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Building an IIoT strategy? 5 key considerations for success

Research suggest that 74 percent of companies view their IoT projects as unsuccessful. Listed amongst the reasons for this are extended time to market, inadequate expertise and a lack of understanding about the requirements for an IoT implementation.

 

The five considerations for building a successful IIoT strategy

An Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) implementation involves more than connecting a few sensors or devices and then monitoring the results. The data generated must be captured in an appropriate data architecture to enable its analysis alongside other important metrics. This requires connectivity with other systems, including legacy equipment and technology. Further, the information must then be sharable and available for further analysis, visualisation and reporting.

To build a successful IIoT strategy, therefore, requires multiple considerations. Let’s review the key considerations for success.

#1. An eye on the ROI

Any investment must deliver compelling return on investment (ROI) to be considered a success. When assessing the potential ROI of an IIoT strategy, the initial costs of hardware, software, implementation and training and the ongoing costs of IT overheads and analysis must be weighed against the potential for cost savings which any such initiative might deliver.

Performance against the projected ROI metrics must be monitored closely and regularly to ensure that the predicted ROI is achieved. When deviations occur, analysis to understand why and get ROI back on track must be actioned immediately. Only this way can a project have any hope of being successful.

#2. Prioritise connectivity and integration

In an industrial context, your strategy must consider how to ensure effective data interchange and communication. Seamless interoperability between systems should be your goal. 

In the case of brownfield plants, this will mean ensuring that any solutions are compatible with legacy systems protocols, standards and communication interfaces. Without this, you will struggle to bring the various data points together in the way that you will need to in order to achieve maximum ROI.

#3. Put the right data platform in place

Central to any IIoT programme will be the notion of how you will convert any of the data gathered into actionable insights which can benefit your business. Only this understanding can deliver ROI. Which data are you gathering and why? How can it benefit your business? And how will you make this information available to the people who will benefit from it at the right time and in a format they will understand? 

What’s more, the various connected devices around your operations will, over time, generate a huge amount of data – and this will account for a large degree of ongoing operating costs. Getting your data strategy and data architecture right, therefore, will be critical to your IIoT strategy’s ROI.

A cloud-based data platform which can scale as required is desirable. You will need to consider how to manage the costs of this. As the quantity of data grows, costs of storage can spiral. To avoid this you will need to work with your cloud provider to access cost savings and plan your data management in such a way that historical data can be consolidated to reduce the amount of data stored. 

In addition, your choice of data platform should allow you to employ the latest analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) tools to optimise the value you get from the data you hold, transform it into actionable insights and maximise ROI. Ideally, it will also include tools to create customisable dashboards in which data can be presented topically to the right people. Failing this, you will need the right APIs to push data into existing systems where it can be visualised, analysed and actioned.

 

#4. Rethink cybersecurity

In the past, plant systems were often subject to their own cybersecurity rules. To keep systems running, operating systems were often left to go obsolete. The maximum “never mess with a working system” held strong. However, in a connected manufacturing environment, this approach to running systems cannot be allowed to continue. 

While privacy regulations like GDPR are less relevant in a manufacturing environment, the threats of industrial espionage, IP theft, ransomware and state-sponsored disruption are very relevant. For any IIoT project to be considered successful, these risks must be managed. Protections must be put in place in a way that was not necessary when plant systems remained isolated and unconnected from IT and the Internet.

All systems need to be kept patched and up to date to protect them from the latest cyber threats. In addition, they must be included under the umbrella of the cyber security tools and processes that characterise the rest of your IT estate. Multi-factor authentication, strong access controls, device management, application and network monitoring and AI-powered anomaly detection should prevail over plant systems as much as enterprise IT systems.

 

#5. Build in reliability and scalability

Any successful project will eventually need to be scaled up – whether to integrate new components, new opportunities or new analytical requirements or simply to enable expansion of data capabilities and storage. Therefore, every IIoT strategy must account for the system’s ongoing reliability and potential future expansion of the solution. 

Thinking about scalability at the outset prevents issues of data constraints, reporting constraints, network constraints or a lack of compatibility hampering performance, ROI or system expansion. It also helps to avoid system proliferation whereby a multitude of different systems are introduced without the necessary connectivity, integration or strategic approach being applied.

 

The five considerations for building a successful IIoT strategy

These five considerations – ROI, integration, data strategy, cybersecurity and scalability – are integral to the success of every IIoT programme. By thinking about them strategically from the outset, you can ensure maximum success and ROI from your IIoT investments.

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