Smart Solutions for Smart Cities

NB-IOT: A SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY FOR CONNECTING BILLIONS OF DEVICES

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Source: Ericsson Technology Review

Why Smart Cities Must Be Smart Enough to Evolve Over Time

“Smart city” has become a buzzword in recent years as cities across the globe have started to integrate smart technologies with their infrastructure and policy decisions. But what exactly is a smart city? The term is nebulous at best, and different cities vary widely not only in the specific technologies and implementations they embrace, but in their very approach to the concept and what it means for their citizens.

In the broadest of terms, a smart city uses technology to improve quality of life by increasing the efficiency of municipal services and meeting the needs of residents. For instance, sensors allow city services to react to real situations in real time by dimming streetlights on unused streets, monitoring water pipes for leaks, or changing traffic lights along the route of emergency vehicles. The benefits of innovations like these are easy to quantify in terms of saved energy, saved money, even saved lives.

Applications aimed at the vaguer goal of improving quality of life include projects like minute-to-minute reports on air pollution for citizens with asthma, or using historical data to predict crime and direct police to where they are most likely to be needed. The market for smart cities has massive expansive potential — up to $1.5 trillion worldwide by one estimate.

Smart technology allows the workings of a city itself to adapt in real time to the reality its citizens are facing immediately, and to adjust as that reality changes. That means, however, that the true test of just how smart a smart city is will be whether it is able to evolve to keep pace as its citizen’s needs evolve.

Responsive change is unavoidable and desirable when dealing with cutting edge technologies like these. Already in its short lifespan, the smart city has seen three distinct generations. When the concept was first born, smart technologies were created and pushed by tech companies themselves, and cities were jumping on board without a proper understanding of how to implement the new technologies they were buying, nor the concrete implications for citizens. Urban strategist Boyd Cohen, who has been studying smart cities since 2011, calls this era Smart Cities 1.0.

In the Smart Cities 2.0 phase, smart technology projects are driven by city administrators themselves. These government-designed projects are typically geared towards improving quality of life and allow for grand, sweeping visions for the future of their cities.

Perhaps one of the most impressive examples of this can be found in Rio de Janeiro, where the mayor joined forces with IBM to create a sensor system that mitigated landslide damage to favelas in the surrounding hills. That project has since ballooned into a large-scale operations center which IBM is confident will have an impressive 80% success rate at predicting dangerous floods and downpours 48 hours before they occur, allowing the city to be prepared and save lives with a critical early warning and evacuation plan. Furthermore, the system has the crucial capacity to become even smarter in the future by detecting crime via video streaming and integrating emergency services.

That brings us to the final phase — so far. Smart Cities 3.0 takes the infinite adaptability of such technologies to an unprecedented level. Cities that have embraced this phase of development rely on citizens to be active not only as consumers but as co-creators of projects. Vancouver, for instance, engaged more than 30,000 citizens in the development of their Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, and Vienna relied on citizens to participate as investors in local solar plants in order to meet their renewable energy goals. Barcelona solicited new smart projects directly from residents by launching contests for citizen innovators.

These phases are not teleological, and the sometimes chaotic democracy of Smart Cities 3.0 is not necessarily an end goal. The real advantage of a smart city is that the best designs will be able to respond to needs we haven’t even considered yet. We may begin to see Smart Cities branching further out from solely practical considerations into other need fulfillment, such as fun projects designed to make the city an attractive and exciting place to live and visit. Take, for instance, this UK public art installation which used infrared cameras to record the shadows of pedestrians and project them back at another time using the streetlights.

It seems likely that the future lies with an advantageous combination of 2.0 municipal planning and vision with 3.0 methods of engagement so that the city can learn from its own members on the ground, who are likely to experience unmet needs before a mayor. Administrators are still necessary to guide and support growth, but cities also need to tap into the creative capacity of citizens as participants. The changes we will require are, by their very nature, impossible to predict, and so it is crucial that smart cities are designed to reevaluate and evolve as needed. After all, the smartest cities will always be the ones with the smarts to change with the times.

 By Ronald Chagoury Jr. - Eko Atlantic.

IBM sets up IoT consulting service

IBM has announced an array of services, industry offerings and capabilities to help enterprise clients, start-ups and developers drive digital transformation with the IoT.
 
With the number of connected devices skyrocketing, IBM says it is making IoT accessible to millions around the world. The company is dedicating more than 1500 industry experts with its Watson IoT consulting service, as well as giving open and free access to its Watson IoT platform.
 
