Effectiveness of IoT in the Workforce

BehrTech Blog

Effectiveness of IoT in the Workforce

Modern technology has significantly impacted people’s traditional way of living. It has drastically changed every person’s life. You know you’re technologically dependent if you can’t imagine life without it.

Nowadays, even the non-technologically inclined individuals have begun to buy into the convenience and the valuable insights technology offers.

From smartphones to various app-controlled appliances, technology has become a necessity in one’s daily life. It is growing in importance, both for everyday and industrial use. So it’s no wonder a reliable internet connection is crucial these days.

This article discusses IoT, or the “internet of things,” which has changed people’s traditional lifestyle into a high-tech way of living. It also explains the impact of IoT adoption in the workforce.

What Is IoT?

Managing a manpower-based organization can be stressful. Thus, some people have explored alternative ways to cope with stress. Even organizations are trying to reduce the hassles of managing the company. Thus, a select few have adopted IoT to help them with the process.

The “internet of things has become a crucial aspect of people’s lives. As a whole, IoT is an innovative concept that includes various smart systems, comprehensive frameworks, and intelligent devices and sensors.

IoT uses the internet and smart devices to provide innovative solutions to numerous challenges faced by government and private sectors across the globe.

This new paradigm also takes advantage of nanotechnology and processing speed, which were not conceivable before.

Examples of how people use the “internet of things” include:

Smart Security Systems
Smartphones and Appliances
Intelligent Assistants (Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa)
Smart Scales, Sleep Trackers, and Fitness Trackers
Intelligent Transportation System
Applicant Tracking Software
Cloud-Based Human Capital Management Solutions for Timekeeping

The Impact of IoT Adoption in the Workforce

Employee Engagement

IoT affects employee engagement. It provides new ways of working, improves productivity, and enhances the experiences people obtain from organizations.

A study shows that the improvements in an organization’s process can positively influence the performances of individual employees and their feelings toward work.

The “internet of things” enables companies to integrate and communicate through smart devices to ensure that all users will receive the necessary data in real time.

From the suppliers’ perspective, IoT provides them with constant updates and easy access to data. These details enable them to gather the essential information to develop better products in the future.

Harvard Business Review conducted a survey and found that many organizations that deployed IoT-based systems are already reaping the benefits.

About 58% of the respondents claim that IoT has increased employee collaboration; 62% say it has increased their customer responsiveness and 54% state that it has improved productivity.

Mobility and Agility

The nature of IoT technology provides organizations the opportunity to allow their employees to do their work from virtually any location.

The flexibility that modern technology offers has disintegrated the traditional work-life boundary for most professionals.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations have created remote work policies to meet these new demands.

Stanford Economist Nicholas Bloom shares that the firms he talks to are thinking about reducing the density of their offices, given the need for social distancing.

According to Bloom, the typical plan is that employees will work remotely one to three days a week and come to the office the rest of the time.

No one knows when the pandemic will end. Thus, Bloom sees the potential of work from home to morph into a more permanent reality.

Customer Experience

A study showed that brand loyalty is not just a result of the quality of products or services. It is the result of the total experiences gathered in the course of customer interactions with the organization.

Research suggested that successful companies develop a strong emotional bond with their customers, which translates to increased brand loyalty.

For this reason, IoT has become an essential tool for improving the customer experience.

According to a study, intelligent devices can collect and transfer data at multiple touch using sensors. They can also increase the number of positive interactions and eliminate negative ones.

The IoT devices may also facilitate follow-ups after a sales transaction. You may even use these devices to remind your customers about the required maintenance of purchased equipment after warranty periods.

Operational Efficiency

Using LPWAN (low-power wide-area network) solutions for the oil and gas industry may present massive asset visibility and operational efficiency opportunities.

Such technology may also promote real-time insights on machinery status by proactively scheduling maintenance.

By using LPWANs, manufacturers may also benefit from automating manual activities like data recording and regular on-site visits.

Some manufacturing companies have already used industrial IoT sensors to control quality and improve efficiency.

These specific types of sensors can analyze sound frequencies, vibrations, and even the temperature of a machine.

Industrial IoT can tell if a particular machine is working within normal conditions and trigger an alert if it isn’t.

Cost-Effective Operation

IoT devices facilitate management within individual departments and across the entire enterprise structure. Generally, these devices are automatically scheduled and controlled.

The reduced downtime periods and the adequate maintenance of manufacturing devices may lead to a higher production rate resulting in increased profits.

Some companies may find occupancy sensors helpful in terms of collecting real-time data about space utilization. When connected to a temperature or lighting system, these sensors can also improve energy efficiency.

For example, lightning sensors that automatically turn off the lights when people leave a room may help reduce electricity consumption and costs.

Improved Work Safety

The scheduled maintenance of IoT devices could be highly advantageous for ensuring operational safety.

A safe working environment can make the organization more attractive for partners, personnel, and investors. Therefore, it may increase brand affinity and trust.

Smart devices also lessen the probability of human error during numerous stages of business operation.

In addition, you may use a network of IoT devices, such as motion sensors, surveillance cameras, and other monitoring devices to prevent theft.

Imaging sensors, for instance, are particularly useful in tracking entrances and exits through doorways.

Conclusion

The “internet of things” has birthed a new era of business automation. Its ability to connect smart devices and people has facilitated various organizations to expand their horizons across geographical boundaries.

Do you want to overcome productivity and connectivity challenges in your organization? Make sure to incorporate IoT into your business to reap the massive benefits it offers.

Arnold Rogers

Business Consultant

As an experienced business consultant, Arnold Rogers has advised businesses across many industries in areas of lead generation, customer experience, service development, and small business cash flow and financial management. He has experience in handling diverse industries, from fast-moving consumer goods to business-to-business hardware retailers.

