IoT: LiveBlogging PTC’s LiveWorx

Posted on 23rd May 2017 in 3-D printing, circular company, cities, collaboration, data, design, Internet of Things, M2M, maintenance, management, manufacturing, marketing, paradigm shift, sensors, smart cities, smart home, strategy

Got here a little late for CEO Jim Heppelman’s keynote, so here goes!

  • Vuforia: digital twin gives you everything needed for merging digital “decorations” on the physical object
  • Unique perspective: AR takes digital back to the physical. Can understand & make better decisions.
  • Virtual reality would allow much of the same. Add in 3-D printing, etc.
  • “IoT is PLM.” Says PTC might be only company prepared to do both.
  • Says their logo captures the merger of digital and physical.
  • Case studies: they partnered with Bosch’s Rexroth division. Cytropac built-in IoT connectivity–  used Creo. Full life-cycle management. Can identify patterns of usage, etc. Using PTC’s analytics capacity, machine learning analysis. Want to improve cooling efficiency (it was high at first). Model-based digital twin to monitor product in field, then design an upgrade. How can they increase cooling efficiency 30%??  Came up with new design to optimize water channel that they will build in using 3-D printing. Cool (literally!). 43% increase in cooling efficiency. The design change results in new recommendation engine that helps in sales. Replaced operating manual with 3-D that anyone can understand. (BTW: very cool stagecraft: Heppelmann walks around stage interviewing the Rexroth design team at their workstations).
  • Ooh: getting citizen developers involved!!!  Speeds process, flexibility. App shows how products are actually operating in the field. Lets sales be much more proactive in field. Reinventing CRM.  May no longer need a physical showroom — just put on the AR headset.
  • Connectivity between all assets. The digital twin is identical, not fraternal. Brings AR into factory. They can merge new manufacturing equipment with legacy ones that didn’t have connectivity.  ABB has cloud-based retrofit sensors. Thingworx can connect almost anything, makes Industry 4.0 possible. Amazing demo of a simulated 3-D disassembly and replacement.
  • Hmmm — closing graphic of his preso is a constantly rotating circular one. Anticipating my “circular company” talk on Wednesday????

Closing the Loop With Enterprise Change Management. Lewis Lawrence of Weatherford, services to petroleum industry:

  • former engineer. In charge of Weatherford’s Windchill installation (they also use Creo).
  • hard hit by the drop in gas prices
  • constant state of flux
  • 15 years of constant evolution
  • their mantra: design anywhere, build anywhere.
  • enterprise change — not just engineering.
  • hmmm: according to his graphics, their whole change process is linear. IMHO, that’s obsolete in era of constant change: must evolve to cyclical. Ponderous process…
  • collect data: anything can be added, if it’s latest

The IoT Can Even Help You Breathe Better: GCE Group’s Zen-O portable oxygen concentrator for people with respiratory problems (not actually launched yet):

  • InVMA has built IoT application using ThingWorx to let patients, docs and service providers carefully monitor data
  • GCE made radical change from their traditional business in gas control devices. Zen-O is in the consumer markets. They were very interested in connected products — especially since their key competitor launched one!
  • Goals: predictive maintenance, improved patient care, asset management, development insight.
  • Design process very collaborative, with many partners.

The Digital Value Chain: GE’s Manufacturing Journey. Robert Ibe, global IT Engineering Leader at GE Industrial Solutions:

  • supports Brilliant Factory program.
  • they design and manufacture electrical distribution equipment, 30 factories worldwide.
  • “wing-to-wing” integrated process
  • had a highly complex, obsolete legacy
  • started in 2014: they were still running really old CAD technology. 14 CAD repositories that didn’t talk to each other. 15 year old PLM software. No confidence in any of data they had.
  • They began change with PLM — that’s where the digital thread begins.  PLM is foundation for their transformation.
  • PLM misunderstood: use it to map out cohesive, cross-functional, model-based strategy. Highlight relevance of “design anywhere — manufacture anywhere.” Make PLM master of your domain. Make it critical to commercial & manufacturing. Advertise benefits & value.
  • Whole strategy based on CAD. Windchill heart of the process.
  • Rate of implementation faster than business can keep up with!
  • Process: implementation approach:
    • design systems integration
    • model-based design
    • digital thread
    • manufacturing productivity.
  • common enterprise PLM framework
  • within Windchill, can see entire “digital bill of documents.”
  • focused on becoming critical for supply chain.
  • total shift from their paper-based legacy.
  • integrated regulatory compliance with every step of design.

