IoT has provided companies with many new and variant opportunities to expand their businesses. However, the transition has not been easy, as there are obstacles and threaten to the investments in the different sections of companies. but what are these obstacles?

Sustainability and Energy Efficiency

A significant challenge for data-oriented companies is to increase energy efficiency in different aspects. Although modern networking equipment does not consume lots of energy; they need to be live and working 24/7. And most of the time just one gadget is not enough to get online. Client, router, gateway, wifi, and modem are some samples of the required equipment to get online regardless of they are compacted in one box or not.

Connectivity 

Connectivity is the foundation of IoT, and providing constant connectivity is a challenge for data-oriented companies. In other words, If companies want to provide their customers with IoT, they need fast and stable connections. Providing such connectivity is quite difficult for companies since providing equipment associated with new technologies is expensive and rare.

Data Security and Privacy

Data security and privacy are a big challenge, control over a huge amount of data to be transferred makes it more difficult. If any problem occurs specifically on a company with sensitive data there will be significant costs. 

One of the Solutions

To deal with mentioned challenges, a solution that I have done was storing data locally on a computer on board (COB) on the production line rather than hiring cloud platforms. It would be much cheaper and easier to handle your sensitive data’s sustainability, efficiency, and connectivity.

Data Analytics 

How to exploit data and data analytics capabilities to support insightful decisions could be a complex and costly challenge for a company. There are different sources and devices in the companies which produce gigantic amounts of information. It is very challenging and expensive for many companies to adopt the technologies and resources for storing, managing, profiling, securing, and finally analyzing the data produced in the company. Although managers and engineers know the value of that data, all those mentioned challenges make it impossible for them to monetize their valuable information.

Compatibility 

Providing compatibility between industrial automation equipment has been a challenge for companies, since,   in the first place it is not a top priority task especially in well-known industrial automation companies to design a line considering the future possible compatibility with other brands. When different devices are not compatible, enterprises might postpone hiring new data-oriented solutions,  although they are well aware of the necessities. in other words, companies might need to change some devices that already work well on the production line and there is no need to replace them, only because they are not compatible with new technologies. And most importantly, in reality, sometimes taking the risk of retrofitting is higher than the advantages they could get from hiring new technologies. 

To solve this problem and minimise the risk, oee.services have an easy and affordable solution that uses common 24v input for data gathering. In other words, the data can be achieved directly from a sensor or PLC cards.