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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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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Siemens’s MindSphere: from automation to digitalization

Posted on 30th November 2016 in automotive, circular company, data, Internet of Things, M2M, manufacturing, open data

Perhaps the most important component of a successful IoT transformation is building it on a robust platform, because that alone can let your company go beyond random IoT experiments to achieve an integrated IoT strategy that can add new components systematically and create synergistic benefits by combining the various aspects of the program.

A good starting point for discussion of such platforms is a description of the eight key platform components as detailed by IoT Analytics:

  1. “Connectivity & normalization: brings different protocols and different data formats into one ‘software’  interface ensuring accurate data streaming and interaction with all devices.
  2. Device management: ensures the connected ‘things’ are working properly, seamlessly running patches and updates for software and applications running on the device or edge gateways.
  3. Database: scalable storage of device data brings the requirements for hybrid cloud-based databases to a new level in terms of data volume, variety, velocity and veracity.
  4. Processing & action management: brings data to life with rule-based event-action-triggers enabling execution of ‘smart’ actions based on specific sensor data.
  5. Analytics: performs a range of complex analysis from basic data clustering and deep machine learning to predictive analytics extracting the most value out of the IoT data-stream.
  6. Visualization: enables humans to see patterns and observe trends from visualization dashboards where data is vividly portrayed through line-, stacked-, or pie charts, 2D- or even 3D-models.
  7. Additional tools: allow IoT developers prototype, test and market the IoT use case creating platform ecosystem apps for visualizing, managing and controlling connected devices.
  8. External interfaces: integrate with 3rd-party systems and the rest of the wider IT-ecosystem via built-in application programming interfaces (API), software development kits (SDK), and gateways.”

Despite (or because of, the complexity,) I think this is a decent description, because a robust IoT platf0rm really must encompass so many functions. The eight points give a basis for deciding whether what a company hawks as an IoT platform really deserves that title or really constitutes only part of the necessary whole (Aside: it’s also a great illustration of my Essential Truth that, instead of hoarding data as in the past, we must begin to ask “who else can use this data?” either inside the company or, potentially, outside, then use technology such as an IoT platform to integrate all those data uses productively.).

During my recent Barcelona trip (disclaimer: Siemens paid my way and arranged special access to some of its key decision makers, but made no attempt to limit my editorial judgment) I interviewed the company’s Chief Strategy Officer, Dr. Horst J. Kayser, who made it clear (as I mentioned in my earlier post about Siemens) that one of the advantages the company has over pure-play software firms is that it can apply its software offerings internally first and tweak them there, because of its 169-year heritage as a manufacturer, and “sits on a vast program of automation.”

Siemens’s IoT platform, MindSphere  is a collaboration with SAP, using the latter’s vast HANA cloud.  It ties together all components of Siemens’s IoT offerings, including data analytics, connectivity capabilities, developers’ tools, applications and services. MindSphere focuses on monitoring manufacturing assets’ real-time status, to evaluate and use customers’ data, producing insights that can cut production costs, improve performance, and even switch to predictive maintenance. Its Mind Connect Nano collects data from the assets and transferring it to MindSphere.

The “digital twin” is integrated throughout the MindSphere platform. Kayser says that “there’s a digital twin of the entire process, from conception through the manufacturing and maintenance, and it feeds the data back into the model.” In fact,  one dramatic example of the concept in action is the new Maserati Ghibli, created in 16 months instead of 30 — almost 50% less time than for prior models.  Using the Teamcenter PLM software, the team was able to virtually develop and extensively test the car before anything was created physically.

IMHO, Mindsphere and components such as Teamware might really be the key to actualizing my dream of the circular company, in this case with the IoT-based real-time digital twin at the heart of the enterprise — as Kayser said, “everything is done through one consistent data set.)” I hope to explore my concept, and the benefits I think it can produce, more with the Siemens strategists in the future!  I tried the idea out on several of them in Barcelona, and no one laughed, so we’ll see…

As with the company’s rail digitization services that I mentioned in my earlier post, there’s an in-house guinea pig for MindSphere as well: the company’s “Factory of the Future” in Amberg. The plant manufactures Simatic controllers, the key to the company’s automation products and services, to which digitalization is now being added as part of the company’s Industrie 4.0 IoT plan for manufacturing (paralleling GE’s “Industrial Internet.”). As you may be aware, Siemens’s efforts in this area are a subset of a formal German government/industry initiative — I  doubt seriously we’ll see this in the U.S. under Trump.

