Digital Transformation

IoT Digital Transformation is on the Way to Change the Business Outlook
admin
June 21, 2023
Digital Transformation, IoT

IoT Digital Transformation is on the Way to Change the Business Outlook

The Internet of Things, also known as IoT, is the interconnectivity of physical devices, vehicles, people, and objects with sensors, software, and network interconnectivity, allowing them to collect and exchange data.

Today, it’s not hard to access or collect data; it’s readily available. However, many processes, machines, and other technologies still need to be fully connected and become something the industry deems smart. This digital transformation is all set to begin.

As per Grand View Research, the global IoT devices management market size was estimated at 1.88 billion in 2022 and is assumed to increase at a compound annual growth rate of around 34.9 percent from 2023 to 2030. The growing importance of enterprises on controlling linked devices and enhancing operational efficiencies across industry sections would lead to an increase in the demand for IoT device management.

The continuous growth of IoT gives a clear signal that it will stay for a long time and will highly help and impact shaping the future. Though some processes, machines, and other devices are yet needed to be connected, it’s just a matter of time before they will need to be integrated into this technology-driven world. This indicates that the future is strongly linked to IoT, and its increasing demand and day-by-day expansion prove this fact.

A Faster and More Un(predictable) World

The continuous advancement of technology is forcing businesses to adopt the Internet of Things. It promises to fulfill the desire for efficiency and has become a necessity. In today’s rapidly changing and advancing world, it has become mandatory to maintain efficiency, and if one fails, it will lead to a huge failure. ChatGPT‘s technology is best to quote as an example to support this. Surprisingly, for the first time, Google has stepped into difficulty as they ignored that technology must continuously update to keep a sync with the dynamic environment.

The Internet of Things has become a game-changing technology that offers more predictability in an unpredictable world. IoT allows the device to collect and analyze real-time data from connected devices, which can be utilized to predict and prevent potential problems before they happen.

IoT Driving Transformation on its Way…..

Digital transformation means integrating digital technologies into all sections and processes of a business, causing fundamental changes to how the business operates and delivering results to customers. The current status of IoT, with its swiftly evolving technology and the increasing adoption of interconnected devices, is all set to bring pace to digital transformation across various industries.

By authorizing businesses to gather and analyze immense amounts of data in real time, IoT provides:

  • The optimization of business processes
  • The generation of new revenue ways
  • The development of innovative business models

Integrating IoT devices into business operations allows businesses to gain insights into customer behavior, enhance operational efficiency and improve overall customer experience. Hence, the Internet of Things continuous advancement and expansion is expected to drive digital transformation across industries forcefully.

IoT is Adding More Meaning to Technology Advancements

The features offered by IoT have eased the prediction process and made it less intimidating. The very influential Internet of Things has positively covered the digital and physical world gap, offering a futuristic environment that can sync with the changing technologies instead of being left behind. It can gather and analyze flooding data from interconnected devices to provide meaningful insights into various aspects of lives and businesses.

Various challenges have appeared with the growth of the Internet of Things, yet it has persisted and achieved its current state. Starting from compatibility challenges to data security and scalability. These are some initial installation issues while implementing IoT technology in businesses.

Businesses that embraced IoT as a newcomer played a significant role in resolving issues via testing and establishing the technology. As a result, businesses can now leverage the faster and more dependable implementation of IoT solutions, enabling smoother integration into their operations.

Effortless Interoperability: The Way to Leverage Seamless Technology

The complexity of IoT can be overwhelming for many, creating confusion and uncertainty. When many devices are added to an IoT network, managing and scaling the infrastructure tends to be a big challenge. The increasing number of devices and the immense amount of data generated by them can crash the existing systems, creating a challenge to manage and analyze data properly.

Business owners usually need clarification about upgrading their equipment and the different technology stacks involved in IoT. Now, it’s high time to shift the focus from a complex technology stack to a simple solution.

Old technology and processes should not limit your ability to make informed business decisions. The solution is not to remove them but to connect and boost them by linking them with advanced technology.

We hope to see even more innovative applications in various sectors as IoT evolves. The growth prospect is high, and businesses adopting this technology will be in a better place and reap its benefits.

As per Mckinsey, The Internet of Things has now become part of more than 200 applications in enterprise environments and is not just limited to large corporations alone. Early adopters have done trials and testing and are scaling IoT solutions throughout their businesses. The features and versatility of IoT technologies have resulted in several remarkable applications in various sectors like smart cities, connected cars, smart buildings, smart homes, e-health, and many others.

The latest IoT technology advancement has enabled all sectors to access non-existent features. For example, Business-to-Business (B2B) companies are now using Industry 4.0 technologies to create direct connections with their products in the field.

Upgrade your business- Take Action Today

The Internet of Things has come a long way and has become essential to our lives and businesses. The continuous growth and development of IoT and the increasing number of connected devices, combined with the need for efficiency and relevance, make the technology imperative to be adopted. By adding IoT, businesses can churn the maximum benefits and make the existing processes more efficient and cost-effective.

Read More
Need Enterprise IoT Solutions for Digital Transformation
admin
December 20, 2022
Digital Transformation, IoT

Why do We Need Enterprise IoT Solutions for Digital Transformation?