Today’s announcement follows Forrester Research naming IBM a leader in its Wave report on IoT software platforms. Forrester analysed and scored 11 IoT software platform vendors, identifying IBM as a leader, citing: “The Watson IoT Platform can serve a broad range of advanced IoT use cases.”
 
The report also noted that “IBM has added significant capabilities to the platform, including augmented reality, cognitive capabilities, blockchain, edge analytics, analytics tooling and natural language processing, to name a few. With a strong commitment to open source standards and a robust global partner ecosystem, IBM is well positioned for market leadership.”
 
To help clients across industries capture the massive business opportunity of the digitisation of the physical world, IBM is launching the global IBM Watson IoT consulting practice. The practice will feature 1500 experts across IBM Watson IoT headquarters in Munich, Germany (pictured), and in eight other IBM IoT centres across Asia, Europe and the Americas.
 
“The internet of things is making an enormous impact on our lives and helping to spur even deeper levels of innovation for those developing the connected devices and products of our future,” said Harriet Green, general manager at IBM Watson IoT. “IBM is helping knock down the barriers to getting started with IoT, making it accessible for clients as they begin their digital transformation.”
 
By integrating IBM Watson IoT platform APIs and technologies, including cognitive, analytics, mobile, security and cloud capabilities, with development and implementation consulting and ongoing support, clients can fully use the IoT without the risk and complexity of dealing with multiple vendors.
 
"Clients can now easily introduce IoT innovation into their business by leveraging IBM’s industry and technical expertise to deliver lower risk, as-a-service commercial models,” said Jesus Mantas, general manager for business consulting at IBM. “We are very proud our integrated IoT solutions deliver innovation in an easy to consume model for business leaders. We are helping clients accelerate the digitisation of their business processes by making it easy to deploy IoT services globally into their business.”
 
The consulting practice will employ a global network of skilled consultants, data scientists and design and security experts with deep domain and industry expertise, all dedicated to providing clients with guidance on tackling industry specific IoT adoption challenges. The first priority industries include automotive, electronics, industrial products, insurance, retail, telecommunications, transportation and buildings.
 
Clients can apply Watson cognitive computing capabilities, including machine learning and natural language to tap into massive amounts of unstructured data – such as videos and sounds – to gain insights and augment decision making.
 
Technology company Ricoh is one of the first global organisations to work with the new IBM IoT consultants to redesign its engagement model and help its clients embrace intelligent workplace services designed to improve office collaboration and innovation.
 
“Ricoh is helping customers meet the needs of constantly changing workstyles in the new world of work, where information is at the heart of every successful business decision,” said Mona Abutaleb, CEO of Mindshift Technologies, a Ricoh company. “We are teaming with IBM and combining our knowledge and expertise to deliver Ricoh's Workstyle Innovation Technology, which helps our clients collaborate and share information more easily and efficiently."
 
In addition to the consulting practice, IBM is also announcing industry offerings available via its Watson IoT platform, including IoT for manufacturing and asset health insight, designed to help clients address industry-specific IoT adoption challenges and opportunities. Manufacturing is one of the largest opportunities in IoT, with McKinsey estimating IoT applications in factory settings to have the potential to create value of $1.2 to $3.7tn per year in 2025.
 
Now, using IBM Watson IoT for manufacturing, businesses will be able to manage factory equipment and assets, improve manufacturing processes and manage production resources more effectively. For example, the capabilities include intelligent assets and equipment to sense, communicate and self-diagnose issues to improve machinery performance and reduce downtime.
 
Using asset health insights with IBM prescriptive maintenance, organisations can maintain assets based on current asset condition using analytics and data around weather, asset performance and maintenance. Additional industry offerings on the IBM Watson IoT platform cover automotive, electronics and insurance.
 
IBM is also bringing together its application lifecycle management offering with Aras’ product lifecycle management platform to help engineers integrate the complex hardware and software development processes necessary to make the smart, connected products of the future.
 
IBM is already working with more than 50,000 developers around the globe to help them to get up and running on the Watson IoT platform. Just seven months ago, IBM teamed up with Coursera, the education platform that partners with global universities and organisations to offer online courses, to create and launch a developer's guide to the IoT, a course that already has more than 22,000 registrants.
 
The Watson security-rich, scalable and open platform lets developers connect, build, launch and manage IoT applications and services. To help make creating and developing IoT applications more accessible than ever before, IBM will offer free access to the platform.
 