The results of digitalization at Amberg are astonishing by any measure, especially the ultimate accomplishment: a  99.9988 percent rate (no typo!!), which is even more incredible when you realize this is not mass production with long, uniform production runs: the plant manufactures more than 1,000 varieties of the controllers, with a total volume of 12 million Simatic products each year, or about one per second.  Here are some of the other benefits of what they call an emphasis on optimizing the entire value chain:

  • shorter delivery time: 24 hours from order.
  • time to market reduced by up to 50%.
  • cost savings of up to 25%

Of course there are several other robust IoT platforms, including GE’s Predix and PTC’s Thingworx, but my analysis shows that Mindsphere meets IoT Analytics’ criteria, and, combined with the company’s long background in manufacturing and automation, should make it a real player in the industrial internet. Bravo!

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Liveblogging #IoT @ #Liveworx 2016 — day 2

Posted on 8th June 2016 in design, home automation, Internet of Things, management, manufacturing, marketing, paradigm shift, smart home, strategy

Colin Angle, CEO, iRobot:

  • smart home: people have hard time learning how to use current generation of smart home devices. Unacceptable delay in activation. we need “just live your life, and the house does the right thing.” Shouldn’t have to pull out phone.  Will be aware of your location, act naturally.
  • “Need metaphor of the room to exist” — and robot will do that. Cool: Future iRobot could do that while doing its own job. New generation of iRobot has mapped 1/2 billion sq. feet in less than a year.
  • Would be a lot cooler if you can just buy a smart bulb, screw it in, and it would just work without having to do anything.
  • Pogue: how do you deal with the criticism that iRobot LOOKS as if it is cleaning randomly? Angle: Customers just cared that it actually did the job. “Just make it clean better” — I don’t care how long it takes, because I’m not there.
  • Next generation of robotics will be manipulation.
  • Angle: “if you’re worried about AI taking over, don’t worry about me, worry about the marketing guys.  … I just vacuum floors.”  This is so funny: “I used to be a self-respecting robot scientist, but it wasn’t until I became a vacuum salesman that I made any money.”

Eric Schaeffer, Accenture:

  • significant change, affecting both demand and supply. No industry unaffected.
  • to remain competitive, countries and companies will have to be at edge of innovation. Faster than ever.
  • strategies focused on cost-cutting less effective than emphasis on new products
  • World Economic Forum looking at impact of internet on business and society
    • 1st report: industrial internet of things & how it would transform industries. Adoption accelerating.
    • 3-4 yrs. from now, major structural changes, massively transformative (but you can begin w/ incremental change).
    • only 7% of 500 companies surveyed said they had comprehensive IoT strategy.
  • illustrations: water distribution network, dramatic time savings in time to install plane seats.
  • where’s the value? integrate smart products and back-office systems for IoT and As-a-Service Enabled approach.
  • Moving to multi-dimensional definition of a product.
  • Companies will become platforms
  • Sales models will move to as-a-service
  • They have identified 30% “uplift” for generic company. Specific improvements from digitization of the enterprise varies from one industry to another
  • Examples:
    • a Euro telecoms company: using a Google Glass-style product for field technicians at job sites and to capture data in field. 20-40% productivity gains.
    • pay-per-use vehicle services: a French tire company that wants to create 1 b Euro biz in “mobility.” — from selling tires to selling outcomes! Money-back guarantee. 2.5 liters reduction in gas use for 100 km driven — huge reduction in trucking companies. 
    • connected homes: working with multiple clients to define what the services will be.
  • Scope and scale of changes acute.
  • Recent survey: 42% of companies have said improvement has been in how they interact with customers.
  • Leading companies moving from product push to creating value by:
    • focusing on higher value solutions
    • focusing on enhanced experience
    • focusing on customer outcomes.
  • still focus on the what, but also the how!
  • dramatic shift to “Total Experience Innovation.”
    • Be Solution Centric: all centered on customer
    • Build an Insight Platform: continuously renew
    • Drive Pivotal Leaders: find right leaders.
  • Examples:
    • ALS patients: helping them regain control of their lives through wearables, displays, etc. done with Phillips.
    • industrial equipment manufacturer: breaking silos. Innovation digital factory: to instill connectivity into the biz, and build outcome-based offers, and increasing level of engagement with customers.
  • Future:
    • implantable technologies
    • wearable internet
    • IoT everywhere
    • connected home
    • driverless cars
    • robotics
    • sharing economy

Here’s the main event!  Prof. Michael Porter, iRobot’s Colin Angle & PTC’s Jim Heppelmann on IoT transformation:

