Understanding the ‘things’ in the Internet of Things

Last month I had the incredible pleasure of escaping the winter doldrums of the Northeast and heading to sunny Coconut Grove, Florida for the International Maintenance Conference (IMC).  This annual conference is a must-see event for asset managers, plant managers, and reliability engineers who keep the industrial infrastructure of the world going. One key theme of the event this year was the Internet of Things (IoT). When we talk about the Internet of Things, we can’t forget that ‘things’ are ‘assets’.  This become a common thread at the event, as I’ll explain in more depth later in this post.

IBM Watson IoT had an impressive presence at the show, including sessions, keynotes, and workshops. I spent my time in our solution center where we showcased existing and new technologies for attendees, including Maximo and our Maximo Asset Health Insights  analytics tool, our Predictive Maintenance and Optimization solution, plus our new IoT for Manufacturing plant performance solutions that allow plant managers to monitor the performance of whole facilities.

We also had an area focused on our IoT platform. This platform simplifies the integration, connectivity, security and cloud storage (generally your whole IoT strategy)  beyond the core capabilities. Almost every attendee that came into our room to talk about their experience with Maximo had two questions:

1) How does the IoT play into my asset management strategy?

2) How does the IoT enable me to get more value from my assets?

And the simple answer I give them is that ‘things are assets.’ Whether it be production machinery, environmental controls, gateway devices, quality control apparatus or IT infrastructure that supports asset intensive industries, all the things that we use to produce products and run facilities, are assets.

Clients are focused on how their assets are being connected, instrumented, and measured. Oftentimes, their IoT strategy is still being formulated. I helped them to understand why a “platform” makes a lot of sense in their heterogeneous environments. This led to conversations on security, data management, and the eventual extension of those assets through artificial intelligence.