For businesses who are just starting out on IoT and developers testing out and exploring new IoT innovations, IBM offers open and free access to the platform’s development capabilities. As projects grow, developers can then take their prototypes and scale to full production to meet business needs.
 
To help the new wave of technical innovators learn how to develop IoT applications, IBM continues to offer learning classes, via its collaboration with Coursera, and via easily consumable IoT learning tutorials on IBM’s open Watson IoT academy. These tutorials, led by IBM subject matter experts, include an introduction to programming a Raspberry Pi, how to use natural language processing, and how to use Node-Red, the open source visual programming tool set that is becoming a standard for building connected IoT programmes.

Source: M2M Zone Newsdesk

Global internet access growing, but usage only at 47% - ITU

Almost all the world can now access the internet, but more work needs to be done to ensure everyone realises the potential of internet use, according to a report from the ITU. The UN agency's annual 'Measuring the Information Society' report found that mobile broadband networks (3G and 4G) now cover 84 percent of the world's population, yet only 47.1 percent of people use the internet. In developing economies where recent household data is available, close to 20 percent of the population, on average, are still not using mobile phones. Most often these are people below the age of 15 or over 74 years old. Among the 15-74 age group, 85 percent or more of the population owns or uses a mobile phone in the countries where data are available.
In addition to education, the level of income is an important criteria in determining whether someone uses the internet or a mobile phone. The ITU report found that for the first time, average mobile prices fell to less than 5 percent of gross national income per capita in 2015. This is based on the price of a basic mobile basket of 100 SMS and 30 calls per month. The price drop is linked to the increasing availability of prepaid packages that bundle SMS and local calls, the ITU said. Prices are lowest in Asia, led by Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Nevertheless, it is the cost of the handset more than the services that is the main barrier to owning a mobile phone. Another important barrier is the lack of perceived benefits. In communities where overall mobile uptake is low, mobile phone use is perceived to have fewer benefits since fewer community members are using this mode of communication. Other barriers include lack of ICT skills necessary for accessing the internet through a mobile phone.  Fixed broadband is still much too expensive for many people in developing countries, at around USD 25 per month in 2015 or 14 percent of average GNI per capita. In the least developed countries, a fixed-broadband plan with a minimum of 1GB of data per month still corresponds to over 60 percent of GNI per capita. In comparsion mobile broadband cost an average USD 18 per month, after adjusting for purchasing power. While mobile-broadband services are offered only in 38 percent of the LDCs, in places where it is available the average cost of handset-based services has more than halved in the period 2012-2015 and now accounts for just 11 percent of GNI per capita.

Source:Telecom paper

All-in-one connected car solution.

Today, T-Mobile unveiled T-Mobile SyncUP DRIVE™, the Un-carrier’s exclusive, all-in-one connected car solution that easily transforms your car into a rolling Wi-Fi hotspot and gives you extensive added vehicle diagnostics, safety and security features. And, even better, starting November 18, you can get T-Mobile SyncUp DRIVE – normally a $149.99 value – for FREE after 24-month no-cost finance agreement with a 2GB or higher mobile Internet plan.
 
“With T-Mobile SyncUP DRIVE, you have a new way to ride on America’s fastest nationwide 4G LTE network,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile. “We’re making it radically simple for customers to connect their cars with a complete, all-in-one package – and the best part is that we’re making it totally free at launch.”
 
Getting going with T-Mobile SyncUP DRIVE couldn’t be easier. It plugs in to your car’s OBD-II (on-board diagnostics) port – standard on most cars built after 1996, is always on, doesn’t require charging and can be managed right from your smartphone.
 
Not only can T-Mobile SyncUP DRIVE cost at least 20% less than the carriers’ solutions over two years, it also does a lot more. T-Mobile SyncUP DRIVE is the only complete 4G LTE connected car solution by a wireless provider. For example, HUM by Verizon runs on ancient 2G technology that Verizon will phase out, and HUM doesn’t even include in-vehicle Wi-Fi connectivity. In fact, you’d need multiple carrier solutions – and multiple carrier rate plans – to duplicate what T-Mobile SyncUP DRIVE does out of the box on T-Mobile’s 4G LTE network. 
 
