Day 2 – SAPPHIRENOW -Internet of things in the Manufacturing world- IFM Electronic- Session highlights
Day 2 of SAPPHIRENOW had some very interesting sessions related to Internet of Things and one of them that caught my interest was ‘Build a Better, More Connected World with the Internet of Things’. The session was conducted by David Parker, VP SAP Big Data Solutions / Dr. Myriam Jahn, Managing Director ifm consulting .
Mckinsey says in what’s called the ‘ Internet of Things ‘ , sensors and actuators are embedded in physical objects—from roadways to pacemakers and are linked through wired and wireless networks, often using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that connects the Internet. These networks churn out huge volumes of data that flow to computers for analysis. When objects can both sense the environment and communicate, they become tools for understanding complexity and responding to it swiftly so that they can make things simple. What’s revolutionary in all this is that these physical information systems are now beginning to be deployed without human intervention.
David explained that the Internet of Things will transform business in all aspects of our daily lives: from asset management to logistics, to healthcare, to retail.
ifm electronic gmbh, one of the leading sensor suppliers, now offers an easy option to pick up data from the machine without requiring complex installation and to pass it on to the SAP production solutions such as SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP MII) and SAP Manufacturing Execution (SAP ME).
In order to make this happen, the data that are collected by sensors are playing a very important role. Dr. Jahn from ifm electronic explained to the audience that the data volume created by sensors nowadays is truly mindblowing. For example, A simple flow sensor will generate 0.18TB/data each year, but vibration sensors (vital for predictive maintenance) are responsible for an average of 1.3 TB/year. The new high-end 3D imaging sensors are generating close to 4TB/year.
What this means in a real-life environment was illustrated by a simple example: if a manufacturing companies has 200 machines and each machine has 400 sensors @ 0.18TB/year, this company is generating 14PB of sensor data in a single calendar year.
Because of this it is important that these data can be made available for analysis and predictive algorithms, without having to compress them or leaving information behind. Together with SAP, ifm has developed a solution that has SAP Plant Connectivity (PCo) embedded and that reduces the cost of sensor integration for a single machine from approximately $10K to $0.1K, a 99% reduction of integration cost.
It was also mentioned the additional business benefits for ifm customers: increased operational excellence. Operational efficiency increase because of reduced set up time of machines, real time insight into business performance , predictive maintenance of machines. Another benefit is the reduced cost of service because of lower maintenance costs and the benefits you can derive from sensor data history analysis.
With so many benefits at hand, we will see more and more manufacturing industries looking at leveraging technologies and reaping huge benefits.
It is predicted that there could be 50 billion connected devices around the world by 2020. The IoT encompasses hardware (the things themselves), embedded software, communications services and information services associated with the things. Gartner refers to the companies that provide the hardware, software and services as IoT suppliers.According to new research from IDC, a transformation is underway that will see the worldwide market for IoT solutions grow from $1.9 trillion in 2013 to $7.1 trillion in 2020. The verticals that are leading its adoption are manufacturing (15 percent), healthcare (15 percent) and insurance (11 percent).
With a compelling ‘Sense, Predict and Act’ proposition, SAP technology innovations can help customers from all industries leverage the resulting Big Data to differentiate themselves and create new business value. You can read more about how different industries can benefit in e-Books available for download here. You can get additional information on SAP OEM partnership and also listen to what our partners saying on our webpages here.
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By,
Arjen Vons
Shivakumar V