3 IIoT misconceptions that are blocking Enterprises from leveraging it in their Businesses

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and smart factories have a lot of potentials to significantly enhance the efficiencies and capabilities of millions of operations. Despite the rising trend, IIoT implementation and adoption have lagged due to series of misconceptions that keep IIoT-benefiting enterprises and developers from pursuing and leveraging the technology. IIoT does need whole new requirements for real-time data management and analysis. That said, when understood properly and approached accurately, these demands really should not be the hurdles to implementation that they are still often made out to be.

However, the use of IIoT in the manufacturing sector is highly growing in popularity as more and more manufacturers started leveraging IIoT-powered technology such as Smart Factory Software to get a higher level of efficiency, boost the quality of products, and reduce wastage of resources. A study shows that the global spending on IIoT platforms in manufacturing is estimated to rise to $12.44B in 2024 from $1.67B in 2018. A Deloitte Industry 4.0 report of 361 executives across 11 countries says that 94% describe digital transformation as their company’s top strategic initiative.

Let us discuss 3 IIoT misconceptions that are stopping businesses from implementation

1. It does not need new database requirements:

In reality, it very much does. IoT analysts including those at Gartner tell that IoT poses completely new challenges when it comes to data volume, query & data complexity, and integration. Actually, the difference between a machine operating in a standalone mode or within a networked IIoT monitoring system is grim. Sadly, companies are making the mistake of trying to leverage an IIoT infrastructure according to existing and conventional databases like Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, etc. On the contrary to being too expensive, these databases are generally technically not capable of satisfying the rising demand generated by huge data volume that should be processed for IIoT success. While conventional SQL databases are easy to use, they are not developed to query machine data streams in real-time.

2. Industrial IoT refers to long implementation:

Before a decade, IIoT adoptions were considered an infrastructure-heavy and IT-led effort that usually took 6–18 months to implement. These efforts started from networking investments, on-site server deployments, a huge team of implementation professionals, and generally include machine or line downtime, production delays, and a lot of retraining of staff. But today, manufacturers and other business verticals are integrating industrial IoT in their enterprises as easily as one can install a thermostat in their homes. After you have completed important work of determining the particular business challenges IIoT can help you overcome these complexities. You could be eagle-eyed on applying this smart technology to your most pressing challenges, or challenging presses depends on what you manufacture.

3. IIoT escalates cybersecurity risks:

There is no doubt in the fact that cybersecurity risk is one of the concerns, particularly for an enterprise connecting systems to a company that was not designed with that capability in mind. For instance, let us consider the case of the manufacturer with a 30-years old programmable logic controller. The organization was content to get the system to work on their ecosystem, let alone having to manage any security consequences. But the industrial IoT does not increase the risk. A well-designed IIoT solution is similar to an online banking system to an automation system. This solution includes security built-in from the factory, and that security could not be turned off. Cybersecurity risks can be tackled by taking non-critical control loops off the traditional supervisory control and data acquisition systems and distributed control systems and installing them to industrial IoT.

Conclusion

Industrial IoT as a service allows global access to secure, cloud-based apps and solutions that quickly escalate, expand, and implement on the basis of enterprise requirements. Securely use and analyze all your company’s data — where you want, when you want. KCS’ highly knowledgeable and skilled experts of IT, IoT, operations technologies, and industry experience delivering complex and bespoke solutions that satisfy the needs of our clients and offer end-to-end insights and visibility throughout the process.