How IIoT Ensures Business Continuity During Disasters
The Industrial Internet of Things simplifies business continuity plans – and keeps your operations running smoothly. If there’s one takeaway from 2020, it’s this: disasters can – and probably will – occur at any time. And now, our definition of “disaster” includes everything from hurricanes and wildfires to viruses and cyberattacks. Leaders have known for many years that business continuity and disaster recovery plans are essential. But too many companies and facilities still operate without them. 2020 is the year to plan and reflect. People are examining everything in their lives this year. You’re probably reevaluating habits, budgets, and priorities to save money and change routines. You should extend the reflection to your business. It’s time to revisit your disaster recovery and business continuity plans. If you don’t have a documented strategy, it’s time to write one. You might also want to review your technology selections and infrastructure. Here’s why: Outdated technology is risky and wasteful. It’s that simple. You’re missing out if your network is mostly legacy tools. It’s too easy for today’s cybercriminals to hack old technologies – even IoT hardware and sensors from the last five years can be vulnerable. But here’s a little known fact: modernizing your operations with new IIoT technologies is easier and cheaper than you think—more on that in a future blog. IIoT can help your business stay operational under every circumstance. Here’s how. IIoT simplifies disaster recovery planning. IIoT helps organizations and facilities recover lost data (or never lose data in the first place) and get back up and running with minimal downtime and disruption. The technology is often seen through a disaster prevention lense because smart sensors detect issues before they become larger problems. Still, IIoT devices and sensors should be a part of disaster recovery planning, too. As the saying goes, you should “expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.” Connected devices record astonishing amounts of data during normal business operations. We can use the data after (or during) a disaster to return operations to their last recorded state. It’s like keeping an operations backup. IIoT can help predict natural disasters too. Smart sensors can track weather patterns and send early alerts to help businesses prepare for the storm. You can account for every scenario with IIoT included in your disaster prevention and your recovery plans. IIoT helps Utilities do more, with less. Utilities are always essential, but they’re even more critical during a disaster. IIoT helps utilities operate without disruption, which explains why most have increased technology adoption. Utility leaders express a heightened sense of urgency and awareness around increasing natural disasters. They’re investing in technologies to combat them. Smart metering and monitoring systems are at the top of Utilities’ IIoT priority lists, along with investments in smart technology for outage detection and restoration, remote connect and disconnect, and line and fault sensors. Meters can become IIoT sensors giving utilities high-resolution data from their network’s edge to monitor energy usage and save lives when disaster strikes. Smart meters also provide additional insight and data sources for delivering real-time disruption intelligence and guaranteeing outage and restoration notifications. Combining these capabilities with other IIoT-specific technologies gives Utilities new tools to improve outage response and quickly get customers back online. Also, line and fault sensors help Utilities predict danger, quickly respond and recover, and in some instances, predict and prevent hazardous conditions. IIoT keeps operations running even when people can’t be on-site. Many disasters can keep people from being on-site to monitor operations – the pandemic is an excellent example. IIoT keeps people safe from natural disasters or viruses because the technologies allow you and your teams to monitor on-site data and operations remotely. For example, in manufacturing, IIoT allows teams to do their jobs remotely when technicians can’t be on-site because of health concerns, natural disasters, or out of convenience. Thanks to remote monitoring solutions, they can keep operations running smoothly. IIoT sensors and devices notify technicians when machines need repairs or when they’re offline or damaged, so they can take immediate action remotely and maintain productivity. Instead of sending people to on-site locations for inspections, IIoT-connected sensors can deliver real-time data on overall conditions and detect scenarios that indicate malfunction. You can keep employees safe and not lose a second of productivity. And again, upgrading isn’t as tricky or expensive as you think. Are you interested in hearing more? Please get in touch for more in-depth information, including price info and an assessment of your current technology state. Get smart today with FreeWave.