It’s Not Your Grandmother’s IoT: Blockchain and IoT Morph Into An Emerging Technology Powerhouse:

  • Example of claims for fair-traded coffee that I’ve used in past

Finding Business Value in IoT panel:

  • Bayer — been in IoT (injection devices for medicine) for 7 years.  Reduced a lot of parts inventory.
  • Remote control of vending machines replaces paper & pencil
  • Your team needs to evangelize for biz benefits of IoT
  • New Opportunities:
    • vision and language
    • interacting with physical world
    • problem solving.
  • Didn’t know!  Skype can do real-time translation.
  • Google Deep Mind team worked internally, cut energy costs at its server farms. 15% energy reduction.
  • Digital progress makes economic pie bigger, BUT  most people aren’t benefitting economicallly. Some may be worse off. “Great decoupling” — mushrooming economic gap. One reason is that tech affects different groups differently.
  • “Entirely possible to create inclusive prosperity” through tech!

 

WEDNESDAY

Delivering Smart City Solutions and an Open Citywide Platform to Accelerate Economic Growth and Promote New Solution Innovation, Scott McCarley, PTC:

  • $40 trillion potential benefits from smart cities
  • 1st example & starting point for many cities, is smart lightpoles. Major savings plus value added. Real benefit is building on that, with systems of systems (water, traffic, energy, etc.) — the systems don’t operate in isolation.
  • Future buildings may have built-in batteries to add to power supply. Water reclamation, etc.
  • Cities are focused on KPIs across all target markets.
  • Cornerstone systems for a city: power & grid, water/wastewater, building management, city services & infrastructure.
  • Leveraging ThingWorx to address these needs:
    • deploy out-of-box IoT solutions from a ThingWorx Solution Provider: All examples, include Aquamatix, DEPsys (grid), Sensus, All Traffic, Smoove (bike sharing).
    • leverage ThingWorx to rapidly develop new IoT solutions.
      connect to any device, rapidly develop applications, visually model systems, quickly develop new apps. Augmented reality will play a role!
    • create role-based dashboards:
      one for your own operations, another for city.
    • bring the platform to create a citywide platform.
      Sum of connected physical assets, communication networks, and smart city solutions.

Digital Supply Networks: The Smart Factory. Steven Shepley, Deloitte:

  • 3 types of systems: 1) foundational visualization solutions:  KPIs, etc. 2) advanced analytical solutions 3) cyber-physical solutions.
  • Priority smart factory solutions:
    • advanced planning (risk-adjusted MRP), dynamic sequencing, cross network.
    • value chain integration: signal-based customer/supplies integration, dynamic distribution routing/tracking, digital twin.
    • asset efficiency: predictive maintenance, real-time asset tracking intelligence, energy management
    • labor productivity: robotic and cognitive automation, augmented reality-driven efficiency, real-time safety monitoring
    • exponential tech: 3-D printing, drones, flexible robots.
  • How to be successful: think big, start small, scale fast
  • Act differently: multi-disciplinary teams,
  • sensors getting simpler, easier to connect & retrofit. National Connectors particularly good.

Global Smart Home, Smart Enterprise, and Smart Cities IoT Use Cases. Ken Herron, Unified InBox, Pte.

  • new focus on customer
  • H2M: human to machine communication is THE key to IoT success. Respect their interests.
  • Austin TX: “robot whisperer” — industrial robot company. Their robots aging out, getting out of tune, etc. Predictive analytics anticipates problems.
  • Stuttgart: connected cow — if one cow is getting sick, may spread to entire herd. Intervene.
  • Kuala Lumpur: building bot — things such as paper towel dispensers communicating with management.
  • London: Concierge chatbot — shopper browsing can chat with assistant on combining outfits.
  • Dubai: smart camera. Help find your car in mega-shopping center: read license plates, message the camera, it gives you map to the car.
  • Singapore: Shout — for natural disasters. Walks the person making the alert through process, confirms choices.
  • Stuttgart: Feinstaubalarm — occasional very bad airborne dust at certain times. Tells people with lung problems options, such as taking mass transit.
  • Singapore: Smart appliances — I always thought smart fridge was stupid, but in-fridge camera that lets you shoot a “shelfie” does make sense
  • Fulda Germany: smart clothing for military & police: full record of personal health at the moment. Neat!
  • Noida India — smart sneakers can automatically post your run results (see connection to my SmartAging concept)

