How IT Works: Internet of Things (IoT) for Manufacturing

The first step toward understanding IoT is relatively simple. Thankfully, in a welcome departure from acronyms and complicated terminology, the term IoT - Internet of Things - literally means just that. Things that are networked so that the data they generate (or data about them) can be accessed from anywhere. What are they? Well, almost anything. From refrigerators and air conditioners to automobiles and aeroplanes, and factory machinery.

In a different light, IoT is the result of faster and cheaper Internet connectivity attempting to satisfy our insatiable appetite for data. The underlying technology is not complicated; college students create IoT proof of concept projects, and electronics hobbyists can purchase simple IoT kits online to experiment with.

Everything revolves around integration, data, and automation. It all comes down to what you do with the data. The untapped potential in a manufacturing setup is the efficiency and bottom-line gains from being able to see how each step in the production line is performing.

No matter the size of your manufacturing setup or the industry, if there is a sensor, it can be an IoT. In its most basic form, data is simply made available remotely for human analysis, or in a more advanced state, an AI does it all.