Industrial IoT (IIoT) brings together machines, cloud computing, analytics and people to improve the performance and productivity of industrial processes. With IoT, industrial companies can digitise processes, transform business models and improve performance and productivity while reducing losses. These asset-intensive companies, operating in a variety of sectors such as manufacturing, energy, agriculture, transportation and utilities, are working on IoT projects that connect billions of devices and deliver value for a variety of use cases, such as predictive analytics for quality and maintenance, asset health monitoring and process optimisation.
A typical industrial facility has thousands of sensors generating data. Using IoT, manufacturers, for example, can combine data from machines on a single line, factory or network of sites, such as manufacturing plants, assembly facilities and refineries, to proactively improve performance by identifying potential bottlenecks, errors, production process deficiencies and quality issues before they materialise. Combining data from a network of sites can also lead to more efficient control of material flow, early detection and identification of production or supply bottlenecks in order to address them, as well as optimised operation of machinery and equipment across facilities.