IoT, Edge Computing & Managing Through COVID-19
FreeWave CEO Featured on MIT’s Connected Things Video Series Kirk Byles sat down (virtually) with Mark Thirman, Chair of MITs Connected Things Conference for a candid conversation. FreeWave CEO Kirk Byles was recently featured on MIT’s Connected Things virtual interview series. He discussed the past, present, and future of IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) and edge computing and why stability is critical in an unstable world. Mark (00:04): Hi, everyone. Welcome to our latest recording. This is in support of the MIT Connected Things event we were to hold it in March of this year, of 2020. It had been postponed as you know, and ultimately canceled. Part of our goal with this series of videos is to really keep the conversation going. And what I’ve been doing a little bit is reaching back to some of our very popular prior speakers from prior events. So one of those speakers is here with me today and I’ll have him introduce himself in a second. Mark (00:39): But if you’d look at the MIT Connected Things page you’ll note that in 2019, we had a very interesting point-counterpoint panel called Clash of the Titans. And the premise for this particular panel, and Kirk was on one side and Chris [inaudible 00:00:57] Wolff then of Dell was on the other. It was this tension between traditional IoT vendors and the IT or the PC, traditional PC vendors entering the IoT market. And we were interested in exploring how the approaches are similar or different. And Kirk was on the traditional vendor side. So with that, Kirk, why don’t you introduce yourself and tell me what company you work for and a little bit of the company history, please? Kirk Byles (01:28): Sure. So Kirk Byles, I’m the CEO of FreeWave Technologies. We’re a medium-sized industrial communications edge compute company out of Boulder, Colorado. We’ve been around for 27 years and we really got our momentum in the discreet radio market, particularly in the narrow band radio space. So proprietary technology, not standard space in any way people would think of wi-fi or even cellular to some degree. So we were out selling these discreet radios in various frequencies to oil and gas companies, government, utilities, water/wastewater, ag, anywhere you could imagine remote sites that needed some sort of connectivity, typically connecting to a SCADA system of some sort and doing polling data. Kirk Byles (02:30): So you could imagine if you’ve got a hundred well sites in a square mile, it would say, “Well site number one, give me all your data.” We would traffic that data. And that’s where we really grew up for 24 years of our history. That’s all we did, was build discrete radios at different frequencies and sell them to literally tens of thousands of customers, customers around the globe. Kirk Byles (03:00): And back in 2016, we made a decision to get into the edge computing space. And that decision really came out of a lot of discussions on the competitive landscape for discrete radios. How cellular was getting into these remote areas and people wanted Bluetooth and wi-fi and [LoRa 00:03:31] came out and then there’s satellites. And we could see the market was starting to shrink as more and more competition came into these really remote areas. So getting into the edge side of things made perfect sense. So we went about making our new platform, the Zum platform with an edge computer on board every radio. Mark (03:54): Not the Zoom that we’re on though. Kirk Byles (03:56): No. Z-U, the proper Zum, Z-U-M. So, we went out to do that and it was in concept a great idea. And we had a couple of stumbles along the way as most people do when they’re pivoting their company. But what we did find out is we brought a lot of understanding to the industrial space. And that was when Chris Wolff and I were talking, Dell knew the enterprise very well and what the edge needed for the enterprise. But the edge piece didn’t really seem to move quite as well. Or as quickly as the industrial piece. Folks there were looking to optimize their remote sites. People cost a ton of money to go look at these things. If something goes wrong, they got to run service people out there and so forth and so on. So the more they could do with edge computing, the more efficient they could be. And so we took that tactic. What could we provide for our customers on the edge? Mark (05:06): So, Kirk, I’ll interject, at the time of the conference I noted as did the moderator, our friend, Frank Gillett, that on the Dell side, you might have a pretty heavy footprint and expensive $1,300-$1,400 big honkin router. And I’m not saying anything disparaging about Dell or their approach. But it was interesting to see that their approach was roll in this big, industrialized, again, relatively expensive router when folks on the IoT side, and I don’t know what the comparable cost was of the ZumLink at that point, but was in the several hundred dollar range, typically, at least that’s what I observed. Is that still true? Kirk Byles (05:50): Absolutely. So we still sell the edge computer for just a few hundred bucks. And I think where you were going with this is on the industrial side, what people that haven’t really played in that arena before don’t quite understand is the power limitations that are out there at the edge and the need to be very low power. It’s hot and cold, beyond, you’re not sitting in an air conditioned box or closet. Mostly you’re sitting in a NEMA enclosure that may have ventilation, but no fans are running. Kirk Byles (06:30): So for us, when it came time to go out and do these things, we knew our customers wanted a C1D2 classification, which is high temperature
