Tying the Internet of Things to a strategy for mobile devices - wearables, tablets, smartphones - is not only forward-thinking, but gets to the heart of what good supply chain management is all about.
Manufacturing worldwide is on the cusp of a revolution. New information technologies are suddenly offering not only to make the management of manufacturing more effective, as we saw with early versions of plant and enterprise software, but the work itself smarter.
French heating systems component manufacturer Temiq added near field communication RFID technology to its de-sludging equipment for use in boilers, in order to enable its customers to better track the conditions of the equipment they use.
Big data is providing supplier networks with greater data accuracy, clarity and insights, leading to more contextual intelligence shared across supply chains.
Prescriptive analytics is a bit of a unicorn - a thing of beauty, but rarely seen. That's about to change, with prescriptive analytics and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) enjoying their teenage years together.
The increasing adoption of IoT within industrial settings will result in a substantial growth of the number of connected industrial devices, in particular industrial control devices like PLCs, according to ABI Research. The research firm estimates that over the period from 2014 to 2020, the number of connected industrial controllers will triple, growing at an average rate of 20 percent.
Could it be that the Internet of Things is actually under-hyped? Yes - it could have a total economic impact between $3.9tr and $11tr a year by 2025, including $410bn to $1.2tr per year in retail environments.
The worldwide consumer Wi-Fi equipment market increased 5 percent in 2014, surpassing 166 million unit shipments. "Shipments of devices which support the 802.11ac standard grew significantly last ear, representing more than 11 percent of total access point shipments," says Jake Saunders, vice president and practice director, ABI Research.