We all are well aware of the changes brought by digital transformation, or we can say that digital transformation has achieved many advancements in the past few years. However, the primary question remains: Why do we need Digital transformation? The answer is that to stay competitive, businesses must adopt digitalization. It is mandatory to maintain the minimal digital standard. So, the question should be changed to What are the benefits offered by digitalization to the company?

Let’s assume that company is already leveraging the benefits offered by digitalization. But not everyone can implement or execute it seamlessly, especially considering the highly structured nature and operations in the difficult-to-reach area, increased safety requirements, and a small room for risk.

These challenges are commonplace in sectors like construction, agriculture, and mining. Luckily, the technologies backing digitalization are regularly upgrading to provide the most suitable combination of digital solutions for successful digital transformation. Let’s know how companies can start or continue digitalization using enterprise IoT solutions without the hassle.

Why go Digital?

Digital transformation has not been limited to desktop computers. The level of digitalization in a company can be estimated by the digitalization of its assets, usage, and labor. Product companies must enhance their products using digitalization, for example, by customizing thermometers or developing an agricultural product range with a digital irrigation system. 

According to recent statistics, almost 70% of companies embrace and have a digital transformation strategy or perform on it. These organizations represent the following reasons why digitalization can be advantageous for them:

  • Top Benefits of Adopting a Digital Model

Top Benefits of Adopting a Digital Model (Source: IoTForAll)

It is apparent that many of these factors are interdependent or outcomes of the same digital improvements. For example, by replacing the old-traditioned button-operated interface with the sensor interface in a tabletop printer, a company could boost its final product quality, which naturally impacted operational efficiency. Therefore, having a clear goal is vital for a potent digital strategy. A more thorough approach means a more valuable outcome. This is true for production and enterprise process improvement, as digital enterprise processes can enhance performance while IoT can speed up adoption.

Business IoT Solutions & Digital Transformation:

These four core target components give a holistic look at the digital enterprise of today:

  • Automation
  • Efficiency
  • Security
  • Maintenance

IoT-embracing companies are already familiar with the benefits and vital points of the IoT ecosystem development strategy. IoT adoption is considered one of a company’s digital indicators. However, it is more reasonable to consider IoT as a tool for enterprise organizations for transformation. This approach empowers to counter any inflated expectations, for instance, executing IoT components and expecting the company’s revenue to skyrocket. It is necessary to ensure that each tool is used appropriately and strategically.

Digital Strategies: 

An IoT implementation process is more intricate than various digital strategies. This is why we call it an IoT ecosystem, where all the components, from sensors to people, communicate with each other to achieve the primary business goals. Besides their extensive nature, IoT ecosystems are adaptable and permit companies to enforce them irrespective of their digital level.

Therefore, we suggest Enterprise IoT solutions for these two main digital strategies:

  • Initial digitalization: By creating an IoT ecosystem, businesses become digitized. By integrating crucial equipment, assets, vehicles, or cargo into intelligence, one can get real-time status, monitor environmental conditions, people’s activities, track location, etc. By adding analytical tools to the IoT ecosystem, one can predict equipment failure, create optimal routes or detect failure due to human factors. One can even add a cybersecurity program due to the potential vulnerability of the endpoints.
  • Advanced digitalization: Besides the capacity to deliver the vector for further business development, Enterprise IoT Solutions are best to estimate the other vector for the digital development of a company. For instance, if you execute a machine vision for improving QA processes at the first step, it is easy to track its efficiency and pick up complementary solutions. When all the essential assets are implanted with IoT sensors, companies can implement a digital twin and meticulously investigate data in their ecosystems. Therefore, you can get a solid analytical advantage empowering you to predict trends or simulate cases.

Enterprise IoT Challenges & Solutions

To know how to accelerate transformation, we must comprehend what slows down this process. Let’s know the major digital problems and solutions to overwhelming them.

1. Inventions Can Cause Disruptions:

Adding innovations brings a change in working models. This is true for highly structured sectors like mining, rail, and construction. Thus, they should regard digital solutions with structure in mind. The best benefit is that IoT technologies are flexible and can incrementally.

Now, we are familiar with successful cases of how some traditionally unsuccessful industries in digital have soared there in recent years. For example, in 2015, healthcare was one of the least digitized industries. But the story changed within three years, and in 2018, it became one of the top digital business strategy adopters, along with the financial and service sectors. Telemedicine, smart pharmacy, wearables, and smart hospitals have become part of the world; this shows that the healthcare sector is successfully managing the enterprise IoT adoption and will keep embracing it.

2. Lack of Safety:

If an enterprise IoT integration is technically challenging, the organization should spend more time on marketing research. The statistics are open, and enterprise IoT providers are updating their technical tools to outstretch the potential implementation area. In mining operations, which are usually held in vast and remote areas and have less connectivity, the best and most convenient solution is implementing mesh nets to ensure a reliable IoT ecosystem. As a result, one can monitor the entire area and get to know the health status of the machines.

3. Resistance:

Line workers are less resistant to innovation. Top management is typically the most resistant as they are responsible for the business. It is the only right decision to approach innovations efficiently by calculating all pros and cons. 