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August 3, 2021August 11, 2021

4 Technical Approaches to Ensure Interference Resilience in LPWAN

BehrTech Blog

4 Technical Approaches to Ensure Interference Resilience in LPWAN

For Low-Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) operating in the license-free spectrum, a major advantage is low network costs. Nevertheless, given the exponential increase in connected devices, the shared limited radio resources are becoming more and more congested. To enhance Quality-of-Service (QoS) and network scalability, ensuring interference resilience in LPWAN is a major undertaking.

Understanding Interference in License-Free Bands

Interference refers to the unwanted collision of two radio signals in the same frequency – causing data loss. Interference in license-free LPWAN, falls into two main categories:

1. Inter-system interference refers to disturbances caused by radio signals from other systems. As the license-free spectrum is available for everyone, multiple technologies co-exist and access the same frequency resources. For example, most LPWAN technologies including MIOTY, LoRa, and Sigfox commonly use the sub-gigahertz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio bands. Similarly, Ingenu – another LPWAN player – shares the crowded 2.4 GHz band with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, among others.

2. Intra-system interference, or self-interference, refers to disturbances caused by devices operating within the same network, such as within a MIOTY network or within a LoRa network. Self-interference is mainly attributable to asynchronous communication using ALOHA scheme in many LPWAN systems. Though greatly lowering power consumption, pure ALOHA-based networks generate significant self-interference due to uncoordinated, random data transmission among end devices.

Inter- and intra-system interference threaten to deteriorate network performance and hamper scalability.

Technical Approaches to Interference Resilience in LPWAN

Amid these challenges, a strong system design is key to ensuring high interference immunity in LPWAN. Below we explain four technical approaches to controlling and mitigating inter- and/or intra-system interference.

1. Utilizing (ultra-) narrow bandwidths

Compared to wideband approaches based on spread spectrum, (ultra-) narrowband technology alleviates the problem of intra-system interference. Each narrowband message uses a very small bandwidth, allowing for high spectrum efficiency. More messages can hence fit into an assigned frequency band without overlapping with each other, enabling more devices to effectively operate at the same time without interfering with each other. This improves overall network capacity and system scalability. Minimal bandwidth usage additionally reduces noise level experienced by each signal.

Think of narrow band messages as motorbikes and wideband messages as trucks. On a highway, we can afford a much larger number of motorbikes than trucks without incurring traffic accidents.

2. Reducing on-air time

In many LPWAN systems, the transmission time or on-air time of a signal can last up to 2 seconds. This is problematic since messages with long on-air time are much more prone to collisions. Longer transmission times also increases opportunities for malicious and sophisticated attacks like selective jamming.

3. Frequency hopping

By rapidly switching a message among different channels during transmission, frequency hopping improves resistance against inter-system interference. Constant frequency change helps avoid congested channels and makes signals difficult to intercept. On the downside, frequency hopping is very spectral inefficient as larger bandwidth usage is required. Wideband signals transmitted at low rates can easily overlap with each other, causing self-interference and data loss.

4. Forward Error Correction (FEC)

Applying channel coding or forward error correction allows for detection and correction of transmission errors due to noise, interference, and fading. In unreliable or noisy channels, FEC helps reduce packet error rate and avoid costly data re-transmissions.

So far, no traditional LPWAN systems have succeeded in leveraging all of these approaches in their system design. LPWAN using an (ultra-) narrowband approach offers high spectrum efficiency, but extends on-air time due to very slow data rates. Spread spectrum systems capitalize on the benefits of frequency hopping, but suffer from self-interference and scalability issues due to wide bandwidth usage.

By splitting an ultra-narrowband message into multiple smaller sub-packets and distributing them at pseudo-random time and frequency patterns, Telegram Splitting brings the benefits of all four mentioned approaches to one system. Thanks to its much smaller size, each sub-packet has an extremely short on-air time of only 15 milliseconds. The chance of colliding with other inter- and intra-system signals is hence drastically minimized. Additionally, built-in FEC enables successful message retrieval even if up to 50% of sub-packets are lost along the way.

With the ever-growing device density and communication traffic in the IoT era, interference resilience in LPWAN will continue to be a top priority; as will selecting a robust technology without compromising cost and power efficiency.

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April 28, 2021May 11, 2021

Digital Oilfields and the Rise of Integrated Asset Management

BehrTech Blog

Digital Oilfields and the Rise of Integrated Asset Management

The oil and gas industry is in the middle of a fundamental transformation. Between volatile market prices, fluctuating demand and complex compliance and regulatory regimes, the need for improved operational efficiency is at an all-time high. With the promise to deliver enhanced operational visibility, safety and performance, the transition to digital oilfields has become a top priority. According to a recent report, global wireless sensor network revenues for oil and gas exploration, production and pipeline operation will reach $2.2 billion with asset management expected to be the fastest growing IoT application. This is no surprise as the industry looks for cost-effective ways to manage an ageing infrastructure, optimize production and performance, all while reducing reduce economic, environment, health, and safety risks.

The Asset Management Challenge

Asset management has played a critical role in the oil and gas industry for years. While traditional asset management systems such as spreadsheets provide, to some degree, a window into asset status, they lack structure, real-time visibility and data interoperability.

Manual systems and processes can significantly hamper operations. For example, the probability of human error with manual data entry is between 18% and 40%. With inaccurate asset data, the condition status, safety and optimization of assets is at risk. Identifying and fixing errors also costs the company time and money that could be spent on more critical areas of the business. Furthermore, these legacy systems do not provide real-time data nor do they communicate with other functions and processes of the business. This creates limited information and siloed systems. This is a major issue for moving asset-based industries such as oil and gas where tracking the real-time location, performance and safety of all assets is critical to optimizing processes, eliminating downtime, reducing costs and minimizing environmental impact.