Business Impact of IoT, Eric Schaeffer, Accenture:

  • Michelin delivery trucks totally reinvented, major fuel savings, other benefits.
  • manufacturing being deconstructed
  • smart, connected products are causing it
  • industrial companies must begin transformation today

Thingworx: Platform for Management Revolution. W. David Stephenson, Stephenson Strategies:

Here are key points from my presentation about how the IoT can allow radical transformation from linear & hierarchical companies to IoT-centric “circular companies” (my entire presentation can be found here):

  • The IoT can be the platform for dramatic management change that was impossible in the past.
  • Making this change requires an extraordinary shift in management thinking: from hierarchy to collaboration.
  • The results will be worth the effort: not only more efficiency & precision, but also new creativity, revenue streams, & customer loyalty. 
  • In short, it will allow total transformation!

Kickstarting America’s Digital Transformation. Aneesh Chopra & Nicholas Thompson!

  • on day one, Our President (not the buffoon) told Chopra he wanted default to be switch from closed to open government & data.
  • National Wireless Initiative: became law 1 yr. after it was introduced.  Nationwide interoperable, secure wireless system.
  • Obama wanted to harness power of Internet to grow the economy. Talked to CIO of P & G, who was focused on opening up the company to get ideas from outside.
  • Thompson big on open data, but he thinks a lot more now is closed, we’re going wrong way.
  • Interesting example of getting down cost of solar to $1 per installed watt!!
  • Thompson: growing feeling that technology isn’t serving us economically. Chopra: need to democratize the benefits.
  • Chopra talking about opening up Labor Dept. data to lead to creative job opportunities for underserved.

 

 

 

 

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Amazon Echo Silver: bringing a little laughter (& the IoT) to aging

Posted on 16th May 2017 in aging, health, home automation, Internet of Things, seniors, SmartAging

Some of you may remember that I’ve blogged several times about my enthusiasm for Amazon’s Alexa as a cornerstore of what I call SmartAging, the combination of IoT health-monitoring devices to keep you healthier and smart home devices to make it easier to manage your home and avoid institutionalization.

However, I’m in awe of how the crackerjack gerontology researchers at SNL (don’t forget, kiddies, we were your age when the show began in 1975. Sobering, eh?) in “partnership” with AARP, LOL, have custom crafted a special edition Echo for the “Greatest Generation”: Amazon Echo Silver!

My particular favorite feature is the random “uh huh” to punctuation seniors’ rambling stories, but Kate McKinnon’s bit about turning up the thermostat when it’s already 100 is also priceless, and all the other vignettes are pretty over-the top as well (thank goodness I can ping my iPhone with my Apple Watch — I find increasingly creative places to put the phone down). I’ve never been that great on names, so the range of acceptable variations on “Alexa” would be welcomed (BTW: I could swear that one day recently when I was talking to Alexa Siri responded. Why can’t those gals get along?).

I could point out that the “uh huh” might really be a first step toward a really interactive device that could help seniors overcome social isolation, but why weigh down with social significance something that’s an absolute riot?

Aging: if you can’t laugh about it, you’re in serious, serious trouble.

 

 

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ThingWorx Analytics Video: microcosm of why IoT is so transformative!

Posted on 8th May 2017 in circular company, collaboration, data, Internet of Things, M2M, maintenance, management, open data, sensors, strategy

I’ll speak at PTC’s LiveWorx lollapalooza later this month (ooh: act quickly and I can get you a $300 registration discount: use code EDUCATE300) on my IoT-based Circular Company meme, so I’ve been devouring everything I can about ThingWorx to prepare.

Came across a nifty 6:09 vid about one component of ThingWorx, its Analytics feature. It seems to me this video sez it all about both how you can both launch an incremental IoT strategy (a recent focus of mine, given my webinar with Mendix) that will begin to pay immediate benefits and can serve as the basis for more ambitious transformation later, especially because you’ll already have the analytical tools such as ThingWorx Analytics already installed.