  • Porter & Heppelmann’s research collaboration on IoT: he was a PTC board member. “Magical opportunity”
  • Porter: both products and internal operations are changing due to IoT
  • Porter: still in early stages of industrial conversion
  • Porter: IoT is wrong term: real emphasis is change in products and what they can do. Embedding in service companies. Every service business will be affected.
  • Heppelmann: the IoT also affects how the customer operates the product.
  • Angle: iRobot has jumped into IoT with both feet. Touches every aspect of their biz.
  • Heppelmann: missed the human element in this. That led to their AR initiative, so people could relate to the new products in ways that are both physical and digital.
  • Angle: iRoomba sending data back in real time on how it’s being used. No more focus groups! Robot part of design team.
  • Heppelmann: fundamentally different design process now.
  • Porter: who collects, who decides how to use the data? New chief data officer position.
  • Angle: who is best to handle the data? Idea of chief data officer interesting. Product ID a new competency.
  • Porter: starting to see new organizational structures pop up. Becoming possible to sell almost anything as a service.
  • Heppelmann: “devops” — combine development & operations. Chief Data Officer — whose job is it to decide what the data is telling various departments?
  • Porter: can’t have handoffs between each group, because you need continuing dialogue.
  • Heppelmann: industrial companies can learn from software companies, with techniques such as agile dev in software.  Continuous improvement. Also, “customer analytics.”

 

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Liveblogging #IoT @ #Liveworx 2016

Posted on 7th June 2016 in data, design, Internet of Things, M2M, maintenance, manufacturing, marketing, strategy

1st up is Jim Heppelmann, PTC CEO and co-author w/ Michael Porter of the great 2-part HBR series on IoT strategy & tactics.

But 1st, few words from David Pogue, the great consumer tech writer: imagine his surprise when he sees his kids at home in CT have cranked the Nest 2 66 degrees. So he turns it up, LOL.

Heppelmann:

  • part of a fundamental transformation
  • one of biggest game-changing technologies of our time
  • things evolving from being simple physical products to complex systems, systems of systems
  • “single new reality that’s physical and digital at the same time”
  • example of rapid change: Augmented Reality & Virtuality combined with IoT: Terri Lewis, director of solutions & tech at Caterpiller — XQ Gen Set — rental power for job sites & sport events — “asset utilization” big deal for rentals & for the customers — can operate from a remote device (iPad in this case). PTC’s new product is Vuforia Studio Enterprise — “democratizing AR.” When used as a sales tool, lets customer look inside the product, vs. a static brochure.
  • humans prefer to use sight and sound simultaneously: he & Porter are working on another article on adding AR to business setting.
  • analytics: analytics is the new refinery for data, which is the new oil.  Announcing Thingworx Analytics. Example: Flowserve, an industrial products company.World’s largest flow control company. Helps to do real-time management of the device. It now takes only 1 repair trip to fix assembly rather than 3 before, because they know the actual problem at beginning. Do real-time simulations to see if it was solved.  Augmented Reality allows the person right at the pump, to see what is actually happening — that wasn’t possible before. Radically reduces time & money necessary to get it back online — reducing what was a $2 billion loss in 2015 alone.
  • New announcement: HPE industrial, hardened server to run such a system.
  • Engineering products: working with a group of local STEM kids in a robotics competition, FIRST Robotics. Use AR as part of the design review process, using Google Cardboard & Agile Engineering process. Team demo’s it.
  • He thinks they are THE company for digital/physical convergence.

Michael Campbell, Vuforia Studio AR:

  • augmented reality without writing code
  • reduces the CAD data set by 150x to optimize it, but protects all the visual richness
  • use in design review
  • can create compelling AR in a few minutes! Woo!
  • can actually put the digital info on the physical product itself.  Creo Illustrate for tech illustrators: step-by-step illustrations (wow, would that be great for product assembly and repair uses!). Intuitive interface, drag-n-drop.

 

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Wow! Mass. IoT market really heating up, as PTC grows again!

Posted on 24th July 2014 in Internet of Things, M2M, manufacturing

One of my roles is as founder and co-chair of the Boston/New England IoT Meetup, so I’m always eager to report positive news about IoT news here in the Hub of the Universe.

Big news today: Needham’s PTC is growing again (after its recent $130 million purchase of ThingWorx), buying Foxboro’s Axceda for $170 million, giving them a good base in both IoT platforms and devices. Both of these purchases are dwarfed by the $3.2 billion Google paid for Nest, but they do show that the industry is growing, and that PTC is suddenly emerging as a Player To Be Reckoned With. Wonder what their strategic plan is?

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