The Rise of IoT and Integrated Asset Management

With IoT comes a new generation of low-power, wireless sensors that can turn traditional physical objects into digital devices. Attached to individual assets like equipment, tools, vehicles and even people, these sensors capture and report detailed information about current asset conditions as well as where they are and how they are being used. Leveraging robust, long-range IoT connectivity, insights into even the most remote, isolated assets can be gathered at a control center and easily accessible by operators and technicians. By having a holistic, real-time picture of cross-site assets, they can quickly pinpoint under-utilized equipment, diagnose impending issues and bottlenecks and easily mobilize tools and parts.

Here are 4 key benefits of integrated asset management in digital oilfields.

1. Optimize Asset Utilization

Oil and gas equipment is often left at a job site for days or weeks at a time. This puts equipment at risk of being misused, misplaced or even stolen. To manually search for machines, tools, or other equipment wastes time and money. Workers drive from site to site, burning up fuel, clocking more hours, and putting priority jobs on hold. Using IoT sensors enabled by robust, long range connectivity, companies can track and locate all equipment in real time. Data can also be aggregated across multiple remote locations to better coordinate asset utilization across locations, control inventory and increase the level of service efficiency provided to customers.

2. Maximize Uptime with Predictive Maintenance

Breakdowns can immobilize your entire operation. According to a Kimberlite research, just 3.65 days of unplanned downtime a year can cost an oil and gas company $5.037 million. An average offshore oil and gas company experiences about 27 days of unplanned downtime a year, which can amount to $38 million in losses. In some cases, this number can go to as much as $88 million. One of the biggest reasons to employ an asset management solution is to greatly reduce this downtime by catching equipment failures before they happen. Wireless IoT sensors enable companies to capture critical asset data like pressure, temperature, vibration, level and flow data to forecast impending problems and failures. Integrating this data along with other machine data from an enterprise resource planning or asset management system and equipment history data, helps companies identify patterns and issues to employ an effective predictive maintenance strategy and ensure maximum equipment uptime.

3. Ensure Regulatory Compliance

An integrated asset management approach also demonstrates commitment to asset optimization and smooth operations in relation to regulatory compliance. This is extremely critical in the oil and gas industry where asset failure can lead to devastating environmental repercussions. With remote equipment and process monitoring, companies can ensure that all assets are in peak operating condition, significantly reducing the likelihood of catastrophic equipment failure. However, if something does go wrong, historical maintenance data can be used to prove that the company took all necessary precautions to try to prevent asset failure.

4. Fleet Management

Monitoring fleet performance, location and maintenance is critical to the efficiency of all transportation logistics and ensuring regulatory compliance. With an integrated asset management solution, fleet managers have access to critical telematics data to help ensure timely vehicle maintenance, reduce fuel consumption and fuel costs, enhance driver management, and improve asset utilization and route planning.

The Role of LPWAN in the Digital Oilfields

The transition from brownfields to digital oilfields can be cost-intensive and highly challenging due to extreme operating conditions and insufficient communication infrastructure. Offshore distance, explosive atmospheres, rugged terrains, absent power supply and electromagnetic interference represent the most demanding environment for any wireless network.

With its long range, high power efficiency and high interference immunity, low power wide area network (LPWAN) technologies deliver the resilient sensor connectivity needed for remote monitoring and asset management. Covering a vast area of a 5 – 15km radius (depending on structural density), the system enables effective data collection from assets located in remote and hazardous areas where workers’ accessibility is restricted. Supporting long-lasting operation of independent, low-cost batteries on the sensor side, LPWANs also significantly alleviate the upkeep effort of battery recharging and replacement. Furthermore, the outstanding network robustness of third generation LPWAN technologies secures optimal signal reliability in the electromagnetic interference environment, as well as across rough terrains, elevation and through heavy metal obstructions.

Wrapping Up

Integrated asset management enabled by innovative IoT sensors and next-gen LPWAN plays a pivotal role in digital oilfields. It’s ability to provide data interoperability across systems, processes and people helps oil and gas companies reduce costs, mitigate operational risks and provides a holistic approach towards enhancing visibility, collaboration and performance while generating a higher value from operational expenditures.

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April 13, 2021May 11, 2021

IoT Standards and Protocols Explained

BehrTech Blog

IoT Standards and Protocols Explained

For businesses, the transformative power of IoT is increasingly significant with the promise of improving operational efficiency and visibility, while reducing costs.

However, IoT does not come without risks and challenges. While concerns over security and data privacy continue to rise, the lack of IoT standards remains one of the biggest hurdles. The increasing number of legacy, single-vendor, and proprietary solutions cause problems with disparate systems, data silos and security gaps. As IoT successes become more dependent on seamless interoperability and data-sharing among different systems, we want to avoid the scenario of a fragmented market with numerous solutions that simply don’t work with each other.

What are Standards?

Before we continue our discussion on standards, let’s take a step back and clarify their definition.

According to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), a standard is a “document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context.”

Simply put, a standard is a published document that specifies a product’s functionality and verifies its quality. It establishes a transparent, consistent and universal understanding of a technology by eliminating inefficient variety in the marketplace. Standards, therefore, enhance compatibility and interoperability in product development, fuel global adoption, and production, and accelerate time-to-market.

To better illustrate the importance of standards, let’s look at light bulbs as a simple example. Nowadays, you can easily go to any store and buy any brand of light bulb, assuming that it is compatible with your lamp as the bulb base and threads have been standardized. This greatly boosts user demand, allowing manufacturers to ramp up their production and reduce costs leveraging economies of scale.

IoT Standards and Wireless Protocols

In the IoT realm, networking standards are hands down the most important. Standard protocols define rules and formats for setting up and managing IoT networks, along with how data are transmitted across these networks. Networking protocols can be categorized into multiple layers accordingly to the communication stack (i.e. OSI or TCP/IP model). In this article, we focus on the physical and network access protocols for data transfer from edge devices.

Even before IoT becomes a worldwide phenomenon, there have been a number of standardized wireless technologies that are widely acknowledged and adopted on a global scale. The most successful examples include Wi-Fi (based on IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n specifications for wireless local area networks), Zigbee (based on IEEE 802.15.4 specification for low-rate wireless personal networks) and GSM/UMTS/LTE (based on 2G/3G/4G mobile broadband standards developed by 3GPP).