T-Mobile SyncUP DRIVE enables you to:

• Stay connected: Deliver an in-vehicle Wi-Fi hot spot on the nation’s fastest 4G LTE network, perfect for sharing data with five Wi-Fi capable devices to entertain your family during those road trips.
• Drive smarter: Analyze driving behavior to help you drive more safely, while minimizing wear-and-tear, by keeping track of dangerous driving behavior like speeding, harsh braking and rapid accelerations; or, to help you save money on fuel. And, companies can make tracking and expensing business miles a breeze.
• Keep an eye on your family: Know the location and status of multiple cars without contacting the drivers, set speeding alerts to encourage safe driving behavior and set alerts to be notified when your car enters or leaves a certain area.
• Locate your car: Keep tabs on your vehicle, from finding your parked car on a map, locating and tracking your car’s real-time driving location or delivering a notification if the device or your car has been tampered with, bumped or had the device removed.
• Take care of your car: Have a virtual mechanic to help you take better care of your car and help reduce repair costs by providing helpful maintenance reminders and instant notifications about car trouble.

 
T-Mobile works with best-in-class partners to develop and deliver IoT (Internet of Things) solutions, and T-Mobile SyncUP DRIVE is no different. SyncUp DRIVE was developed by T-Mobile together with two key partners – ZTE, a global provider of mobile devices and telecommunication systems, and Mojio, the leading open platform for the growing ecosystem of connected car apps and services.

Source: T- Mobile

Top 25 IoT Companies by Sales

Creating a list of the top IoT companies can be challenging. Apple has a reputation for being a leading IoT company among consumers, despite having tepid traction for its HomeKit and HealthKit platforms. Meanwhile, Google is working on an array of IoT projects while Microsoft has focused on Windows IoT Core and Azure. It is also difficult, however, to find concrete information that shows how much IoT-related sales each of the companies on this list has. A company's overall buying power, however, is one deciding factor because developing IoT technologies and platforms demands a substantial investment. 

Rank by Market Cap	Company Name (Exchange: Ticker)	Description of IoT Business
1	Apple (AAPL)	HomeKit smart home and HealthKit health tracking platforms
2	Google (GOOG)	Self-driving cars, home automation, IoT beacons, work on IoT standards, IoT cloud
3	Microsoft (MSFT)	Windows 10 IoT Core operating system, Azure IoT
4	Amazon (AMZN)	AWS IoT cloud, Amazon Echo home automation device, Amazon dash buttons
5	GE (GE)	Predix IoT, an industrial cloud-based platform; connected industrial machines
6	AT&T (T)	IoT starter kit, connected car business models
7	Verizon (VZ)	ThingSpace cloud platform, LTE modems for IoT developers.
8	Samsung	ARTIK platform, smart home, and digital health devices
9	Intel (INTC)	IoT hardware for various applications
10	Oracle (ORCL)	IoT cloud service platform
11	Cisco (CSCO) *	Cloud-based IoT software platform, connectivity hardware, IoT-related services and consulting.
12	IBM (IBM)	IBM Watson IoT, cloud services
13	SAP (SAP)	SAP HANA Cloud Platform for the IoT
14	Qualcomm (QCOM)	IoT development platform, chips, security services. Acquisition of connected assets from NXP.
15	Siemens (SIE)	IoT industrial platforms, IoT security services, connected industrial machines.
16	Honeywell/Tridium (HON)	IoT technology for industrial applications, smart buildings, and wearables.
17	Texas Instruments (TXN)	IoT hardware and sensor platforms.
18	Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM)	IoT cloud
19	Johnson Controls (JCI)	Smart building technology. Company merged with Tyco, which has its own IoT platform.
20	Schneider Electric (EPA: SU)	Connected field devices.
21	Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)	Edge computing technology, acquisition of Aruba Networks
22	Tesla (TSLA)	Self-driving vehicle technology
23	Ericsson (ERIC)	IoT accelerator
24	Autodesk (ADSK)	Enterprise IoT software platform
25	Rockwell Automation (ROK)	Industrial IoT applications

Source:Internet of Things Institude

The future of IoT

Mobility Is Driving the Internet of Things Smart School

Smart Schools are a great way to engage students at their own level of comfort.”

“My desire for our school is to implement a smart school within the next 5 years. :)”

The comments above reflect the sentiments of the over 600 K-12 and higher education IT managers participating in our survey about smart school technology, a concept similar thesmart city and smart hospital. In fact, 46% of those surveyed believe smart schools will have a major impact over the next one to two years. The benefits cited include: increasing student engagement, taking advantage of mobile learning, enabling more personalized education, improving efficiency, and reducing costs.

What Exactly Is An Internet Of Things Smart School?