Therefore, higher-level leaders should get precise reports on how particular Enterprise IoT solutions will impact the business processes and revenue of the company. While making an execution strategy, it is essential to calculate all the situations, risks, and ROI and intercommunicate accurate statistics. Thus, there is a high possibility that a technology important for a specific enterprise will be backed.

IoT Ecosystem for Business Goals

Taking the IoT ecosystem not as an end goal but as an effective instrument to achieve business goals using digital transformation is more beneficial. Organizations’ main objectives are improving operational efficiency, meeting customer expectations, and enhancing new product quality. By enforcing enterprise IoT solutions, it is easy to get real-time insights. Enterprise IoT solution is compatible with initial and advanced digitalization as they can analyze large volume of data.

Read More
admin
August 24, 2022
Digital Transformation, Technology

How will 5G Revolutionize the Healthcare Industry?

Today, we are advancing in terms of technologies, but using these latest technologies to their best, we need good internet connectivity. The journey from 2G to 4G has been incredible, and now we are switching to 5G and private networks. When 5G will dominate and cover most of the area in the coming years, what would be the possible changes in different industries?

Any idea?

Undoubtedly, 5G and private networks will hugely impact the future of the different sectors and industries, including healthcare.

Besides upgrading the wireless communication ecosystem, 5G will also enhance global innovation by integrating other latest technologies like edge computing or AI. The demand for more connectivity and data requirements will be addressed by 5G as it offers ultra-fast connections and gigantic bandwidth to boost companies’ efficiency and innovation skills.

Therefore, let us know how 5G will work and save lives by allowing faster response time, sharing patient information, and promising better data security.

Why do we need 5G in Healthcare?

Today, there are several issues faced by the connected healthcare solutions, like:

  • Data security issues because of wifi networks and legacy telecom technology.
  • Availability of Single-network SIMS and expensive roaming solutions.
  • Less accessibility to private 5G/LTE Networks.

Hence, 5G and private networks are most-demanded because of their capability to transfer data at much higher speeds while promising greater security. This will definitely offer countless possibilities within the healthcare ecosystem.

The top benefits of using 5G and private networks for healthcare include:

  • Reduced latency for more rapid communication between healthcare providers and patients.
  • Unmatched security to ensure that patient data stays secure (especially compared to wifi and Bluetooth alternatives).

Where is 5G Making an Influence?

5G is going to impact almost every sector, but five primary sectors that will be influenced by it are:

1: Wearables and Connected Medical Devices:

The wearables market is growing rapidly, and apparently, its adoption in Healthcare is the highest. These IoT-enabled smart devices support patients and healthcare providers monitor important biometric data and assure prompt emergency response time.

Some of the devices which are helping healthcare centers are:

  • Glucose monitoring devices
  • Cardiac monitoring devices
  • Fitness trackers
  • Smartwatches
2: Connected Emergency Services:

IoT-connected ambulances can be labeled as the future of emergency response. 5G empowers doctors and paramedics to cooperate in real-time even when they are at distant places. These smart ambulances offer more details about patients and their health history promptly than ever before; this plays a crucial role in changing how emergency services can be delivered.

3: Drone Delivery of Medical Supplies:

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, paralyzing every section, drones were employed for remote virus testing and to deliver medical supplies. These drones were primarily used to support underserved societies worldwide, but 5G in Healthcare plays an important role in assuring these kinds of use cases stay connected in the future, particularly within cities.

4: Employee Panic Buttons:

Hospitals all over the world are taking advanced steps to ensure safety and peace within the campus. They are arming nurses with employee safety devices- “panic buttons” responding to news of hospital violence. 

Three in ten nurses who participated in a survey conducted on violence within hospitals shared that there is an increase in violence cases at their hospitals. These cases are the result of staff shortages and strict visitor restrictions. Panic buttons must remain connected; both 5G and private networks within hospitals can ensure these devices stay functional as they greatly support employees’ safety.

5: Hospital and Medical Campuses:

Demand for 5G and private networks in Healthcare is increasing day by day. Private LTE/5G Networks has improved security features, and many hospitals and medical premises can use these private networks to assure data security and HIPAA compliance. Private 5G/LTE networks are usually deployed as a replacement for wifi, which lacks enhanced security for transferring health and personal data over the Internet.

5G will transform Healthcare from head to toe:

The intrusion of the COVID-19 pandemic made us realize the importance of the connected healthcare industry and showed us how the latest technologies could evolve healthcare. It also emphasized the importance of monitoring and treating patients from remote areas using virtual connections.

5G will surely revolutionize every aspect of healthcare, from wearables to emergency services, from supply chain optimization to remote diagnostics to electronic medical records management, from panic buttons to drones, hospitals, and medical campuses.

As per the report on 5G in Healthcare, PwC shared that it is not expecting extensive use until 2025 in many markets. When widespread deployment happens, PwC predicts 5G-compatible devices being utilized to monitor bed occupancy levels, the movement of physicians, nurses, and patients around the hospital premises, and wearable medical devices. So, we can conclude that by reducing latency, improving reliability, and boosting security, new healthcare use cases will benefit from the availability of 5G and private networks.

