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How The Internet Of Things Is Transforming 21st-Century Manufacturing

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

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The internet of things (IoT) is transforming how we live and work in the 21st century. Nearly everyone has a connected device in their home, such as smart thermostats, lightbulbs, speakers and the virtual assistants we talk to on our phones. Many manufacturers began investing in IoT many years ago, with the goal of becoming more efficient, productive and competitive.

According to Accenture, diverse industries — from oil and gas, utilities, mining, agriculture, automotive, discrete manufacturing and beyond — are leveraging IoT to connect the entire supply chain and collect data, driving artificial intelligence and predictive analytics. By leveraging a network of embedded sensors and devices connected to appliances, vehicles and other equipment throughout their manufacturing floors, warehouses and logistics operations, companies benefit from real-time process monitoring and control. This ultimately makes them better equipped to make faster, better-informed decisions.

Modernizing The Approach To Manufacturing

IoT technologies are beginning to change the way that products are developed, manufactured and delivered. As projected by McKinsey, factories are becoming more efficient, ensuring better safety for human operators, reduced downtime and reduced error rates that help save millions of dollars. Four key areas in which IoT is poised to have the most impact include:

• Inventory Tracking And Management: Software and devices installed in warehouses track changes in inventory through an automated system, allowing companies to reassign employees to more cognitively significant tasks.

• Productivity And Efficiency: IoT devices connected to the network can communicate with each other to drive automation, and they can be monitored and controlled remotely by on-site or off-site personnel. Further, by analyzing different data derived from IoT technology, companies can uncover opportunities for optimization of business processes.

• Remote Workers: IoT technology is transforming the staffing of manufacturing facilities. In the past, many operations required an extensive staff of technicians to maintain machinery; now sensors provide detailed information to fewer workers — possibly even a single person — to remotely observe the condition of machines.

• Data Sharing And Decision Making: IoT has completely changed how data is handled. IoT devices track and record patterns in the devices, bringing real-world data that can be shared across the supply chain to leverage for fact-based decision making.

Leveraging Data

Indeed, as companies deploy IoT across their operations, the volume of data they’re generating can be overwhelming. To derive actionable intelligence, manufacturers are implementing data lakes and analytics solutions that can mine both the traditional structured data housed in ERPs and other systems, as well as real-time unstructured IoT data. By leveraging the data across disparate systems, predictive analytics uncover insights and patterns. Machine learning helps to uncover the big picture hidden in the data, allowing organizations to employ artificial intelligence (AI) on the vast and varied data they’re collecting. With this data, manufacturers are empowered to see and respond to crises, identify trends and run scenarios involving any possible disruption related to an IoT device. There are many ways they can leverage this data:

• Dashboards: A device passes data to a dashboard for analysis, and the dashboard delivers an alert or triggers a defined action to address issues.

• Machine Synchronization: IoT-equipped machines can communicate with each other to synchronize actions or complete specific processes. If a machine goes down, sensors can trigger a service request or other action.

• Business Process Improvements: By integrating IoT devices directly into business processes, companies can leverage their data for continuous feedback, analysis, optimization and decision making.

• Location Tracking: At-a-glance, real-time location tracking via sensors on tools, machinery, products and even people help reduce downtime lost to searching for a misplaced item.

Plan Your Investment

IoT is delivering opportunities to optimize business operations that improve profitability, but it requires an initial investment in devices and a related technology infrastructure. It’s essential that companies begin any IoT deployment with a plan developed in the context of how their operations can best leverage these resources. Companies will probably need to hire employees with specialized skills to support their IoT-equipped devices and to manage and analyze the data they generate.

Is it worth the initial investment — of money, time, personnel — as well as the business disruption to deploy IoT? To some extent, it depends on your organization’s level of efficiency and risk aversion — its need to upgrade outdated technology or drive expense reduction. IoT can deliver return on investment by saving costs and time in the long term, providing data for better-informed business decisions, helping the organization work smarter, letting technology do the work of inefficient manual processes, and reducing the risk associated with failure of legacy equipment.