However, these previously existing standards, are not optimized for a majority of large-scale IoT deployments that require interconnection of huge amounts of battery operated sensors (end nodes). Limited range and coverage, low penetration capability, power-hungry transmissions and high costs are factors that hamper their applicability in many use cases. By exactly filling these gaps, the arising group of low power wide area (LPWA) technologies are now taking over the IoT stage.

The problem is, most existing LPWA networks – typically the ones operating in the license-free spectrum – are proprietary solutions that do not implement a recognized industry-standard protocol. By making their technical specifications publicly available on a royalty-basis, many LPWAN providers are attempting to claim their technologies as “open standards.” Nevertheless, this is not really the case.

Strictly speaking, a standard – or let’s say an industry standard – must undergo a stringent evaluation process by an established Standards Development Organization (SDO). This guarantees the quality and credibility of the technology. Key global SDO examples include ETSI, IEEE, IETF, 3GPP, etc. So far, technologies that actually implement rigorous LPWA standards published by SDOs have been Narrowband-IoT/LTE-M/EC-GSM (standardized by 3GPP) and mioty (based on Low Throughput Networks – TS 103 357 specifications by ETSI).

Benefits of IoT Standards

So, why should you choose a standard protocol over a proprietary one? From an IoT user’s perspective, standardized communication solutions offer significant benefits in terms of:

Guaranteed Quality and Credibility – IoT standards ensure that products and solutions are fit for their intended purposes. In other words, communication technologies that adhere to rigorous standards deliver high Quality-of-Service, robustness against interferences and industry-grade security to ensure reliable and secure transmission of massive IoT sensor data at the edge.

Interoperability and Innovation Flexibility – Standardized communication protocols can be programmed on various commodity, off-the-shelf hardware (i.e. chipsets, gateways) to support multi-vendor solutions and the interconnection of heterogeneous devices. Beside promoting interoperability in the long run, this helps end users avoid commercial risks of vendor lock-in, whereby a single supplier retains total control over functionality design and future product/technology innovation.

Global Scalability – Industrial users with worldwide operations want to adopt IoT connectivity that can be implemented across their global facilities. Standardized solutions function universally and help minimize installation complexity, thereby safeguarding long-term investment.

With a vast assortment of IoT connectivity solutions available on the market, choosing the right technology can determine the success of your digital transformation. By opting for an industry-standard IoT solution, you can secure the longevity and ROI of your IoT architecture by making it quality-assured, vendor-independent and scalable worldwide.

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February 24, 2021May 11, 2021

IoT for Data Center Infrastructure Management: 5 Critical Applications

BehrTech Blog

IoT for Data Center Infrastructure Management: 5 Critical Applications

Data centers have become an indispensable part of modern computing infrastructures; housing business-critical applications and information. As they evolve from centralized on-premises facilities to edge deployments to public cloud services, it’s important to think long-term about how to maintain their reliability and security.

Major outages, data interruptions, and downtimes are expensive. According to Gartner, data center downtime costs $5,600 per minute on average. This results in average costs between $140,000 and $540,00 per hour depending on the organization. Good asset intelligence combined with preventive and predictive maintenance boosts equipment reliability and system availability.

While the sheer volume, velocity and structure of IoT data is creating challenges in terms of security, storage management, servers and the network, IoT has also created new opportunities to optimize data center infrastructure management (DCIF). IoT sensors and wireless IoT connectivity are being used to ensure optimal performance of critical data center equipment to maximize uptime, increase energy efficiency, lower operating costs and above all else, protect the data it is housing. Here are 5 critical IoT applications for data center infrastructure management.

IoT for Data Center Infrastructure Management

1. Temperature & Humidity Monitoring

Data center facilities operate 24/7, consuming vast amounts of energy and generating huge quantities of heat. Temperature control within the data center is essential in order to avoid equipment overheating, to regulate equipment cooling, and to measure overall efficiency.

Temperature sensors located in IT closets, data center racks, and key “hotspots” around the company’s facilities such as air conditioning intake and discharge vents can monitor heat generation and output for decentralized, granular control of the HVAC system and computer room air conditioning (CRAC) unit.

This is also a critical function for reducing energy costs which represent the largest operational expense in data centers. Data centers have a tendency to overcool their facilities by several degrees just to err on the side of caution. According to Gartner, environmental sensors can save up to four percent in energy costs for every degree of upward change in the baseline temperature. This is because temperature sensors at the rack inlet provide far more accurate, real-time view of data center temperatures compared to CRAC readings alone. This information can be used to make the cooling system more efficient, for example shutdown CRAC units as needed.

In addition to temperature, humidity control is essential to avoid damage to critical equipment. High humidity may result in equipment corrosion while low humidity may result in a build-up of static electricity. Environmental sensors provide real-time insights to ensure optimal humidity levels across the facility.

2. Indoor Air Quality Monitoring

Indoor air quality is another environmental hazard impacting data centers. Maintenance operations, infrastructure upgrades, and equipment changes as well as outdoor air used for ventilation, pressurization and/or cooling can introduce airborne contaminants into the facility. An indoor air quality monitoring solution can proactively alert teams to pollutants and particulates that affect electronic equipment, corrode contacts and reduce capabilities to failure point, which can result in costly data center outages.

3. Leak Detection

Water leaks are one of the biggest threats to a data center. Whether it is a leaking air conditioner, water cooled server rack, condensation, groundwater or local plumbing, water damage can have considerable costly consequences.

Leak detection sensors notify teams at the very first sign of a leak allowing them to take remedial action. For example, rope sensors can be placed in hard-to-reach locations such as around each CRAC system, cooling distribution units, under raised floors, and any other leak source (such as pipes). Spot leak sensors can be used to monitor fluid overflows in drip pans, monitoring in smaller rooms, closets or any low spots.