The word smart implies an intelligence and awareness, as well as an ability to learn and transform. Smart schools have an infrastructure that enables them to grow, adapt and progress as important environments for learning. Today’s smart school utilizes Internet of Things devices that communicate their status via Wi-Fi. While this can include interactivesmart boards, the scope of smart schools reaches far beyond these boards to include iBeacons, wearables, sensors throughout the school, eBooks and tablets, collaborative classrooms, smart lighting and HVAC, and video/motion trackers. Our survey found growing use of robots, augmented reality, facial recognition, parking sensors, attendance tracking, and 3-D printers. These devices provide extensive data for both real-time and subsequent analysis.

Implementation Concerns and Drawbacks

As with all advancements, implementing the devices that enable the smart school brings along a set of concerns to be addressed. Security was cited by just over 50% of the respondents as a potential issue. Others worry about privacy, interoperability, and added expenses. Manageability will be a concern until someone comes up with a single, consistent dashboard to control all the currently-disparate devices and systems throughout the schools.

Reliable Wi-Fi leads the list of most important success factors in implementing smart school technology. Not surprisingly teacher development, well-designed learning environments, and insuring that the students have appropriate devices are also on the list of important requirements for success.

The Importance of Planning

How new smart school technology is introduced into the school is vitally important. To be successful, this requires an education vision; understanding how the technology improves education. Effective technology roll-outs require user training; adequate infrastructure, especially sufficient Wi-Fi coverage and bandwidth; and coordinated timing. As one IT manager commented, “Getting the teachers and staff on board can sometimes be more challenging than getting the new technology implemented.”

Examples of Smart School Devices In Use By Schools Surveyed:

Cameras and video

Student ID cards

School bus tracking

Smart HVAC system

Supply inventory tracking

Tablets and eBooks

Multi-touch tables

3-D printers

Interactive whiteboards

Electric lighting/ maintenance

Smart podiums

Athletic bands or wearables

Motion sensing and tracking devices

Temperature sensors

Attendance tracking

Airplay and Smart TV Devices

Wireless door locks

Adaptive learning systems

Virtual and augmented reality

Robots

Parking sensors

Facial recognition systems

iBeacons

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Source: Extreme Networks

What you need to know about IoT wide area networks.How to choose the right WAN technology for the Internet of Things

Choosing the best wireless technology for your Internet of Things (IoT) takes careful consideration. In this whitepaper, we examine IoT wide area networks (WANs) including cellular, Low-Power Wide-Area (LPWA), and satellite services to help you choose the right network technology for your specific needs. IoT wireless networks are evolving to help meet the needs of a wide variety of connected devices—from wearables, cars, and homes to streetlights, parking meters, and industrial automation devices—so they can work seamlessly together. With such a broad diversity of potential applications, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to bring a one-size-fits-all approach to every situation.

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Source:AT&T

Inmarsat to provide satellite connectivity to Vodafone’s Internet of Things platform

Inmarsat plc, the leading provider of global mobile satellite communications, and Vodafone have announced a roaming agreement with the ambition to enable international satellite and cellular roaming connectivity for the Internet of Things (IoT).

Delivering greater reliability and reach, the innovative collaboration, will offer competitive and flexible services, able to adapt to a broad range of industrial demands for IoT applications, for fixed or mobile requirements.

Thanks to its ubiquitous coverage and high network availability, even in extreme environmental conditions, satellite-powered IoT allows organisations to extend their services beyond terrestrial networks, where they have remote connectivity requirements, for example in the agri-tech, utilities, oil and gas and transportation sectors.

“Deploying satellite connectivity to complement terrestrial networks for IoT applications changes the Internet of Things into the Internet of Everywhere. The growth in mission critical IoT applications, is driving demand for connectivity with unprecedented reach, range and reliability on a global basis”, said Rupert Pearce, CEO, Inmarsat.  “This agreement marks a first for Inmarsat; enabling a mobile operator to utilise broadband roaming services on our global network.”

Vodafone Director of IoT, Ivo Rook said, “Success in IoT demands a mix of different technologies for different applications. By adding satellite connectivity from Inmarsat to the Vodafone portfolio we continue to deliver on our strategy to lead in managed IoT services. The IoT is transforming businesses in every sector and I am delighted we are able to support more of our customers in taking advantage of all that this technology has to offer.”

The agreement will use the Inmarsat I-4 satellite network providing global L-band coverage and is weather agnostic.

Source: Inmarsat

An integrated perspective on the future of mobility

Mobility is the lifeblood of our cities: every day, metropolitan transport systems bring people to work and to play; vehicles deliver food and essential goods, and carry away waste.