Read More
How does data preparation automation improve time to insights?
admin
December 1, 2021
Data Analytics, Digital Transformation

How does Data Preparation Automation Improve Time to Insights?

Today, most businesses depend on the data, and the data generated and consumed for the purpose are massive. It is an undeniable fact that with growing technology, the amount of data will keep on increasing in the coming years. It is assumed that by the end of this decade, the total amount of data will cross approximately 572 Zettabytes, which is almost ten times more than the amount of data present. Ultimately this will be a challenging task for an organization, as it will become hard to manage and organize data. Besides, this process of collecting meaningful data from the accumulated one becomes a time-consuming process.

One of the top challenges organizations face is obtaining real-time insights and staying ahead in the market from competitors and the resultant pressure to work faster together. 

We all know that doing everything manually has become an impossible task as it brings in many challenges. Therefore automation is the best option for organizations to earn valuable information and streamline the data transformation process. As per the data fabric trends report, it has been estimated that the data automation market size will extend up to $4.2 billion (€3.56 billion) in 2026.

Strategic data automation:

When people come across the concept of automation, there is a common misconception that automating business processes means replacing human resources with technology. It is essential to understand that automation does not take the place of humans in the workspace; instead, they ease their work by helping them complete tasks seamlessly and efficiently. No technology can replace human brains for doing any jobs. Though most of the repetitive and monotonous business processes can be automated, the basic need to implement business logic and rules to be used within the code is done manually.

Interpreting and making the right decision needs human intelligence for conducting various complex data analyses, and it can never be replaced.

Even after the availability of developers, the growing need for automation will fail to keep with the increasing amounts of data and gather expedient insights from it. Manual coding to execute the necessary logic into automation will be an arduous task when it has to be performed with a considerable amount of data in a given time. 

Exploring new ways for data preparation and business automation will help in obtaining insights promptly. Today, many data preparation tools are available in the market that provides trusted, current and time-based insights. These tools encrypt the available data and make it safe and secure.

Why do we need an automatic data transformation process?

Besides the need to automate repetitive and monotonous tasks and offer the organizations more time to work on the other complex data processing and analyzing, automation provides various other benefits. The list is as follows:

  • Manage data records – Automating data transformation methods empowers firms to organize new data set effectively. This will result in maintaining the comprehensive data sets and making them available whenever needed.
  • Concentrate on main priorities –  Business intelligence(BI) is just not meant to deliver timely and meaningful insights. They are assigned to work on innovative initiatives. Automation tasks provide them much time to work on business’ vital aspects.
  • Better decision making – Automation permits fast access to more comprehensive and detailed information. This enables management teams to create vital and speedy business decisions.
  • Cost-effective business processes –  Time management is an essential factor for any business.  Time is a critical factor in any industry. Automating the processes like data transformation and other data related tasks reduces the cost and resources consumption and ensures better results.

Ways to automate workflow

Employing of a built-in scheduler and third-party scheduler:

ELT (“extract, load, and transform”) products have a built-in scheduler. This ends the dependence on the third-party application or any other platform to launch the product. ELT tools also allow managing tasks centrally that making it easier to control and manage the tasks. 

Additionally, another benefit of using ELT tools is dependency management. Here a primary job can be used to start a second job. Dependency management allows an organization to categorize tasks and make management seamless. Many platforms enable performing APIs, and API calls can be scheduled in a specified way adopting the operating system’s built-in scheduler. Many third-party tools can perform ELT tasks. Employing these tools will offer functionalities to integrate with existing systems within the development environment. But, if one has to use third-party ELT tools, then additional charges have to be paid for services and resources used to execute a product.

Cloud service provider services:

Today, companies are switching to cloud technologies. It has been observed that  94% of enterprises have already adopted the cloud. In addition to storing and managing data, CSPs provides many other services that support automation. Like using messaging services to start a task. Any production tasks or custom tasks that hold messaging can listen to the upcoming messages in a job queue and start a job based on the content of the message. However, the general working concept remains the same. Some examples of messaging services are AWS SQS, Microsoft Azure Queue Storage. 

Furthermore, CSPs also offer serverless functions to aid with automation, and this serverless functionality can automatically activate the jobs. The benefit of using serverless functions is that the company only has to pay for service when it is in use. Google Cloud and AWS Lambda functions are some of the known examples of serverless cloud services.

Conclusion:

In the upcoming years, integrating processes with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, automation will become easy and efficient. This will help organizations prepare data and acquire more meaningful insights. But to embrace these technologies, organizations should be ready to accept and welcome the changes that accompany them while adopting these technologies.

Read More
Generating Continuous Value for IoT Using Ecosystem Approach
admin
July 13, 2021
Digital Transformation, IoT

Generating Continuous Value for IoT Using Ecosystem Approach?

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted almost all sectors. Still, on the other hand, it opened a plethora of opportunities to improve the existing business culture by showing us the path of Digital Transformation. Today, the industry stands on the doorsteps of its much-awaited renewal. It is evident that manufacturing leaders have to adopt digital transformation but have to accelerate innovation while managing crucial processes like enhancing capacity without compromising product quality.