Actionable Insights: IIoT Helps You Quickly Communicate Organizational Health and Improve Forecasting
Improve business operations and efficiently plan for the future, with real-time insights from IIoT. We’ve entered the Golden Age of business productivity thanks to Internet-connected technologies. IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) helps businesses improve outcomes with automation and data collection tools that inform real-time actionable insights. Across industries, today’s most successful companies are leveraging IIoT to save dollars and increase productivity. According to Gartner, there will be more than 25 million connected devices by the end of 2021. You might be wondering how IIoT can help you quickly communicate business health data and turn it into actionable insights and projections. Before we answer your questions, let us provide a basic IIoT definition (forgive us if you already know). What is IIoT? In basic terms, IIoT, or the Industrial Internet of Things, is a system of interconnected instruments, sensors, and devices networked for industrial applications. The connectivity allows businesses, organizations, and facilities to collect, exchange, and analyze data to improve efficiency, productivity, and, ultimately, business outcomes. We also provided a general IIoT description in a blog earlier this year: “Connected assets and Edge devices send information to data communications infrastructures and turn the insights into actionable info. Engineers can use this data over time to uncover patterns that help identify more significant issues and their root causes. The gathered information can also drive meaningful business decisions, improve processes, and save money.” How does IIoT communicate organizational health? IIoT-enabled processes allow businesses, organizations, and facilities to monitor assets quickly and efficiently. Smart sensors can detect and notify you of issues in real-time – quicker than a person ever could. And the information communicated through sensors and tools for automation can help you contain and address problems before they impact business and operational health. Here are two examples: IIoT in Agriculture: IIoT can provide real-time grain bin storage condition reads and automate blowers to operate only during off-peak electrical hours, saving as much as 50% in energy costs. But the tools are about more than saving dollars. IIoT can alert you to issues specific to storage conditions and blowers, ensuring nothing is wasted, missed, or broken. IIoT also allows you to track herd health, mitigate feed shrink, and more. IIoT in water/wastewater treatment: IIoT helps water/wastewater treatment facilities remotely monitor tank levels, providing 24/7/365 real-time visibility to find potential issues before they start. The technology also allows you to track chemical levels remotely, set automated leak alert triggers, isolate chemicals, and trace the source of issues. Our tools also allow facilities to reduce maintenance costs up to 40%, by using edge applications that enable the prediction of asset performance and failures. How can IIoT improve forecasting? Traditional planning and forecasting is a collaborative process involving many people. And where there are human hands, there’s room for error. IIoT provides unparalleled access to data. It gives you the ability to move past traditional projections based on volumes of real-time information gathered across the timeframe best suited to your needs. Our technology helps you move from forecasting based on models to forecasts based on measures. With IIoT-driven planning, businesses, organizations, and facilities can be more agile and create projections that provide transformative financial and operational benefits. And they can do it without the fear of human error. IIoT technologies help enterprises across industries solve problems today and capitalize on future opportunities that come with a smart edge. FreeWave’s technology drives unprecedented levels of productivity, performance, and efficiency. Ready to improve your business operations with FreeWave? Contact Us Today: [contact-form-7 id=”8452″ title=”FW Bridge – Blog”]
Improved Yields With Less Money and Less Time: the Agtech Revolution