Mobility is what keeps our urban centres functioning. At the same time, mobility is a critical factor in every country’s economy both as an important sector in its own right and as a significant growth engine (or blocker) for many other industries, including the automotive, civil engineering, energy, technology, and telecom sectors.

Today, new business models introduced by companies such as Uber and Lyft are changing the way we view mobility systems, while technological innovation in the form of electrification, connectivity, and autonomy is set to bring additional opportunities to business and urban areas.

There could also be advantages for wider society: advanced transport could resolve environmental issues and improve citizens’ health. Too often, though, our mobility systems cease to function efficiently: streets become clogged – blighted by congestion and pollution – and less safe as increasing numbers of vehicles stress the available infrastructure.

These issues will come more sharply into focus as cities and suburbs expand.

By 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population will live in metropolitan areas.

The number of megacities with more than ten million people will continue to grow and with them traffic density, energy consumption, pollution, and congestion.

This combination of metropolitan expansion and rapid innovation will inevitably drive significant change – but what will the future of mobility systems look like?

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Source: BloombergMcKinsey

Driving to the future.The development of connected cars

The term “connected car” conjures up images of futuristic self-driving vehicles, buzzing around towns and cities without the need for human control. Yet the concept of connectedness in cars is far from new. Basic incar connectedness has been a part of auto technology for more than five years, introduced via in-car entertainment and mapping systems in around 2010. Since then, however, cars have started to absorb ever-greater levels of technology.

The modern car is not only a feat of engineering, it is also a mobile supercomputer. Hidden beneath the steel or aluminium body is the computing power of 20 personal computers, dealing with around 100m lines of code and holding more processing power than any of NASA’s early spacecraft, including the original Apollo lunar module.
A truly connected car, in the modern sense, still gives drivers the ability to connect to music applications and use global positioning system (GPS) equipment. In addition, however, it is also slowly beginning to reflect the internal ecosystem of the car, using connectivity to provide users with feedback on the car’s performance, monitoring of the car’s components and mechanisms to ensure the comfort and convenience of a passenger’s journey. In future, these same systems could be used for future applications, including self-driving, car-sharing or communicating with the internet of things (for example, in connected homes).

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Source: The economist

Industry 4.0 is more than just a flashy catchphrase.

Industry 4.0 is more than just a flashy catchphrase. A confluence of trends and technologies promises to reshape the way things are made.

Mention “Industry 4.0” to most manufacturing executives and you will raise eyebrows. If they’ve heard of it, they are likely confused about what it is. If they haven’t heard of it, they’re likely to be skeptical of what they see as yet another piece of marketing hype, an empty catchphrase. And yet a closer look at what’s behind Industry 4.0 reveals some powerful emerging currents with strong potential to change the way factories work. It may be too much to say that it is another industrial revolution. But call it whatever you like; the fact is, Industry 4.0 is gathering force, and executives should carefully monitor the coming changes and develop strategies to take advantage of the new opportunities.

Coming to terms

• Big data. An African gold mine found ways to capture more data from its sensors. New data showed some unsuspected fluctuations in oxygen levels during leaching, a key process. Fixing this increased yield by 3.7 percent, worth up to $20 million annually.

• Advanced analytics. Stronger analysis can dramatically improve product development. One automaker uses data from its online configurator together with purchasing data to identify options that customers are willing to pay a premium for. With this knowledge, it reduced the options on one model to just 13,000—three orders of magnitude fewer than its competitor, which offered 27,000,000. Development time and production costs fell dramatically; most companies can improve gross margin by 30 percent within 24 months.

• Human-machine interfaces. Logistics company Knapp AG developed a picking technology using augmented reality. Pickers wear a headset that presents vital information on a see-through display, helping them locate items more quickly and precisely. And with both hands free, they can build stronger and more efficient pallets, with fragile items safeguarded. An integrated camera captures serial and lot ID numbers for real-time stock tracking. Error rates are down by 40 percent, among many other benefits.

• Digital-to-physical transfer. Local Motors builds cars almost entirely through 3-D printing, with a design crowdsourced from an online community. It can build a new model from scratch in a year, far less than the industry average of six. Vauxhall and GM, among others, still bend a lot of metal, but also use 3-D printing and rapid prototyping to minimize their time to market.

Lightning in a bottle

Start with some definitions. We define Industry 4.0 as the next phase in the digitization of the manufacturing sector, driven by four disruptions: the astonishing rise in data volumes, computational power, and connectivity, especially new low-power wide-area networks; the emergence of analytics and business-intelligence capabilities; new forms of human-machine interaction such as touch interfaces and augmented-reality systems; and improvements in transferring digital instructions to the physical world, such as advanced robotics and 3-D printing. (The four trends are not the reason for the “4.0,” however. Rather, this is the fourth major upheaval in modern manufacturing, following the lean revolution of the 1970s, the outsourcing phenomenon of the 1990s, and the automation that took off in the 2000s.)