Thus, digital transformation is the new focus in the manufacturing industry, and no doubt, effective collaboration will be the best way to keep both things smooth and productive at the same time. However, this will not be easy as workforces have gone and are still mostly remote.

Pandemic Impact:

As the virus blanketed the globe, it became pretty clear that there would be a fight for survival among industries. There would be winners and losers. Before the pandemic situation, the manufacturing sector had been slow in adopting the digital transformation and lacked a data-centric mindset that has already transformed other industries. Even those who embraced multimillion-dollar Industry 4.0 or IoT initiatives were not receiving any excellent results to showcase their efforts. Unfortunately, when the pandemic knocked the globe, resources to support implementations went at the edge.

Not just they lost the data they needed to adapt at the moment but also potential value..

Digital Transformation:

Today the most asked question is why invest in digital transformation at the corporate level when there is no usable data from the factory floor? 

Well, Smart manufacturing does not demand to have an entire organization devoted to its success. In manufacturing, it can begin with capturing insights from the very initial operation- the machine assets that make products and people handling the machine. The assets are one of the most significant capital investments for any manufacturing industry, and it produces thousands of data points every second. Still, these valuable data are not captured and analyzed to improve the efficacy leading to no improvement or growth. Today’s factories are based on manual processes that result in massive inefficiencies and disturbs every part of the organization.

Insights along with correct action-driven from this data can lay the foundation for manufacturers to grow their business and stand above the competitors. Even the chances of errors and inefficiency are negligible.

Machine Data Infrastructure:

As we already know, there were many manufacturers, organizations, consultants and system integrators who attempted to rebuild the machine data infrastructure from scratch and produced varying degrees of achievement as a part of large IoT initiatives.

Even while leveraging a horizontal IIoT platform, the whole setup requires months or years. Once it is completed, the mechanism for capturing and contextualizing machine data has to build, and it needs regular maintenance. Not only are the expenses of sustaining these solutions limit, but the missing opportunity and value affiliated with misallocating resources to produce something that already exists causes a competitive disadvantage for the manufacturer.

Accurate real-time data automatically collected and transformed from machine assets produce a solid base for driving bottom-line value. When joined with visibility and actionability via alerts, analytics and automation triggered by the data, one can observe a 15-20% improvement in utilization performance in months.

Once this is over, the value achievement can be fast and multi-directional by integrating the data into other siloed data on enterprise factory and industry systems, i.e. from product designing to production, product quality, maintenance and logistics to run endless automation and accomplishment of exceptional value.

This enables an ecosystem of manufacturers and partners to speed up value attainment and reduce the risk of initiative failure by optimally adjusting the entities having individual skills, in particular IIoT initiatives.

IIoT Ecosystem:

IIoT Ecosystem includes manufacturers, machine builders, machine builder distributors, technology and solution providers, service providers, software providers, system integrators and consultants. Each has its unique skill, expertise, or intellectual property that can be used to drive a successful IIoT initiative. When the resources mentioned above are disarranged or sub-optimized, IIoT initiatives fail to deliver on the insured value proposition or fail entirely.

So, the question is, where should the manufacturer focus? Analytics, including both Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence algorithms, can be developed and applied at the edge as well as in the cloud using analytics technologies. The correct alignment of skills and technologies produces the optimal formula for the manufacturer’s speedy and regular value generation.

Successful IIoT initiatives need selecting the right technologies and perfect alignment of the different entities in the IIoT Ecosystem that participate in the industry. In the IIoT Ecosystem, the alignment should be done based on each participant’s unique technology, IP and domain expertise to extract maximum benefit and reduce risk.

The emphasis should be on quick data transformation, excellent application, integration and automation into other best factory systems.

Pivot, Respond, Adapt:

As I already shared that many manufacturers suffered a lot during the pandemic times, and no doubt much of that suffering was out of their hands. But who were the ones who surpassed all the challenges and succeeded? Who were winners when the whole world was encountering losses at different levels? Well, the organizations that can pivot, respond and adapt at the tough times. It wasn’t easy, but they were prepared with the data, the tools and the mindset to win.

For manufacturers who had to spend a lot on difficult-to-implement should pump the breaks in favour of vertical solutions that can benefit immediately.

It’s time to switch to the new world of digital transformation. Are you ready for it?

Read More
Adoption of Smart Cities for a Brighter Future
admin
March 25, 2021
Digital Transformation, IoT

Adoption of Smart Cities for a Brighter Future

Are you living in a smart home? Just look around, and you’ll observe it’s a heck of a lot smarter than it was ten or even five years ago. Today our homes are occupied with smart devices, like smart speakers, smart thermostats, and smart lightbulbs. But the trend did not remain to the smart home, but the trend for intelligent spaces extends far beyond our homes. Now, everything is becoming a part of this trend, including smart cities. Smart cities are dependent on the latest technologies like 5G, IoT and fibre infrastructure. The latest innovations and changes in 5G, IoT and fibre infrastructure technologies are developing and strengthening the networks of the future.

Smart cities are utilizing these networks for smooth functioning. However, to ensure smart cities’ sustainability for the future, the connectivity infrastructure must be supported by highly efficient energy networks.