Agtech makes agriculture smarter, and that’s a win for farmers, our planet, and people. Farming and agriculture have always relied on technology and innovation to improve resource allocation and increase yields. For example, handheld tools were the norm until the cotton gin’s introduction in 1793, and chemical fertilizers, grain elevators, and the gas-powered tractor revolutionized farming and agriculture in the 1800s. In the 1990s, farmers started using satellite imagery to plan their work. Today farmers have begun to embrace the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) – arguably the most significant agricultural innovation of the last decade. Smart agriculture is now common among farmers, and precision agriculture is becoming the norm, thanks to sensors and automation. Still, there are many miles to go before agtech can more broadly address global food insecurity and combat our climate and sustainability challenges; we will get there. “The key to sustainable agricultural growth is a more efficient use of land, labor, and other inputs through technological progress, social innovation, and new business models. For agriculture and aquaculture to respond to future challenges, innovation will need to improve the efficiency with which inputs are turned into outputs and conserve scarce natural resources and reduce waste.” —The Future of Food and Agriculture: Trends and Challenges, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Keep reading to learn how agtech helps farmers improve processes and save money, while also meeting the food needs of a growing global population. Precision Farming and Smart Agriculture Many farmers have already adopted high-tech farming technologies and techniques to improve day-to-day efficiency and increase profits. Field sensors allow farmers to gather detailed topographic and resource maps and helps them carefully measure and monitor soil acidity and temperatures. Precision farming and smart agriculture technologies also help farmers predict upcoming weather patterns. Farmers who embrace agtech can monitor equipment, livestock, and crops from mobile devices, and gather real-time produce and livestock feeding data. Technology, like ours, even helps farmers access information to forecast future yield and livestock needs. Sensors and monitoring tools give farmers far-reaching information to drive field management decision-making that enables better resource allocation, increases yields and saves money. For example, real-time data can help farmers identify areas that need more water or fertilizer or find places where crops receive too much water or fertilizer. More agtech use-cases: Automated Irrigation and Compliance Agtech enables farmers to schedule irrigation at off-peak hours and save up to $30,000 per year in energy costs. And with agtech, farmers can automate water consumption reporting processes to ensure regulatory compliance. Grain Bin Level Monitoring and Control Precision farming technologies give farmers real-time visibility into storage conditions and use automation to ensure blowers only operate during off-peak electrical hours, saving up to 50% in overall energy costs. Herd Health Tracking Agtech helps farmers monitor feed intake to deliver accurate rations to improve livestock health and mitigate feed shrink. Self-Driving and Autonomous Tractors Real-time kinetics (RTK) in precision agriculture improves steering and guidance accuracy up to 100x compared to traditional GPS. Smart Weed Control IIoT powers high-accuracy robotic weeders to reduce herbicide consumption by as much as 20%. Using agtech to address food insecurity. By addressing factors like soil health and food waste, agtech can help ensure food is grown as sustainably and efficiently as possible and maximize each bite’s caloric benefit. Agtech revolutionizes virtually every step of the process. And it’s about more than ensuring a bountiful harvest and limiting food waste; it’s also about connecting rural farmers and the world-at-large, uncovering new food distribution channels in remote areas, and introducing alternative cultivation methods in rugged and unforgiving environments. Technology and innovation are a deciding factor in eliminating global hunger. Precision agriculture helps farmers become more efficient, profitable, safer, and environmentally friendly. “Farms and agricultural operations will have to be run very differently, primarily due to advancements in technology such as sensors, devices, machines, and information technology. Future agriculture will use sophisticated technologies such as robots, temperature and moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS technology. These advanced devices and precision agriculture and robotic systems will allow farms to be more profitable, efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly.” —Agriculture 4.0: The Future of Farming Technology, World Government Summit As agtech adoption expands and farms become more connected, productivity and efficiency will increase in the coming years. We anticipate that millions of agriculture-specific IIoT devices will be in action by the end of 2020. And in the coming decades, the average farm will generate more actionable data than anything imaginable today. Other industries are fearful of technology that replaces humans with sensors and robots, but farmers, always in need of more human power and resources, dream of technologies that increase yields and save money with less time and effort. Is your farm Smart? Find out today – get in touch for complimentary FreeWave Smart farm assessment.
