial and manufacturing plants growth.
Access Control
The global access control market size is expected to reach USD $15.6 billion by 2027.
Commercial Lighting
Global revenue for commercial connected lighting systems expected to grow at 17.9% CAGR by 2029.
Factory Control
The global industrial wireless automation market from 2021-2025 is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 5%.
Asset Tracking
The asset tracking market was valued at USD $17.14 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13.45% by 2026.
Predictive Maintenance
The global predictive maintenance market is expected to grow from USD $4.0 billion in 2020 to USD $12.3 billion by 2025.
Requirements for Industrial IoT Applications
Reliability
Uptime and throughput are the kings of industrial automation, and anything that threatens this is met with scrutiny. For a connected solution to make an overall positive impact on the process it is connecting, it must ensure extremely high uptime or solve another crucial issue where the tradeoff is worth it. For a reliable and robust connection, the entire connected solution must be tuned for high noise environments and worst-case scenarios. To do this, the hardware has to be strong and the software running the network has to be robust enough to handle interruptions from machines starting, as well as updating during operation.
Maintenance
Industrial processes can be noisy, full of vibrations and large moving objects, which creates a problem for both the machines that live in it and people that service it. Maintaining an industrial process can be difficult as failures are unpredictable and diagnostics are timely to run. To increase uptime, users are replacing manual diagnostic process with wireless ones and implementing a remote monitoring process. This reduces the people needed inside the factory and allows connection to cloud services to improve processes and store data. It can also help predict the failure of machines by sensing and detecting changes in their operational profile and allow the user to preemptively fix the issue before it becomes a much larger problem.
Security
The connected network being deployed is often controlling something of extreme value, whether fiscally valuable, or crucial to functioning government. This creates incentives for malicious entities to attack the connected process. It seems we hear more and more about ransomware and attacks on industry bringing business to a halt which is very costly. To prevent this, security must be at the forefront. Each end device needs to be manufactured securely, include the latest protection from known attacks, and have the ability to update to protect from future attacks. A single breach is enough to lose industry trust, as well as revenue.
Scalability
Factories and manufacturing plants are not static and need to adapt to new products, new processes, and new technologies. For the IoT and all the nodes to adapt, the underlying solution needs to be scalable. The number of nodes must be able to increase easily and the data needs to increase when needed. To ensure the network that is being rolled out doesn’t cause more of a headache than it is worth, you must ensure it is flexible, fluid, and scalable. This will allow the maximum long term use out of the connected devices.
How to Meet IoT Product Lifecycle Challenges
To succeed in the intensely competitive smart home market, it is not enough to just develop and launch products to the market. With the continuously evolving software, security and wireless ecosystems, you must consider how to manage the entire IoT product lifecycle, from design to decommissioning, while meeting the user requirements every single day.
Explore Our Solutions for Industrial IoT
Resources
Developing Beacons with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Technology
Meeting the Design Challenges of Smart Metering
Supercharging Beacons with Bluetooth 5
Enhancing Smart Lighting with 802.15.4 Mesh, Bluetooth and Multiprotocol Connectivity
Advantages of Wireless Human-Machine Interface (HMI) for Industrial Automation
Real World Impact of IoT Energy Management
Transforming HMI in Industrial Devices Using Bluetooth
Smart Buildings: Constructing Wireless Infrastructure for the Future
Key Considerations for Developing Smart Buildings
Preparing for Next Gen Cyber Attacks on IoT