Most of these digital technologies have been brewing for some time. Some are not yet ready for application at scale. But many are now at a point where their greater reliability and lower cost are starting to make sense for industrial applications. However, companies are not consistently aware of the emerging technologies. We surveyed 300 manufacturing leaders in January 2015; only 48 percent of manufacturers consider themselves ready for Industry 4.0. Seventy-eight percent of suppliers say they are prepared.

Consider an example of each disruptive trend:

These changes and many others like them are sure to be far reaching, affecting every corner of the factory and the supply chain. The pace of change, however, will likely be slower than what we’ve seen in the consumer sector, where equipment is changed frequently. The coming of steam power and the rise of robotics resulted in the outright replacement of 80 to 90 percent of industrial equipment. In coming years, we don’t expect anything like that kind of capital investment. Still, the executives surveyed estimate that 40 to 50 percent of today’s machines will need upgrading or replacement.

To capture the potential, manufacturers can consider three moves. Primarily, companies can gather more information and make better use of it. An oil-exploration company collected more than 30,000 pieces of data from each of its drilling rigs—yet 99 percent of that data was lost due to problems of data transmission, storage, and architecture. The tiny trickle of data it did capture was incredibly useful for managers. But so much more can be done. The executives we surveyed said that correcting these data inefficiencies should improve productivity by about 25 percent.

With production data now available for the asking, executives rightly wonder about how to begin. Which data would be most beneficial? Which data leakages are causing the most pain? Which technologies would deliver the biggest return on investment for a company, given its unique circumstances? To sort through the choices, manufacturing leaders can use a “digital compass” (exhibit). The compass consists of eight basic value drivers and 26 practical Industry 4.0 levers. Cross-functional discussions that will help companies find the levers that are best suited to solve their particular problems.

One kind of lost value that is sure to interest manufacturers is process effectiveness. Industry 4.0 offers new tools for smarter energy consumption, greater information storage in products and pallets (so-called intelligent lots), and real-time yield optimization. Swiss giant ABB used the latter in an Australian cement kiln. A computer-based system mimics the actions of an “ideal” operator, using real-time metrics to adjust kiln feed, fuel flow, and fan-damper position. The company found that the new tools boosted throughput by up to 5 percent.

The bigger picture

Strategists should also take Industry 4.0 into account as they contemplate the company’s future directions—the second way to capture the potential. The traditional manufacturing business model is changing, and new models are emerging; incumbents must be quick to recognize and react to these new competitive challenges. More specifically, executives must consider the following options—and watch for others that may be deploying them. Eighty-four percent of the manufacturing suppliers we surveyed expect new competitors to enter the market soon.

• “Platforms,” in which products, services, and information can be exchanged via predefined streams. Think open-source software applied to the manufacturing context. For example, a company might provide technology to connect multiple parties and coordinate their interactions. SLM Solutions, a 3-D-printer manufacturer, and Atos, an IT services company, are currently running a pilot project to develop such a marketplace. Customers can submit their orders to a virtual broker platform run by Atos. Orders are then allocated to SLM’s decentralized network of production sites, and subsequently produced and shipped to the customer. Some companies are also trying to build an “ecosystem” of their own, as Nvidia has in its graphics-processor business. It provides software developers with resources, and offers start-ups help to build companies around Nvidia technologies.
• Pay-by-use and subscription-based services, turning machinery from capex to opex for manufacturers. Rolls-Royce pioneered this approach in its jet-engine business; other manufacturers have followed suit.
• Businesses that license intellectual property. Today, many manufacturing companies have deep expertise in their products and processes, but lack the expertise to generate value from their data. SAP offers consulting services that build on its software. Qualcomm makes more than half of its profits from intellectual-property royalties. Manufacturers might offer consulting services or other businesses that monetize the value of their expertise.
• Businesses that monetize data. The SCiO, a Kickstarter project, is a low-cost, pocket-sized spectrometer that uses near-infrared technology to assess the composition of materials. It is expected to cost $250, whereas traditional machines cost upward of $10,000. Every time a SCiO is used, it contributes to a large database of scanned materials, helping to make the machine more accurate. To be sure, it is a consumer product, and not yet ready for industrial use. But industrial models are on the way. Kaggle, a distributed network of about 270,000 data scientists, has already helped more than 20 Fortune 500 companies solve their toughest data problems.