What caught my eye was that Flowserve, the pump giant involved in this case, could retrofit existing pumps with retrofit sensors from National Instruments — crucial for two reasons:

  • you may have major investments in existing, durable machinery: hard to justify scrapping it just to take advantage of the IoT
  • relatively few high-end, high-cost machinery and devices have been redesigned from the ground up to incorporate IoT monitoring and operations.

Note the screen grab: each of these sensors takes 30,000 readings per second. How’s that for real-time data?  PTC refers to this as part of the “volume, velocity and variety challenge of data” with the IoT.

As a microcosm of the IoT’s benefits, this example shows how easy it is to use those massive amounts of data and how they can be used to improve understanding and performance.

There are three major components:

  • ThingWatcher:
    This is the most critical component, because it sifts through the incredible amount of data from the edge, learns what constitutes normal performance for that sensor (creating “pop-up learning flags”), and then monitors it future performance for anomalies and, as the sample video shows, delivers real-time alerts to users (without requiring human monitoring) so they can make adjustments and/or order repairs.  Finds anomalies from edge devices in real-time. Automatically observes and learns the normal state pattern for every device or sensor. It then monitors each for anomalies and delivers re- al-time alerts to end users.
  • ThingPredictor:
    For the all-important new function of predictive maintenance, two different types of ThingPredictor indicators pop up when if anomalies are detected, predicting how long it may be until failure, allowing plenty of time for less-costly, anticipatory repairs. Because the specific deviation is identified in advance, repair crews will have the needed part with them when needed, rather than having to make an additional trip back to pick up parts.

    If you ask for a standard predictive scoring you don’t specify which performance features to include and get a simple predictive score. However, you can specify several key features to evaluate and get a more detailed (and probably more helpful) answer. For example,  “if you indicate an important feature count of three, the causal scoring output will include the three most influential features for each record and the percentage weights of each feature’s influence on the score.”

  • ThingOptimizer:
    Finally, you can use “ThingOptimizer” to do some what-if calculations to decide which possible “levers,” as ThingWorx calls the key variables, could change the projections to either maximize a positive factor or minimize the negatives. “Prescriptive scoring results include both an original score (the score before any lever attributes are changed) and an optimized score (the score after optimal values are applied to the lever attributes). In addition, for each attribute identified in your data as a lever, original and optimal values are included in the prescriptive scoring results.” It sort of reminds me how the introduction of VisiCalc allowed users, for the first time, to play around with variables to see which would have the best results.
Best of all, as the video illustrates, ThingWorx Analytics would facilitate the kind of “Circular Company” I’ll address in my speech, because the exact same real-time data could simultaneously be used by operating personnel to fine tune operations and catch a problem in time for predictive maintenance, and by senior management to get an instant overview of how operations are going at all the installations. Same data, many uses.
Bottom line: a robust IoT platform could be the key to an incremental strategy to begin by improving daily operations and reducing maintenance problems, and also be the underpinning for more radical transformation as your IoT strategy becomes more advanced!  See you at LiveWorx!
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Creating Your Incremental IoT Strategy Webinar Tomorrow!

Posted on 1st May 2017 in circular company, data, design

creating your IoT strategy webinar

Hope you’ll join me and Mendix  (which, BTW,  Gartner just tabbed as a platform as service [Paas] “Magic Quadrant” leader for its low-code tools for rapid app development!), for a 10 AM (EDT) webinar Tuesday the 2nd on creating incremental IoT strategies (register here).

In a way, this is an update of the e-book I wrote for SAP several years ago, Mastering the Internet of Things Revolution, in which I also outlined an incremental strategy for testing the IoT waters and then building on those early experiments for more comprehensive change.

That’s important if your company doesn’t have the resources for a total IoT makeover, or if you’re a little in doubt about how the IoT would benefit you.

While I do give a teaser for my IoT-data based “Circular Company” paradigm shift, the webinar is otherwise focused on how incremental IoT projects allow you to build unprecedented (and previously impossible, due to our inability to “see” what was happening inside of things) precision in every aspect of your operations:

Along the way I’ll show how the Mendix platform can play a role, — consistent with the democratizing data meme I’ve pushed since my Data Dynamite book — of empowering everyone, not just programmers, to quickly create enterprise low-code apps to capitalize on the incredible data the IoT yields.

Please join us.

 

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