4. Remote Power Monitoring

While environmental monitoring is critical to ensuring proactive intervention and response to potential catastrophes, so is remote monitoring of batteries and uninterruptible power supply (UPS). Having the ability to detect potential problems early and rapidly respond to defects or degradation maximizes the reliability of UPS battery systems and gives organizations the adaptability needed in today’s dynamic data centers.

5. Security & Access Control

A data centre physical security breach might result in the loss of equipment, but the real danger has to do with data exposure. With companies collecting personally identifiable information in many different forms, consumers are becoming increasingly concerned with how well that data is being protected. Any sort of threat to a company’s data, can have a significant impact on reputation and business and result in a large financial loss.

While the likelihood of stealing an entire server is low, an asset tracking solution helps companies manage and track any asset, big or small, in real-time. It can also send out alerts the moment an asset is moved or tampered with, allowing personnel to respond quickly to any threat.

When it comes to monitoring and restricting access to the data center itself, wireless sensors can be used for presence detection and people counting in restricted areas as well as suspicious movements such as opening and closing of doors or windows. Likewise, IoT-enabled locks, card readers and keypads can further monitor and control personnel entering and exiting for a multi-layered approach to security.

Whether it’s an enterprise, managed services, cloud or colocation data center, ensuring the efficient performance of this critical environment is becoming increasingly important. IoT for data center infrastructure management provides a holistic view of current environment conditions, resource usage and security to maximize uptime, increase energy efficiency, lower operating costs and prevent data loss and exposure.

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February 12, 2021May 11, 2021

3 Reasons Industrial IoT Projects Fail and How to Overcome Them

BehrTech Blog

3 Reasons Industrial IoT Projects Fail & How to Overcome Them

With the global market size predicted to reach USD 949.42 billion by 2025, Industrial IoT (IIoT) is expected to bring game-changing opportunities to improve operational visibility, efficiency and productivity, all while lowering costs. Amid this ambitious potential, an IIoT implementation is often easier said than done. A Cisco study revealed that only 26 percent of business decision-makers could name one of their IIoT initiatives a success.

Each project is unique, but the challenges faced are similar. In most cases, replacing existing facilities and equipment with entirely new, greenfield plants with native IoT technologies is simply not feasible. As such, brownfield IoT deployments are the way to go, but there exist a multitude of challenges. Designed in the previous century, legacy assets and systems aren’t meant to be connected to the outside world and thus lack effective communication functions. On top of that, companies haven’t prepared themselves to deal with security and data privacy issues in the IoT era.

In this article, we take a look at the top reasons industrial IoT projects fail and how to overcome them.

1. Connectivity

While data communications have long existed in industrial automation systems, they are built for closed-looped control tasks only. As such, machine and operational data are often trapped within multiple process silos on the factory floor. Connecting these systems via Ethernet is expensive, cumbersome and conducive to production shutdowns. In many industrial settings like open-pit mines and oil fields, asymmetric topography and vast geographical areas make trenching wires almost impossible.

Solution

The IIoT value chain essentially starts with data collection and choosing the right connectivity solution might ultimately impact the success of your IIoT initiative. There’s a plethora of wireless technologies in the market, but not all of them can keep up with the demanding industrial environments. Long-range, deep penetration and high interference immunity of the radio link are key to reliable data connection over large industrial campuses. Also, you’ll want to have a unified communications solution to extract data from existing industrial networks and to support a new layer of granular, battery-operated sensor networks for complete operational visibility. In this context, low power consumption and high network scalability are other critical wireless criteria not to overlook.

2. Integration

According to a report by Bain & Company, difficulties in integrating IIoT solutions with existing operational technology and IT systems continue to be a major adoption barrier. These difficulties center around how data is ported across different formats. Many companies struggle to retrofit IIoT technologies into legacy equipment like Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) without involving complex, error-prone modifications. On top of that, how to integrate collected data into existing IT and enterprise management platforms is another reason industrial IoT projects fail.

Solution

Emerging plug-and-play IIoT solutions are easing integration tasks with the use of a converter or an integration gateway. On one side, the converter interfaces with brownfield PLCs using automation-specific protocols to gather critical production data, reformat and then transmit it using robust, long-range connectivity on the other side. By leveraging such a solution, companies can bypass invasive hardware reprogramming and costly production downtime in a brownfield deployment. In addition, going for an open, API-driven IIoT architecture could greatly simplify integration and data transfer to legacy enterprise applications, software and reporting and analytics tools.

3. Security and Data Privacy

There are no IIoT discussions without security and data privacy concerns. Massive financial and operational damages caused by a breach is a primary reason companies shy away from IIoT and why IoT projects fail. The fact that many legacy industrial control systems have limited or outdated security features, further intensifies these challenges.

Solution

All of that said, there are a few steps companies can take to tackle security and data privacy issues. First, selecting an IIoT architecture with built-in end-to-end security for both non-IP and IP-based data transfer is critical. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a proven security mechanism for non-IP, low-power connectivity, while Transport Layer Security is an industry-standard cryptographic protocol for Internet-based connections. Besides data encryption, employing one-way connectivity to collect data from critical automation systems helps circumvent attempts to remotely control machines through reverse communications. If retaining data on-premise to avoid privacy concerns is a top priority, a privately managed and controlled network is preferred over public connectivity services.

As with previous industrial revolutions, IIoT does not come without challenges. However, addressing and overcoming these challenges with the right technologies and solutions opens the door to immense opportunities to gain more operational visibility, improve efficiencies and lower costs.

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February 2, 2021May 11, 2021

5 Must-Haves to Unlock IoT Data at Scale

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5 Must-Haves to Unlock IoT Data at Scale

The benefits of IoT data are widely touted. Enhanced operational visibility, reduced costs, improved efficiencies and increased productivity have driven organizations to take major strides towards digital transformation. With countless promising business opportunities, it’s no surprise that IoT is expanding rapidly and relentlessly. It is estimated that there will be 75.4 billion IoT devices by 2025. As IoT grows, so do the volumes of IoT data that need to be collected, analyzed and stored. Unfortunately, significant barriers exist that can limit or block access to this data altogether.