There are more devices connected to the internet than ever before, and the number continues to climb as the IoT transforms the entire approach to manufacturing. The sensors in these devices transmit data about repairs, certification, operating efficiencies and opportunities to optimize the equipment. As a result, the IoT can reduce your downtime, help ensure compliance, and drive productivity and profitability.

[source: forbes]

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Education

Data: The mover and shaker of 21st-century education

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Technological disruption is revitalising the education industry, enabling both students and teachers to strengthen their skills and knowledge to adapt to the new requirements of a 21st-century work force.

In July 2016, Georgia Tech professor Ashok Goel hired Jill Watson, a teaching assistant for the spring semester. Jill was great at online student interactions, answering questions and was nominated as an outstanding assistant by students. The difference between Jill and other assistants? Jill is a chatbot. Her DNA is based on an open source platform (with pre-fed customized data) developed specifically to handle an enormous amount of students posts on the forum. And thus began an interesting new phase in one of the most respected sectors in the world – the education sector.

In India too, personalized digital learning platforms, new learning models delivering customized knowledge and flipped classrooms are finally dismantling the “one size fits all” approach towards student learning and education. Learning is becoming immersive (inside and outside the classroom); spurring creativity, critical thinking and meaningful real-world experiences.

Technological disruption is revitalising the education industry, enabling both students and teachers to strengthen their skills and knowledge to adapt to the new requirements of a 21st-century work force. These are exciting times to be an educator and a student.

But, the growth is disparate and still rudimentary. Understandably so for a country like ours with widespread geographical, cultural, gender and financial differences. Coupled with limited infrastructure, the dream of a truly literate India has a long time coming. There is a wide gap between expectations and reality both in terms of physical infrastructure and technological adoption.

While the government and academia work on improving the former, the latter has the power to really turn things around. What it needs in that endeavour is a solid data led backbone. Educational institutions today hold large amounts of data collected from online applications, classroom exercises/testing and student surveys. Social media too provides a rich source of information to capture student learning styles, preferences, concerns, reactions and perceptions.

This unstructured but valuable resource can be effectively analysed for insights to boost student achievement, increase faculty and staff productivity and improve operational effectiveness via better financial management and streamlined operations.

On a student level, the right utilisation of data sets will provide educators with real-time feedback on students’ performances, strengths and weaknesses. Data analytics can track student learning curves based on learning style and capability. Teaching techniques can accordingly be altered based on student pace and skill level, further augmented with technology innovations. If we can Dial in a Doctor, why not a teacher?

On a national level, a central repository can help make better decisions for the entire sector. The ball has already started rolling with the Digilockers and the National Repository of Open Educational Resources (high-quality digital content in local languages). The next step would be to make data accessible to institutions and academia alike – so that they can build customised techniques basis local and individual differences.

However, this is not a small undertaking. Challenges include low awareness, an absence of a data driven, insight – oriented culture, availability of uniform data sources and the apparent cost associated with data mining. Greater efforts are needed to adopt data management and infrastructure backbone for informed decisions, increased efficiency and greater accountability.

One of the foremost ways to address these issues is to increase collaborative efforts between educational institutions and data management enterprises. India must invest in a strong technology backbone, focused on hardware and software development across schools and higher education institutions. Educators need be trained to integrate technology in their pedagogy for effective learning.

But is the future of education solely dependent on technology? While data is set to move the educational landscape, educators are also working incessantly to build a sustainable and meaningful education system for all. The future will be about putting students first – with an innovative new curriculum focused on real-world needs, class design revamps for greater collaboration, rehashing educator roles and harnessing big data and artificial intelligence. The global conversation on innovative education is growing much louder and the urge to get rid of antiquated education systems has never been stronger and we should definitely not sit this one out.

There are tremendous growth opportunities for big data and analytics in the education sector. The Digital India drive can catalyse such initiatives by creating an enabling environment across the country.

Therefore, as we adapt to the needs of a 21st-century workforce, the sector needs a robust infrastructure background with measured approaches to manage life critical, business critical, real time, and mobile data. Backed up with investment, coherent strategies, and top-notch human talent, it’s now time to change the education sector with data.

Source:-hindustantimes

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