DC Technology Digest 3: Convergence of Technology to create Business Revolution

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article is of the author and it has no bearing to any organization he is associated with and the interpretations are his personal view of the subject and this is subject to change as things evolve in technology rapidly.

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Link to Part 2 of this article

In the last article, I concluded saying “The future is far beyond our imagination specially the power of Artificial Intelligence, I call this AoE “Artificial Intelligence of Everything” in combination with IoT & Block Chain is going to disrupt every organization and individuals in the Industrial ecosystem. “

Deciphering the above statement of what’s changing today and what exactly the 4th Industry revolution is in store for us. There was a statistics published by Mckinsey in 2016 which says today we have over 60 Million Industrial grade assets, The average utilization of these assets in 2017 is around 45% but what is expected of these assets is 70% utilization and marginal increase of productivity of over 15% Year on Year.

The 4th Industrial Revolution is not just about converting these assets to connected equipment but also making them Intelligent and paving way to become autonomous in the future. GE is the first Industrial Company to capitalize the potential of this Industrial Internet. I worked for GE during early 2000 and I could see the phenomenal shift that GE took to become a Digital Industrial Company from a Process & Core Competency driven Conglomerate. The digital transformation of GE to GE Digital is one of the landmark case studies. It was not easy for GE to transform what it is today but they boldly stepped forward with a great vision realizing the potential of this 4th Industrial revolution.

Let’s take a Hypothetical example and imaginary company by name Robin Corp, which like GE is an Asset heavy enterprise and also would like to drive the Digital Transformation in Industrial ecosystem. The transformation we are referring to is about the convergence of Industrial Machines/Devices, Data/Intelligence & Internet/connectivity.

Assume RobinCorp has 10,000 machines of different categories starting from small equipment like pumps to heavy machines like excavators. The first step towards making them connected is to put the right sensors for measurement of vital parameters, connecting them to cloud, analyzing the flow of data & structuring them to make sense and then integrate them with AI/ML algorithms ( structured & unstructured).  In this entire process, the most critical exercise is to create a Digital Twin (@ Hitachi, We call this as Asset Avatars). If I have to call it in simple terms, the digital library of Virtual Asset Models of the equipment. The most important aspect of Digital Twin is it is Dynamic and it’s not a static model of the asset. In fact the equipment might have multiple model state of the Digital Twins varying by multiple criteria. GE’s core strength today is not just Predix but they claim to have more than 750,000 Digital Twin models as per the published report, which is growing day by day. At Hitachi, We aspire to connect every Hitachi Equipment in this planet to our IOT Platform (Lumada) in the form of Asset Avatars.

The Robin Corp’s paramount effort is to create the Digital Twins for their critical equipment and bring them in the Industrial Internet ecosystem. Ideally, over period of 3 to 6 months the data that was generated through sensors would help them to build AI / ML models which could drive greater efficiency in terms of Predictive maintenance, Minimum Downtime and Optimum utilization of Assets. This is just the phase 1 of the entire program. The phase 2 of the program is to understand the material inputs that were received from multiple suppliers across the globe and create a benchmark on the productivity & revenue gains from respective suppliers. Assume the case of the faulty AIR Bags in the Passenger Cars, it’s not just the production process and connected equipment it goes for beyond that by checking on the raw materials received from Suppliers. Bringing in the Supplier ecosystem to the Industrial IoT / Internet is critical specially for the manufacturing companies.

Will cover in my next article the other critical phase which Robin Corp has to implement to become a Digital Industrial company.

Best Regards

Dinesh Chandrasekar

 DC*

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