Successful IoT data acquisition starts and ends with reliable and scalable IoT connectivity. Selecting the right communications technology is paramount to the long-term success of your IoT project and various factors must be considered from the beginning to build a functional wireless infrastructure that can support and manage the influx of IoT data today and in the future.

Here are five IoT architecture must-haves for unlocking IoT data at scale.

1. Network Ownership

For many businesses, IoT data is one of their greatest assets, if not the most valuable. This intensifies the demand to protect the flow of data at all costs. With maximum data authority and architecture control, the adoption of privately managed networks is becoming prevalent across industrial verticals.

Beyond the undeniable benefits of data security and privacy, private networks give users more control over their deployment with the flexibility to tailor their coverage to the specific needs of their campus style network. On a public network, users risk not having the reliable connectivity needed for indoor, underground and remote critical IoT applications. And since this network is privately owned and operated, users also avoid the costly monthly access, data plans and subscription costs imposed by public operators, lowering the overall total-cost-of-ownership. Private networks also provide full control over network availability and uptime to ensure users have reliable access to their data at all times.

2. Minimal Infrastructure Requirements

Since the number of end devices is often fixed to your IoT use cases, choosing a wireless technology that requires minimal supporting infrastructure like base stations and repeaters, as well as configuration and optimization is crucial to cost-effectively scale your IoT network.

Wireless solutions with long range and excellent penetration capability, such as next-gen low-power wide area networks, require fewer base stations to cover a vast, structurally dense industrial or commercial campuses. Likewise, a robust radio link and large network capacity allow an individual base station to effectively support massive amounts of sensors without comprising performance to ensure a continuous flow of IoT data today and in the future.

3. Network and Device Management

As IoT initiatives move beyond proofs-of-concept, businesses need an effective and secure approach to operate, control and expand their IoT network with minimal costs and complexity.

As IoT deployments scale to hundreds or even thousands of geographically dispersed nodes, a manual approach to connecting, configuring and troubleshooting devices is inefficient and expensive. Likewise, by leaving devices completely unattended, users risk losing business-critical IoT data when it’s needed the most. A network and device management platform provides a single-pane, top-down view of all network traffic, registered nodes and their status for streamlined network monitoring and troubleshooting. Likewise, it acts as the bridge between the edge network and users’ downstream data servers and enterprise applications so users can streamline management of their entire IoT project from device to dashboard.

4. Legacy System Integration

Most traditional assets, machines, and facilities were not designed for IoT connectivity, creating huge data silos. This leaves companies with two choices: building entirely new, greenfield plants with native IoT technologies or updating brownfield facilities for IoT connectivity. Highly integrable, plug-and-play IoT connectivity is key to streamlining the costs and complexity of an IoT deployment. Businesses need a solution that can bridge the gap between legacy OT and IT systems to unlock new layers of data that were previously inaccessible. Wireless IoT connectivity must be able to easily retrofit existing assets and equipment without complex hardware modifications and production downtime. Likewise, it must enable straightforward data transfer to the existing IT infrastructure and business applications for data management, visualization and machine learning.

5. Interoperability

Each IoT system is a mashup of diverse components and technologies. This makes interoperability a prerequisite for IoT scalability, to avoid being saddled with an obsolete system that fails to keep pace with new innovation later on. By designing an interoperable architecture from the beginning, you can avoid fragmentation and reduce the integration costs of your IoT project in the long run.

Today, technology standards exist to foster horizontal interoperability by fueling global cross-vendor support through robust, transparent and consistent technology specifications. For example, a standard-based wireless protocol allows you to benefit from a growing portfolio of off-the-shelf hardware across industry domains. When it comes to vertical interoperability, versatile APIs and open messaging protocols act as the glue to connect the edge network with a multitude of value-deriving backend applications. Leveraging these open interfaces, you can also scale your deployment across locations and seamlessly aggregate IoT data across premises.

IoT data is the lifeblood of business intelligence and competitive differentiation and IoT connectivity is the crux to ensuring reliable and secure access to this data. When it comes to building a future-proof wireless architecture, it’s important to consider not only existing requirements, but also those that might pop up down the road. A wireless solution that offers data ownership, minimal infrastructure requirements, built-in network management and integration and interoperability will not only ensure access to IoT data today, but provide cost-effective support for the influx of data and devices in the future.

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January 29, 2021May 11, 2021

Interoperability: The Secret to a Scalable IoT Network

BehrTech Blog

Interoperability: The Secret to a Scalable IoT Network

IoT is an ecosystem game. No single technology in the market can deliver a complete, end-to-end IoT solution on its own. From connectivity, sensors and gateways to the cloud and application systems, an IoT architecture is composed of various components working in concert with each other. While ensuring a seamless data flow along the IoT value chain is critical, it is only half of the battle.

Today’s exploding number of IoT vendors has turned the IoT ecosystem into a highly complex landscape. To address multiple applications and challenges, an IoT infrastructure often needs to incorporate cross-domain hardware and application systems. Likewise, it must be flexible enough to effectively integrate future devices that may come with different hardware models. Beyond vertical integration within a specific industry or application, the diverse nature of the digital ecosystem means that horizontal interoperability between different devices and systems will also be critical to the success of a scalable IoT network.

A Lack of IoT Interoperability

Despite its utmost importance, IoT interoperability for many vendors is still a goal to work towards. A large number of existing IoT solutions are proprietary and designed to operate only within a pre-defined hardware or infrastructure environment. Examples include protocols tied to vendor-specific chipsets or wireless connectivity bound to a single third-party managed backend. The lack of IoT interoperability means that data can’t be effectively exchanged across disparate, sometimes overlapping devices and systems.

