Internet of Things is associated with which operations management time period

Through the convergence of a number of recent technological advancements such as sensors, machine learning, embedded systems, real-time analytics or even artificial intelligence and advanced reality, it is possible for a system to connect all its individual elements, from your service elevator to the break room microwave. While we already have some of this on our everyday lives with Alexa or Google setting the temperature of the room or playing music for us, the real, large-scale benefits can be felt in industries like manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture or automation.

Out of all potential industry benefits, one particular aspect has seen drastic improvement through IoT and it’s every facility manager or technician’s bane: maintaining an efficient and organised maintenance plan.

How can IoT drastically improve your maintenance plans?

By definition, IoT can be translated into connectivity. Connectivity between different equipment, rooms or even facilities and, perhaps more importantly, connectivity to the cloud. But IoT doesn’t stop at the connection between the elevator and the microwave. With the right software and infrastructure, anyone can centralise all information from the connected devices or sites into one single place – a database that allows those same technicians or managers of large facilities to quickly access information about the device.

In practical terms, this means money, time and energy saving since you are effectively able to inspect a room or a piece of equipment that was just under maintenance wherever you are, whenever you need it. However, the benefits IoT brings aren’t time sensitive…

If it ain’t broken… fix it anyway!

Okay, wait a minute. We’re not suggesting you should go around fixing things that aren’t broken. That wouldn’t be very smart. What we’re saying is that with the right amount of data and other components inherently present in an IoT system like data analysis tools or even machine learning and augmented reality, one can gather and process all the data required to detect predictive patterns. This can also be performed in the cloud, through an intuitive facility management software allowing you to view, export and, more importantly, see when your equipment is likely to malfunction.

Sure, some industries can get away with waiting for the malfunction to happen before fixing it and others even have an efficient enough maintenance routine to minimise downtime. However, if you work under very high quality control standards, you’ll be much better off avoiding unfavourable audits (both internally and externally) if you have a firmer grasp of your entire asset map. And not to mention avoiding unfavourable reviews if you’re working on some particular industries (I’m looking at you, hotels).

How smart can a facility get, really?

Smart cities and their respective smart buildings have also been increasingly gaining traction in recent years so… quite a lot actually! From carbon-neutral and brand new self-sustainable cities in the middle of the desert to optimised smart transportation networks, if there’s one thing all of these projects have in common is that they all need extensive and continuous maintenance and, being that the case, it’s only logical that your maintenance systems should be just as smart. 

Having a good facility management or CMMS software can be the difference between things working or your whole project failing. At the same time, having access to detailed information can provide you with the insights you need to see where you can improve your operations. At the end of the day, it’s about optimising everything you can with efficiency in mind. Maintenance is just the glue that keeps it all together, running everyday.

For decades, many of the world’s best companies have used their production systems as a source of sustainable competitive advantage (see sidebar “What is a production system?”). But such a system isn’t just about doing things well, with fast, efficient manufacturing processes and consistently high quality. What differentiates benchmark organizations like Danaher or Toyota is their ability to improve those operations continually, at a pace their competitors struggle to match.

Strong production systems have other powerful benefits too. They give companies a clear, precise picture of their own performance, allowing direct comparisons among plants, for example, and encouraging internal competition. They provide a common culture, vocabulary, and tool set that facilitates the sharing of best practices while minimizing confusion and misunderstanding. And by developing the skills of existing staff and creating an attractive environment for talented new hires, they help people contribute to the best of their ability.

The best production systems are simple and structured, and built around a company’s specific strengths and challenges. That requires a good deal of self-knowledge. A company must not only understand what it wants to achieve but also identify the methods, resources, and capabilities it will need to get there. Ultimately, a good production system is a unique, bespoke management approach that’s difficult for competitors to copy.

Today, even the highest-performing companies can boost their performance still further. That technology-driven opportunity comes from data—specifically, the huge volumes of data on processes and performance generated by new generations of network-connected devices: the Internet of Things (IoT). To capture the opportunity, companies must revisit and reassess many of the processes and principles that have been so successful for them in the past.

Four dimensions of the IoT’s impact

The advent of IoT technologies—and the more general move to digital tools that support operations, communication, analysis, and decision making in every part of the modern organization—won’t change the fundamental purpose of production systems. It will, however, transform the way they are built and run, offering improvements across four main dimensions:

• connectivity
• speed
• accessibility
• “anchoring”

Connectivity

Traditional production systems embody a collection of separate tools bound together loosely by the rules governing their application. Usually, these rules are at best defined only on a paper document or a corporate intranet site. In the future, such links will be much tighter and more automated, and fast digital connections will allow the whole system to operate as a seamless, cohesive whole.

Integration will change production systems in two ways. First, performance measurement and management will be based on precise data. Sensors will monitor the entire production process, from the inspection of incoming materials through manufacturing to final inspection and shipping. Companies will store the output of those sensors in a single, central data lake, together with a host of additional data from other internal sources, as well as external ones (supplier specifications, quality indicators, weather and market trends). All these strands of data will combine to set the production system’s targets and measure its performance continually, so the staff will be able to see, at a glance, if the system is performing as it should.

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Second, future production systems will help the organization to collaborate more effectively. An end-to-end view of performance will break down barriers among functions and ensure that decisions reflect the interests of the business as a whole. The communication and sharing of information will be greatly enhanced, since a central knowledge hub and social-media tools will let staff in one area access support, ideas, and expertise from another.

Finally, future production systems will make performance far more visible: when the whole leadership can see the direct link between operational performance and profitability, for example, the production system will no longer be considered the concern solely of the COO. Digital dashboards on computers, mobile devices, and even smartwatches will show staff in every function and at every level exactly how the organization is performing, as well as the precise value of the contribution of their businesses, plants, or production cells. The result will be genuine transparency—not just about where the value is being created, but also about how.

Adopting IoT: Early wins

Although the fully integrated digital production systems described in this article don’t yet exist, many of the building blocks are already in place. The oil-and-gas industry, for instance, is rolling out industrial-automation systems that can monitor the health of expensive capital assets in remote locations. These systems facilitate timely preventative maintenance by using sensor data to generate real-time performance information and provide an early warning of potential problems. Automakers already have production lines where hundreds of assembly-line robots are integrated with a central controller, business applications, and back-end systems. This technology helps companies to maximize uptime, improve productivity, and build multiple models (in any sequence) without interrupting production.

The next challenge for manufacturing companies is to complete the integration process. This will mean taking the tools and capabilities that now work on individual production lines or assets and extending them to the entire enterprise and then its entire supply chain. For companies that succeed, the reward will be greater efficiency, rich new insights, and dramatic, continual improvement in performance.

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