Joseph Biron, chief technology officer for IoT, PTC:
“At the turn of the decade, Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter and PTC president and chief executuve Jim Heppelmann laid out the industrial race for smart, connected products, and how the early movers stood to gain.
“Using industrial IoT and augmented reality (AR) technologies, enterprises have closed the gap between the physical and digital worlds across their products, processes, and people. Our recent state-of-the-market report expanded upon their insights by determining that enterprises benefiting from industrial IoT were the ones putting their workforce as the focal point of their digital transformation strategy.
“In 2020, this strategy will come full circle. Companies will be pressed to demonstrate the impact of their implementations. Faced with shifting customer expectations, uncertain global trade, cost pressures, and workforce shortages, they will be pressed to show how their offerings, operations, and workforce development has had impacted the ecosystem around them.
“Notably, with these business challenges, coupled with the equally clear value proposition for applying IoT and AR solutions, we predict a marked increase in the number of such implementations, increased programmatic focus on delivery of value, and consequently more aggressive implementation timelines.
“One example is Sysmex, a manufacturer of in-vitro diagnostic hematology and clinical laboratory products. “It is no longer going to be sufficient to sell instruments. You’ve got to put a wrapper around them that demonstrates their value to the patient experience,” said Andy Hay, Sysmex America’s COO, talking about a smart, connected blood analyzer designed to deliver same-day test results.
“Sysmex’s impact was realized in how it was able to continuously leverage operational data from the XW-100 through testing and revision to increase the addressable market for the device from hundreds of sites to tens of thousands of healthcare facilities and non-traditional laboratory sites.
“Industrial IoT has maintained its impact in the manufacturing sector because of its ability to improve efficiency, quality, and operational throughput. We also anticipate 2020 will see the technology’s impact and value expanded upon with the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into the fabric of solutions, rather than the ‘tools-and-techniques’ approach of the past, and the continued convergence of IT and OT.
“Additionally, while mainstream deployments are several years away, we do see 5G already impacting architectural and infrastructure planning within large enterprises, and those planning activities are already manifesting as forward-looking views on the role of the cloud, the intelligent edge, and the next-generation networks.
“We view this as the next phase of implementation with the first portion being a customer’s selection of industrial IoT. With 5G, industrial IoT will be powered by enhanced connectivity capabilities and able to process data at faster speeds, reducing downtime for organizations. With access to AI, companies will be able to assess the data and receive recommendations at similarly quickened rates, enabling OE achievement at a pace not previously realized.”