Let’s know everything in detail- what are smart cities, how technology is changing the outlook of cities, and what are the key investment opportunities?

Why do we need to remodel cities into smart ones?

A smart city uses advanced technologies to magnify efficiencies and enhance its residents’ quality of services and life. It usually embraces smart power distribution, transportation system, street lights and rubbish collection etc. The main concept behind the idea is to use data and technology smartly to make everyday life easier and better for people residing and working in the city while potentially utilizing the present resources.

Smart cities are built to enhance energy efficiency and help their regions reach their respective net-zero carbon emissions targets. It is expected that smart cities can generate around $20 trillion in economic benefits by 2026.

UN has predicted that 68 per cent of the world’s population would be living in urban areas by the end of 2050, which intimates that there would be more pressure on cities. There would be environmental, economic and societal challenges. The only solution to upcoming problems is by making cities smart.

By introducing smart cities, we can make cities a better and safe place to live. It can improve the fundamental quality of life indicators like daily commute, health issues and reduce crime incidents by around 10 to 30 per cent.

How is technology making cities smart?

By controlling traffic problems:

Traffic is a curse for everyone living in cities but thanks to technology as it has provided some promising solutions. For example, one can adjust the route in real-time according to demand, and smart traffic lights can be used to manage the congestion.

Potentially utilizing city resources:

There are sensors attached to the waste containers to report the container’s real-time status, which means that refuse collectors do not have to waste time travelling and collecting half-full refuse containers. This also implies that collectors can keep a check on how many bins are about to overflow and when they need to replace them. This facility is far better than measuring abstract factors like how many collection trucks are at work.

Enhancing energy efficiency:

Smart cities use technology to monitor real-time energy use and energy consumption closely. For example,

In Schenectady, New York, most street lights are upgraded to LED technology, allowing the lights to be adjusted based on real-time data. In Amsterdam, homes have smart energy meters designed to reduce energy consumption. This enables citizens to use energy sources consciously.

Making cities safer:

Today, the adoption of the latest technology has improved the safety and security system of the residents. Smart Cities utilize technology inventions like wifi, IoT and CCTV cameras to strengthen safety and improve incident response times. For example,

In many smart cities, real-time video data from the street is analyzed to better track and designate resources on the ground and enhance public safety.

Strengthening greater collaboration with citizens:

One of the best things about Smart cities is that it invites residents to participate in local issues. There are some apps that empower residents and allow them to report local problems. They can even share resources among themselves by using community networking platforms.

For example, Smart Cities have a low-cost environmental kit that is used to collect local ecological data. Residents place it in locations like balconies and windowsills to collect the local environment’s data like air, noise, and pollution. The collected data is then streamed to an online platform, efficiently creating a crowdsourced map of data worldwide.

What are the four infrastructure investment opportunities?

Empowering technologies:

The speedy growth of advanced technologies like 5G, Artificial Intelligence, cloud and edge computing supports smart cities’ evolution. We are currently in the starting stage of an edge computing revolution. It is absolutely essential to support the rapid growth in the number of connected devices and the massive increase in data gathered.

It is expected that approximately $20 billion of opportunities across hardware, software and services would be generated by the end of 2023.

It is clear that investment in reliable technology and high-speed connectivity is the central concept in building Smart City. The sudden shift to work from home culture in 2020 due to pandemic demands for stable and secure high-speed connectivity. With the increase in the number of connected infrastructures, cities must be aware of weaknesses and probable emerging problems.

Buildings and construction:

Climate change is one of the primary concern in today’s world. So decarbonizing the sector is the only possible and cost-effective ways to decrease the emerging climate change problem.

It is noted that most commercial buildings are responsible for 20% of energy use in the United States, in which 30% of energy is usually wasted. However, the addition of smart solutions can transform buildings into smart ones and make them energy-efficient and completely automated.

As per the Paris agreement, all buildings require to be net-zero carbon by 2050, and this goal increases the demand for smart buildings.

Updated energy sourcing, management and deployment:

Today, cities are consuming around two-thirds of the world’s energy; thus, there is immense pressure to shift to lower-carbon energy systems. No, doubt investment in smart technology will accelerate the shift while yielding economic growth and competition. Investment in next-generation energy transmission, smart grids and distribution networks can help monitor energy flows and adapt to fluctuations in supply and demand, respectively. Smart cities will also include smart meters to introduce price differentiation, microgrids for a local energy source, gamification apps to lower consumer usage etc.

Smart water and waste management solution:

With climate changes, water management and waste management are another concern to be resolved as soon as possible. Today, access to potable water, treatment of wastewater and waste management are essential issues that cities are facing. Besides this, flooding, drought and water losses are also growing threats due to climate changes and urbanization. Urban planners have to keep track of the ageing drainage systems.

Therefore the introduction of smart solutions has become necessary to overcome water-related issues. The addition of a smart water management system will include leakage, pollution detection and predictive maintenance planning.

For waste management, there are sensors attached to the bins that update the refusal bin’s status. Refusal collectors keep track of the data and collect the waste containers accordingly. This minimizes the travelling time and cuts off the fuel charges. A smart waste management system also stresses reducing waste at the source through advanced use of packaging, strategic collection methods and divided waste-to-energy solutions.