FreeWave Technologies Expands Integration Partnership in India
New Partnership Penned with Cotmac Electronics Pvt Ltd BOULDER (June 10, 2020) – Today, FreeWave Technologies, a leader in long-range industrial wireless connectivity and wired edge computing platforms announced it will expand the distribution of its industrial automation and edge computing solutions to India with new authorized integration partner Cotmac Electronics. As part of the Cotmac Group, established in 1896 as a cotton and machinery trading company, Cotmac Electronics is a respected name in industrial automation. Since its inception in 1992, Cotmac Electronics has grown to employ over 600 skilled and qualified engineers, it has 5 state-of-the-art manufacturing plants and 13 branch offices in India. The company provides innovative solutions for various factory and process automation applications in industries such as automotive, pharmaceuticals, energy, material handling, Oil and gas, as well as water/wastewater. Cotmac Electronics is the first choice in world class industrial automation solutions. “Freewave’s partnership with Cotmac in India is a powerful combination. I am confident that Freewave’s industry leading connectivity and EDGE compute platforms combined with Cotmac’s experience, people and channel reach, will ensure that together, working as one team, we will deliver the full potential of optimized IIoT solutions to verticals and clients across India” said Mike Tate, SVP Global Sales & Marketing, Freewave Technologies. General Manager for Cotmac Electronics, Nitin Apsangi said “The collaboration of FreeWave and Cotmac Electronics will deliver a powerful combination of strengths in the industrial automation space with transformative solutions to help customers achieve the full benefits of IIOT.” “With demand for Industry 4.0 solutions growing, our partnership with FreeWave uniquely positions us to deliver comprehensive solutions for manufacturing, plant automation, process control, and energy monitoring, from the edge to the core to the cloud,” For more information on FreeWave Technologies’ and its Intelligent Edge solutions, visit www.freewave.com. For more information on Cotmac Electronics and its integration capabilities, visit www.cotmac.io About FreeWave Technologies With deployments in over 32 countries, FreeWave’s products are leveraged by industrial end users and OEMs alike to connect, control and optimize remote machines and processes to impact smarter decision-making, improve operational efficiencies and drive cost savings. Throughout our 26-year history, we’ve helped thousands of customers – government/defense, energy, agriculture, and municipalities – achieve reliable connectivity for data telemetry and command and control in some of the most challenging, remote and rugged environments in the world. Today, we are transforming the extreme edge of operations – and the proliferation of smart devices within it – into a connected part of the enterprise with our IQ edge computing platform and ecosystem of solutions evolved for IIoT. Are you ready to transform your operation? Visit freewave.com to get started. # # # Media Contacts: Renea Sloan Marketing Director rsloan@freewave.com
IIoT and Work-Life Balance: A Healthy and Productive Relationship
This article was authored by Kirk Byles, FreeWave CEO The Industrial Internet of Things can improve productivity and promote a healthy work-life balance. Here’s how. “There is no such thing as work-life balance anymore. You’ve got to integrate them. Otherwise, you will fail miserably at one of them.” – Benjamin Laker, Forbes Because of COVID-19, the boundaries between our work and home lives continue to blur. I often find myself doing chores while on a conference call or listening to a webinar while cooking at my barbeque. And I’m becoming more interested in who is at the office, now that we’ve opened part-time (I use the key card application on my phone to monitor access). It’s not my intention to be Big Brother – working from the FreeWave office is voluntary. Rather, I want to gauge how folks are feeling. I took the same action to monitor my kid’s activities at home when I was still working from the office, to see whether or not they crank the heat or A/C when they get home from school. These are typical IoT-related activities we take for granted. Like most people, I’ve tried to strike the perfect balance between my life at work and my life at home. Since I’ve worked remotely for most of my professional life, I’m fairly disciplined when it comes to shutting off work at the appropriate time. Still, like so many people, I’ve recently found myself working