To get the most out of Industry 4.0 technologies, and to get past square one with a digital business model, companies will have to take a third step: prepare for a digital transformation. Manufacturers should begin today to join the hunt for the best digital talent, and think about how to structure their digital organization. Data management and cybersecurity will be critical problems to solve. Many companies will find that a “two speed” data architecture can help them deploy new technologies at the speed required, while also preserving mission-critical applications.

Source: mckinsey

The IoT Pendulum Swings from LPWAN to Cellular with NB-IoT

Will cellular connectivity become the dedicated wireless technology for the huge Internet of Things (IoT) market that’s being predicted by nearly everyone in the technology industry today? The naysayers argue that non-cellular, low-power wide-area (LPWA) network technology, promoted by providers such as SigFox and the LoRa Alliance, will win this tug of war since LPWA has been building market share (at the expense of the cellular industry) while 3GPP and the cellular operators have haggled over how to adapt their LTE standard for IoT uses.

Granted, it has taken the cellular standards org, 3GPP, a lot of valuable time to finalize its cellular standards for IoT. But despite a slow start, 3GPP recently finalized in June 2016 its LTE-based IoT standards (Release 13), with the NB-IoT standard – the new IoT narrowband radio technology – gaining wide support among the mobile operators. (Even before the standard was finalized, AT&T, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, and Telefonica all had been conducting NB-IoT test trials.)

So the future for cellular-based IoT, buttressed by the new NB-IoT technology, seems to be smelling as sweet as a rose given its support by mobile network operators. But they aren’t the only ones touting the promise of cellular IoT. ABI Research predicts that by 2021 NB-IoT radio node shipments will account for more than 33% of all cellular IoT shipments – an amount that's greater than legacy M2M or current Cat-1 shipments. Now, how sweet is that!

But the debate persists even though the IoT pendulum appears to be swinging from LPWA technology to cellular connectivity thanks to NB-IoT. On the one hand, some people believe non-cellular LPWA technology will overwhelm cellular as the standard for IoT wireless connectivity, and on the other hand we have a few saying cellular will be the winner at the end of the day. More than likely, these competing technologies will split market share. NB-IoT won't be perfect for everyone, but it does provide a competitive alternative to LPWA. Let's explore this some more and start by answering the question: What’s the big deal about NB-IoT?

What's the Big Deal about NB-IoT?
The NB-IoT standard is the specification for cellular-based, low-power, wide area (LPWA) networking technology produced by 3GPP for IoT uses. It is one of several licensed-spectrum technologies (e.g., Cat-M1, LTE-MTC) designed to provide low throughput, deep coverage, and low power consumption for very long battery life (10-20 years) that was not possible with the traditional cellular standards (i.e., 2G, 3G, 4G). As a result, NB-IoT technology makes cellular connectivity a viable alternative to non-cellular LPWA technologies.

The NB-IoT standard has been optimized for low throughput and supports a very large number of devices transferring small, intermittent blocks of data, which is common to a lot of IoT applications. It can also provide indoor coverage for nodes (e.g., utility meters) located deep in basements.

NB-IoT supports uplink and downlink rates of around 200kbps. And since it requires only 200 kHz of bandwidth, it can run along with existing cellular networks. What this means is NB-IoT devices can benefit from carrier grade reliability, privacy and security, including support for user identity confidentiality, entity authentication, confidentiality, data integrity, and mobile equipment identification.

Another advantage of NB-IoT technology is that by operating in the licensed spectrum, it isn't as affected by interference, as opposed to LPWA devices in the unlicensed spectrum. An even bigger advantage over non-cellular LPWA is that NB-IoT can be configured on an LTE network with only a software upgrade. Plus, the capacity of NB-IoT is huge. 3GPP puts the number of devices that can connect to a single cell at 50,000; some vendors puts it up to 100,000. Best of all, since NB-IoT devices are low complexity, they will be competitively priced, especially as demand increases.

Table 1: NB-IoT Specifications

3GPP Release	13
Downlink Peak Rate	250 kbps
Uplink Peak Rate	250 kbps (multi-tone) 20 kbps (single-tone)
Duplex Mode	Half Duplex
No. of Antennas	1
Device Receive Bandwidth	180 kHz
Receiver Chains	1 (Single In / Single Out)
Device Transmit Power	23 dBm
Coverage	164 dB

Source:Farnell