Conclusion:

Smart cities are the best solution to tackle environmental, social and safety issues. It includes everything which is required for the betterment of lifestyle. From smart homes to street lights, smart meter to smart traffic lights, everything contributes to saving natural resources and potentially utilizing available resources. Prompt Softech is dedicatedly working on converting the traditional technology and working process into smart ones. The Softech company provides IoT enabled solutions that can bring changes to your organization by making processes and operations more effective and efficient, ultimately leading to optimal outcome, better experience and the slightest error. You can initiate the ‘smart city’ revolution by adding smart solutions to your organization and cut off unnecessary expenditure.

Read More
How is IoT Contributing to Reshaping Factories Worldwide
admin
January 7, 2021
Digital Transformation, IoT

How is IoT Contributing to Reshaping Factories Worldwide?

Nowadays, when everything is moving towards automation, then automated factories are no new surprise. Even the smallest operations in factories contribute to success or failure, profit or loss, and productivity.

As business owners are looking for the most efficient, cost-saving technologies, factories have become a new testbed for innovation.

Factory automation leads to the generation of valuable data around processes and allows IoT systems to improve operations smartly and sustainably. This clears that IoT, i.e. Internet of Things holds a great scope in factory automation and provides an unbeatable application to enhance operations, ultimately providing better results. These useful applications showcase a subset of IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) use cases. Powerful IoT starts with reliable data collection and its storage.

Collecting Data and Unlocking Use Cases:

Thre are several use cases for well-employed IoT technology in a factory setting. Here is the list of few templates:

  • Asset Tracking
  • Cold chain management
  • Patient Safety and health tracking
  • Remote monitoring of system health
  • Process/Machine lifecycle tracking

In every use case, the process initiates with data collection and storage. IoT usage begins with one end in mind and extends to other applications. After installing sensors in the factory and collecting data, new opportunities and possibilities arise for what and how to use it for producing optimal outcomes.

Other than utilizing basic tracking and monitoring capabilities, using machine learning and other analytics approaches to handle the information communicated by the sensors potentially can boost the business.

Improved Performance and Productivity:

The most important and talked topic for IoT in the factory is how it improves efficiency and productivity. The improved and increased mechanization and automation of physical operations help organizations produce more high-quality speedily.

For instance, IoT allows the remote access and operation of devices that manage materials in an assembly line. IoT systems can employ advanced robotics technology to accelerate assembly line operations, standardize component creation, decrease product waste, reduce product errors and automate QA processes.

Enhancing Inventory Management:

Using remote monitoring of factory equipment and operations can generate data which allows more profound insights into procurement and planning. By managing fill-level tracking of a given material, an IoT system notifies the employees when he has to replenish it. Thus, it can monitor supply over months to analyze how many times the material has to be filled under different factors. It can proactively signal to employees for the supply orders, which ultimately reduces extra expenses and optimize inventory procurement.

Suppose, if there is equipment to be shared within a facility or between the facility, an IoT system can analyze data to recommend where and when the equipment should be transit.

If the particular department experiences a heavy utilization of single equipment on a specific day, say Tuesday, IoT system `will analyze different factors and recommend the quantity and type of equipment to be redistributed on Monday afternoon to optimize inventory usage and assure availability.

Thus, the IoT system can recommend when equipment needs to be preventatively maintained based on collected data on individual equipment usage pattern. Proper integration of IoT with the equipment enables IoT to detect the errors or upcoming maintenance issues. It even informs about the source of errors. This feature saves time and ensures the equipment’s potential use and enhances the equipment operator’s safety.

Enhancing Maintenance of Factory Facilities:

Most of the times, facility maintenance remains one of the underrated areas for factory improvement. An IoT system monitors the ambience and occurring changes. It controls temperature, humidity, and power usage of the factory facility’s HVAC systems, saving cost and energy. It can diagnose irregularities and standard maintenance requirements to help facilities. It can also add security measures into its monitoring to guarantee peace of mind for facility operators.

Increasing Employee Safety:

The reduction in equipment faultiness, product error, and more effective process management are few things offered by IoT systems, ensuring human safety in the factory. Suppose, if any accident happens like fire in a particular section, then the IoT system can transmit critical system information and other supporting data to confirm that employees are informed and safe.

Today, the havoc of COVID-19 has covered the globe. In this critical time, taking proper measures to assure the employee’s good health is the utmost priority. IoT systems can flag COVID concerns by tagging employees to detect when they are close to each other, check their health condition, and map anonymized employee data through more considerable contact tracing efforts. In fact, IoT can also send alerts if there are many people presents in an enclosed place.

Factory automation undoubtedly raises some questions like fewer jobs in the factory, decreased human requirement etc. Factory automation will not snatch the job but free the employees from tedious, repetitive and tiring tasks and shift jobs into process management or system administration. Employees will supervise the systems doing a repetitive job. This will improve employee safety and satisfaction.

Meeting Compliance Measure:

Remote monitoring of factory facilities ensures that compliance KPIs are visible and accessible. By sharing KPIs, automating reports and standard issues early and regularly, IoT integrated system can also help in satisfaction of compliance measures.