From the IoT adopters’ perspective, these closed ecosystems, or better named as silos, pose multiple problems. They hamper effective integration of new IoT devices and solutions that can tackle a wider range of operational issues. Supporting heterogeneous IoT infrastructures for different applications can quickly inflate costs and complexity beyond what companies can handle.

Vendor lock-in also deprives users of control over their data, network uptime and infrastructure management, while preventing them from switching to more cost-effective hardware options in the future. Technical instability is another potential issue, given the inherent risk that the vendor fails to deliver the agreed services and product functionality. This results in impaired Quality-of-Service and network scalability or even security holes.

Scalable IoT

Designing an IoT Architecture for Interoperability

The best way to circumvent these challenges is to prepare your IoT networks for interoperability from the start. Despite today’s highly fragmented IoT landscape, here are three rules of thumb for IoT connectivity that will help navigate your network design.

1. Open, Industry Standards

Solutions incorporating proven standards are built upon an open, universal framework recognized by Standard Development Organizations (SDO). Besides assured Quality-of-Service, open standards foster global transparency and consistency, eliminating incompatible variations in technical design and product development. This fuels worldwide adoption, cross-vendor support and interoperability in the long run. Adopting standard-based protocols, specifically, allows you to benefit from a growing portfolio of compatible off-the-shelf hardware across verticals. You can also avoid the risk of backward incompatibility due to any strategic changes by the proprietary vendor.

2. Software-driven Technologies

In industrial environments, IoT devices often abide by a rigorous set of safety and reliability regulations. Deploying wireless solutions with a hardware-driven approach is challenging in this regard, as you are bound to a certain device type and must depend on the respective vendor(s) to go through the certification process. Software-driven technologies, on the other hand, can be flexibly plugged in any legacy devices and infrastructure that already meet your operational requirements – whether sensors or industry PCs.

3. Open Interfaces

IoT interoperability on the application layer entails effective data transfer to different user’s application systems and servers. Open sourced messaging protocols like MQTT or CoAP and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) based on RESTful principles are key drivers of cross-application interoperability. In a private network architecture, having these open interfaces natively embedded in the IoT gateway enables direct data transfer to your preferred backend for analytics and visualization, without relying on a third-party managed server.

To wrap it up, interoperability is key to robust and scalable IoT network, and requires particular attention in your architecture design. Leveraging a standard-based, software-driven communication platform with built-in open interfaces allows for easy deployment in legacy environments while ensuring long-term interoperability with cross-vertical hardware and systems.

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November 24, 2020September 14, 2021

IoT Connectivity: 5 Crucial Considerations

BehrTech Blog

IoT Connectivity: 5 Crucial Considerations for a Successful Deployment

[bctt tweet=” Failing to select the right IoT connectivity could derail your initiative from the outset.”]

The Internet of Things (IoT) is more than just a collection of sensors that capture and share data for analysis. IoT has evolved from single point remedies to robust solutions, enabled through a network of interconnected devices and technologies to solve a spectrum of challenging business issues. At the same time, there exist major hurdles when embarking on an IoT project – one of which lies exactly where the value chain starts.

The majority of legacy industrial and commercial assets and systems were not designed with wireless communications in mind. Failing to select the right IoT connectivity could derail your initiative from the outset. The IoT connectivity challenge is manifold as it also encompasses data integration, privacy and security issues. To effectively manage the risks and architect your IoT network for long-term viability, make sure you factor in these five essential considerations.

1. What are the range, power and bandwidth requirements of my connected devices?

These three factors often come at the expense of each other. It’s all about finding the right balance that best suits your use cases. For example, different from factory automation tasks, most industrial monitoring applications pertain to the intermittent, latency-tolerant transmission of small-sized telemetry data. What’s more important is the ability to connect assets at remote locations where power supply is severely constraint, or absent altogether. Likewise, vast, structurally dense industrial facilities require a reliable wireless link that can travel through great physical obstructions. In this regard, a solution that delivers extensive range and minimal power footprint benefits would outweigh one that offers millisecond-latency communications.

2. Is the network easy to deploy and could it involve any complications?

Highly integrable, plug-and-play IoT connectivity is key to streamlining the costs and complexity of an IoT deployment. The industry needs a solution that acts as the bridge between legacy OT and IT systems to break down existing data silos and unlock operational visibility. On one end, the wireless IoT connectivity can be easily retrofitted into field assets and equipment without complex hardware modifications and production downtime. On the other end, it enables straightforward data transfer to the existing IT infrastructure and business applications for data democratization and informed decision-making.

3. Could it help me address multiple operational challenges?

While no connectivity is use case agnostic, it would be a mistake to think that each IoT application requires a heterogeneous wireless solution. Typically, you could have a unified network to simultaneously tackle different low-power, low-throughput use cases – from asset and facility management to environmental monitoring and occupancy detection. This would lower upfront investment and simplify the management of your IoT architecture to accelerate the path to ROI.

For a wireless network to accommodate growing applications, scalability is a prerequisite. Increasing the number of end points should never come at the cost of other important factors like network reliability and ease of deployment. Equally important, you want IoT connectivity that can support both static and fast-moving devices to tap into a wide range of worker, asset and fleet data.

4. Is the wireless connectivity future-proof?

A common mistake companies often make during the beginning of an IoT deployment is failing to incorporate future needs. While a digital project often starts small, you need to be ready when it’s time to scale. With the exponential increase in connected devices and radio traffic in the near future, the chosen connectivity must be purpose-built for interference resilience. Also, given the whirlwind speed of today’s technology, ensuring long-term interoperability is paramount. Coming with a well-articulated and transparent technical framework, software-driven, standard-based wireless solutions can seamlessly support new cross-vendor devices in years to come.

