Industrial IoT is the trending technology for the last few years. There is a high level of enthusiasm in the SME sector for IIoT and jargon like Industry 4.0, smart factories. However, there is a lack of clarity in the sector to identify its role in the emerging IIoT ecosystem. Over a decade, we are working with MSMEs and below are the most common misconceptions about IIoT we came across while discussing with them about the subject.
Misunderstanding 1: “IIoT is very Expensive”
Two factors – early adoption of IIoT by large-sized manufacturers and the price quoted by a few technology partners lead to misinterpretation that the IIoT technology is very expensive. The truth is technology is very cost-effective and price point changes with the level of depth you are expecting from it. We have assisted manufacturers across the industries and irrespective of their sizes with cost-effective IIoT solutions.
CNC machines or PLCs have already penetrated the SME market and they are resulting in higher production, improvement in quality and deskilling of work. We are not helping SME with their legacy machines but also with multi-brand latest machines to give real-time visibility on any device. In short, we are connecting machines directly to mobile or PCs and that too cost-effectively.
Misunderstanding 2: “IIoT is complex technology”
After reading a lot about how IIoT implemented in complex processes and hearing jargon results in misconceptions like its expensive and very complex technology. So the first impression or the perception becomes the barrier in most of the cases.
All the organizations, be it be small scale or market-leading, the need for the technology is to make business processes more productive and make work-life simple. The basic idea of IIoT is about connecting machines to other machines/data management and the optimization and productivity that is possible to make “smart factories.”
When we were discussing with multiple SMEs, they were looking for the IIoT system which will be in plug-&-play format. We developed a software component that will work in a similar manner and can be set up by their existing CNC or PLC engineer and will get directly on their PC / Mobile.
Misunderstanding 3: “We’re small scale manufacturer”
Many times manufacturers say we are small scale companies, we are not looking for any systems. We can not afford an in-house IT team.
Basically, your organization size is not important. What matters is if you are continuously looking for real improvements in your organization. What matters is what value it can deliver to your organization. You will get real-time information, error-free MIS reports without any manual intervention or without any manual entries. You can also calculate monetary benefits in terms of percentage savings in operational cost, savings in raw material, cost of decisions based on wrong data in front of you.
Plug & play systems like ours do not require any additional human resources. The one-time set-up will do all the work. Any stable software component generally does not require any maintenance. And with the right system integrator, you will not need to worry about the set-up or any maintenance.