IoT just not offers better productivity, inventory optimization, reduced maintenance expense and better employees’ safety but it also supports compliance on different fronts, allowing an organization to create new KPIs that were just a dream earlier.

These unskippable IoT features help reduce financial, material, temporal, legal, and social costs.

Factory automation and involvement of IoT in it can attract immense growth and profits. It provides everything needed for business growth without compromising with the product’s quality or quantity or employees’ health. In fact, it adds much more than you can think of.

Adding IoT in your current your business is not a challenging task; you just need to contact reliable and experienced IoT service providers. The rest process will be like magic. Hence, we can conclude that the depth of possibilities and opportunities with IoT lies in one’s imagination and execution.

Read More
admin
July 29, 2020
Digital Transformation

Six Inevitable Steps to Bring Digital Transformation in Your Business

Digital transformation isn’t a new word, but the need to add it to businesses seems to become mandatory. It will not just escalate the profits but also easy the working process. To brief it, we can conclude it like companies follow a constant cycle of creating value, monetizing value and defending value. Though the whole cycle remains the same every time, some changes are added to it with the time.

Digital transformation is the adoption of latest, fast and frequently changing digital technology to end business issues. It is a shift from non-digital or manual to a digital process for keeping record and acquire data for business improvement. It changes the old-existing ways through which companies create, monetize and defend the value and add the much needed competitive edge. Companies lagging in the adoption of the digital transformation might face challenges and loss in future.

To say in short, digital transformation is the answers to all the questions that your company is searching today for growth and a better experience. Digital transformation will certainly answer:

  • How can we stand differently in the market?
  • How can we boost our profitability without quality compromise and charter a better path to growth?
  • How can we grow in the new market without facing hurdle?
  • How can we connect and become a favourite of the current tech-influenced market?

Here are Six steps leading you to the Digital Transformation.

1) Find the most-suited meaning of ‘Digital transformation’ for your business:

No doubt digital transformation is necessary, but knowing what type of digital transformation would suit your business could a crucial point to be considered. The word digital holds a different meaning for different companies depending on its maturity, competition, industry, value chain and ecosystem. Every company faces various issues, and digital transformation aims to solve those problems and conclude with the most optimal results. Thus you need to discover the challenges and determine the most accurate digital transformation for your company to meet the set target.

Read More: How will IoT Transform Transportation in the Coming Years?

2) Plan how your company will go digital:
Once you have identified the existing issues of your company, you are now in a position to evaluate different digital transformation as an alternative for your current process. These alternatives could help in transforming the front-end such as product and customer experiences to back-end like IT infrastructure and cloud.

Below mentioned are some strategies adopted by companies looking for digital transformations in the front end as well as back-end.

  • Evaluating and redesigning products and experiences to add a digital component: Today, 66 per cent of businesses are evaluating the IoT or working to develop iot based solutions.
  • Adding digital ecosystem: Companies have replaced the old operations and dependency on the broader ecosystem to support digital transformation with highly precise ecosystem consisting of cloud, big data and robust connectivity.
  • Monetizing the data: Now, companies extract essential data from their Iot solutions for developing new features in the products which can meet the requirements of customers.
  • Adding transformation in operations and factories: Now, most of the companies are transforming factories and other facilities to leverage the latest innovations like 3D printing, advanced automation, machine learning etc.
  • Constructing a reliable IT infrastructure: One of the biggest challenges of the companies is the mismatch of their existing tool. We all know infrastructure is the central nervous system of organization, and a bit of disturbance can end up into a considerable loss.

Well, you can choose anyone or all the above strategies but make sure digital transformation means an end to the problems and issues. It should add better user experience and profits as well.

3) Make Executive Buy-in a Priority:

Once you are clear with your digital strategy and solutions, the next step is to socialize this within the company and obtain executive buy-in. It is observed that executives understand the criticality and support transformation efforts. We can conclude that it is the most reliable sign of a company’s strategic commitment to digital transformation.

Read More: Will 2020 Be The Transition Phase of Internet Of Things?

4) Hunt reliable Partners:

Lacking internal expertise to take on the initiative for digital transformation is another biggest challenge booming inside a company. Businesses need a partner that can assist them in the digital transformation journey.

How does a digital transformation partner help you in the journey?

  • Digital transformation partners deliver capabilities to help business in transformation.
  • They offer consultation services that help them integrate digital technology.
  • They charter the path to digital innovation.
  • Provides inevitable strategies and offers optimal practices.

5) Get your workplace ready for transformation:

To get your workplace prepared for transformation, share the plan and vision for the company to your employees. It is as important as coming up with the strategy. If the vision and future aspects are not clear with the employees, then the company won’t be able to obtain essential buy-in from employees. Demonstrate the plan to your employees and train them for the much needed digital transformation.

6) The final step:

Now, you are all set to draw the change in your company. You need to execute your plan with speed, and leverage the benefits of the latest technology, use the valuable data for product improvement to count unlimited profits with customer satisfaction.

Digital transformation is beneficial in every way either you own a well-settled company or start-up. Connect us to get the digital transformation services and enhance your business.

Read More