Digital twin and the IIoT

While the IoT applications are well known, there is another silent revolution underway in the industrial world; it’s called the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

The IIoT is all set to create an impact that will be significant for the global economy, as it makes factories intelligent, allows for extremely accurate predictive maintenance operations, or creates digital twins for complex industrial machines.

IIoT is part of the larger concept of the IoT and is nothing but the application of the IoT to the manufacturing industry. By means of acquiring and accessing great amounts of data, at far greater speeds, way more efficiently, IIoT aims to revolutionize manufacturing. A lot of companies are already leveraging this powerful technology by employing intelligent, connected devices in their factories.

Benefits of IIoT IIoT offers a long list of benefits, such as time and costs savings, scalability, efficiency, and connectivity for industrial organizations. Predictive maintenance, improved safety, and other operational efficiencies, obtained through IIoT, benefits companies. With the help of the IIoT network of intelligent devices, industrial organizations can break open data silos and connect all of their data, processes, and people from the factory floor to the executive offices. IIoT enables business leaders to get an accurate and holistic view of how their enterprise is doing, helping them make better decisions.

IIoT protocols When planning a transition to IIoT, it is important for you to understand that the different edge-of-edge devices have historically used different protocols for sending and receiving data. OPC UA and MQTT transfer protocol are the quickly emerging as the protocols for the IIoT establishment in any business. This is because of the lightweight overhead, bidirectional capabilities, and publish/subscribe model of these standards.

Digital twin and IIoT Digital twins are currently moving towards the creation of a digital representation of real world objects, focus being on the object itself. A digital twin is where the physical and virtual realms of a product, such as engineering design and operational functions, are connected. Digital twins enable continuous process improvements, design improvements, operations and maintenance, and conditional states of the machines. The implementation of enterprise asset management and lifecycle services strategy, around the concept of digital twin and within the overall IIoT ecosystem, can provide significant benefits to OEM and the owner-operator. Digital twin and IIoT imply optimized asset performance.

Challenges of the IIoT The two biggest challenges surrounding the implementation of IIoT are interoperability and security. The interoperability between machines and devices that use different architectures and protocols and the proliferation of sensors and other connected devices may result in security vulnerabilities. Companies implementing IIoT need to make necessary arrangements to resolve these challenges.

Digital twin and IIoT are one of the primary trends affecting industrial businesses, today and in the future. Industries pushing to modernize their systems and equipment must plan for the incorporation of these trends in their strategies.