IIoT platforms became an integral part and irreplaceable in the SMEs in IoT competitions. The pandemic scenarios show the need for the flexibility of IIoT platforms (Eco association). The supply chains are becoming closer with IoT solutions for automating processes and cost pressure due to the looming economic downturn.
IDC defines an IIoT platform of different technology layers to interact with each other. Each provider provides a solution for different competencies such as cloud or data management. The solutions in the market offer basic functions such as collecting, saving, visualizing, and evaluating data.
In case of additional functionalities such as low-code solutions, system control, workflows, or advanced analytics are used in the process are gaining a high amount of relevancy in the companies. Hence, the generic platforms are becoming important to know by the integrator for areas of applications such as energy management.
IDC particularly emphasizes the importance of the IIoT platform and its requirement depending on the company size. A mid-size company plays particular importance to visualization options, storage and analysis of data, simple onboarding of IoT devices, and topic of data governance.
Large companies want IoT solutions with a high degree of maturity to be able to integrate into existing infrastructures and the ability for implementing machine learning or model training.
Users need to have a clear vision of the purpose of IIoT usage whether it has to be in data storage or sensor connectivity. IIoT showed a powerful tool to overcome the challenges present in the surroundings.
In application situations, three important points are observed, monitoring of the processes, optimization of the processes in value creation, and new business models or products by IoT such as rental of machines as a service model.
Even IIoT can help in remote monitoring or remote maintenance of systems and buildings in energy management. The solutions can be used effectively in the energy management system or by turning the public power grid into independent systems.
With IIoT the new trend of optimizing the utilization with intelligent networks is more important than ever. The energy management system is also an important area of production and a smart city environment. It is also one of the important challenges for industrial companies using energy monitoring to reduce consumption and energy costs.
IIoT solutions are also important in the smart city for charging infrastructure management in e-mobility.
As per Gartner, IIoT platform deployments need 5 months. Hence, it is important to involve the IT department or purchasing team as early stakeholders. It also speeds up the process. Low code approaches seem to be beneficial in advancing IIoT solutions, especially in plant operation.
It allows the OT developers to use logic knowledge in IIoT applications via intuitive graphical user interfaces. It is useful with “if-then” relationships and to work with workflow and flow charts. With low-code platforms, process diagrams can evaluate the next stages if any limit is crossed. It can be designed with any programming knowledge.