5. How does it align with my security and data privacy strategy?

An IoT network is only as secure as its wireless link. To protect enterprise data against malicious attempts, end-to-end encryption is critical. Specifically, robust cryptographic schemes must be integrated into each part of the data chain – from devices to gateways and from gateways to network management and application platforms. What’s more, you need to consider which third-party vendors can have access to your data. Managed IoT connectivity services by network operators require all messages to be re-routed through their server before reaching the end enterprise applications. If data privacy is top of mind, a privately-owned network is the way to go.

Data is the lifeblood of IoT and connectivity is the vein to transport and circulate it. The wireless decision is intertwined with multiple aspects of the network architecture and ultimately impacts the success of your IoT initiative. Asking these five questions will help you navigate the jungle of wireless protocols and standards and opt for the best solution.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: IoT Connectivity: 4 Standards that Will Shape 2020 and Beyond

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November 17, 2020May 11, 2021

IoT for Oil and Gas: 4 Significant Applications You Should Know

BehrTech Blog

IoT for Oil and Gas: 4 Significant Applications You Should Know

[bctt tweet=” IoT for oil and gas is destined for a significant uptake as companies are seeking to optimize operations in a myriad of ways.”]

Oil and gas is widely known as a highly competitive and difficult business. Growing environmental tensions, a paradigm shift towards renewables and volatile commodity prices have long been industry-wide challenges facing companies. Now, these issues are further deepened by plummeting demand amidst energy market turmoil. Increasingly, the sector is embracing the Internet of Things (IoT) to make headway in operational efficiencies, safety management and cost savings.

Operating an asset-intensive industry, oil and gas companies are constantly striving to maximize equipment performance and output. As such, it’s no surprise that around 65% of businesses cite optimization and predictive maintenance as the top focus on their IoT radar. Advanced wireless connectivity and low-cost sensors are helping to digitize and enhance assets and processes that used to be disconnected, creating positive impacts on the bottom line.

What IoT Brings to the Table

Instrumentation on drilling rigs and other oil and gas fields isn’t necessarily new. Yet, traditional communication mediums are largely limited to wires and satellite connectivity, making instrumentation expensive and cumbersome. For this reason, networking often serves automation tasks where the high price tag can be justified. This leaves many operational aspects largely under-monitored and heavily dependent on manual inspections.

IoT can help to make big wins in this regard by extending remote monitoring ability to all asset classes. Wireless technology like Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) introduces affordable “last-mile” connectivity to allow for a much greater number of connected data points – previously unavailable. This translates into broader oversight which helps to uncover bottlenecks and improvement opportunities that used to be hidden. Below we delve into IoT for oil and gas with 4 essential applications.

1. Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance

Most precarious oil and gas extraction and production activities take place at far-flung and, unsurprisingly, offshore locations. A malfunction of any given asset threatens to take a heavy toll on not only production output but also the environment. With the help of wireless IoT sensors, companies can keep tabs on their field equipment miles afar. Any off-spec conditions can be immediately spotted, so they can make informed decisions on when and how maintenance should be executed.

For example, ultrasonic, magnetic and vibration sensors can check for abnormal signs in the pipeline structure that indicate corrosion, ruptures and leakages, at an early stage. Likewise, changes in casing/tubing pressure, temperature and flow rates can point to a potential failure of the wellbore. By tackling issues way before serious damage is visible, companies can cut down on a great deal of troubleshooting and maintenance time, prevent disastrous leak events and maximize asset health and useful life.

2. Process Optimization

Increasing equipment uptime is just one way IoT for oil and gas can contribute to higher production output. Many processes that used to be laborious to the point of inefficiency can also benefit from the deployment of wireless IoT sensors.

Specifically, level monitoring of many reservoirs that contain oil, wastewater and other liquids during production still largely depends on regular manual checks. Fill level sensors can make this a much easier task, enabling more effective coordination of emptying logistics to avoid catastrophic spills and wasted manpower. As another example, continuous monitoring of pump pressure can help assess the current extraction capacity and detect if water rather than oil is being pumped out, so relevant process changes can be applied to optimize throughput.

3. Workers’ Health and Safety

Oil and gas has been notorious for being one of the most dangerous work sectors where there’s no lack of potential hazards – from contact injuries, fires and explosions to fatal falls and harmful chemical substances and environment. Even with extensive safety training and robust PPE in place, there’s still a worrying number of ongoing incidents that result in astronomical losses for both firms and the affected workers.

By automating on-site supervision and asset monitoring using IoT, companies can go a long way in enhancing workers’ health and safety. As fewer field trips are required, employees are less exposed to potential dangers. And even when they need to be onsite, risk can be mitigated as useful insights from IoT sensors allow technicians to better prepare themselves in advance.

Technologies like wearables and environmental sensors additionally step in to help oversee lone workers’ vital signs and activities and their surroundings. Excessive exposure to hazardous substances or other treacherous conditions like a spike in explosive gases can be quickly identified for evacuation and effective countermeasures.

4. Security and Container Tracking

Vandalism and sabotage attacks are among the biggest threats for an oil and gas facility with serious financial, ecological and logistical ramifications that come along. Yet, the vast area of a drilling field or a refinery structure often makes physical security a challenging mission, particularly at high-risk locations. In this context, distributed wireless sensors can complement surveillance cameras to give an extra safety boost by helping track movements at restricted areas and fence door status across the premise – 24/7.

Massive, multi-tenant oil and gas cargo ships are another area that can reap just the same benefits from connected solutions. Besides onboard physical security, wireless tracking solutions now provide a low-cost alternative to GPS tracking, to ensure safe and accurate pallet transport and delivery.

Wrapping Up

IoT for oil and gas is destined for a significant uptake as the market continues to exponentially grow. While the sector has been adopting communication technology for some time, new wireless connectivity like LPWAN is helping to bring vastly more data points online at a much lower price tag. Amidst compounding industry challenges, IoT implementation can be a turning point to take operational efficiency, sustainability and safety to the next level and stay on top of the competition.

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