extended hours. Experts criticize the concept of work-life balance because it suggests life and work are in opposition. And the pursuit of balance is exhausting. Some researchers suggest it’s better to embrace imbalance than strive to achieve a state of work-life nirvana. And I tend to agree with them. Of course, you have to schedule aspects of your work-from-home time, just like you’d plan family activities. Still, there’s nothing wrong with blocking out personal time during the day if you can spend a few hours hiking with your kids or friends during the afternoon. Even if you’ll be working at 10 PM as a result. This balancing act is new to quite a few folks, and it’s difficult. But, if you have the right solutions at your fingertips, it gives you peace of mind and helps you become more efficient. I mentioned mobile apps for my home and office, but what about tools for people working in industries that need to go beyond looking at cameras or names on a screen? Many people work in oilfields, on manufacturing floors, water sanitation sites, farms, or cities. And for most of their careers, they’ve been able to pull data from remote locations, view pressure gauges, monitor flow rates, check on pick and place machines for errors, and in some cases, manipulate those machines remotely (assuming they have the necessary skills). How does this work get done when you have to work from home? The right technology makes it possible. By placing edge computers with industrial applications where the action is happening, people can see the apps at work and relax, knowing they’ll be notified if there is a problem. This helps remote employees see what might be happening, and it also helps them know what is actually happening and how automatic changes improve systems. With edge computers, application-specific software, and communications technologies, folks working from home don’t have to stress about what’s happening on-site. And they don’t have to try to fix issues. The software corrects the issue before you know there’s a problem, so you can cook for the kids and rest easy knowing you’ve had zero downtime and machinery is running at absolute efficiency. The IIoT helps Mom, the field services director for a major utility, work from home, and be 10x more productive because of remote applications at the edge that make sure everything runs as it should. She can spend more time with the kids, and address aspects of her work she couldn’t get to before implementing this technology. It’s about creating efficiencies and solving problems before you even know there is one. An imbalance between work and home life is okay as long as you’re doing all you can to ensure work gets done and your home life isn’t neglected. The Industrial Internet of Things can make this possible for all of us.
FreeWave Technologies Introduces ZumEdge™
FreeWave’s Edge Intelligence portfolio allows instant data access and decision-making from the harshest edge environments to Cloud, analytics platforms in an easy-to-use integrated package BOULDER (May 19, 2020) – Today FreeWave Technologies, a leader in industrial edge computing and long-range industrial wireless connectivity, introduced ZumEdge™, the next generation of its Edge Intelligence platform. ZumEdge delivers an integrated I/O edge computing and narrow band radio network platform that makes it easy to connect analog and digital I/O devices directly to IIoT networks. The platform allows enterprise customers across numerous industry verticals to access and monitor critical data in the field and act on it immediately. “ZumEdge is ideal for any industry that requires sensor data capture, edge computing and long-range networking in isolated and potentially hazardous environments in a single, integrated package,” said FreeWave’s Chief Technology Officer, Parthesh Shastri. “The ability to simplify, capture and process a high volume of data at the industrial edge empowers our customers and partners to lower costs and time to market for new solutions.” With limited networking and data acquisition capabilities, critical sensor data is often stranded in the field, creating both inefficiencies and adding costs. ZumEdge with an I/O module reduces complexity, providing enterprises the data they need in minutes, not hours. Its web-based integrated I/O and network configuration tool supports the remote configuration of up to 15 IOEX modules (up to 180 individual I/Os). ZumEdge comes standard with the FreeWave IQ application environment and contains the Z9 radio module, making it over-the-air compatible with existing ZumLink networks and is housed in a DIN-Rail-Mountable case. To learn more about ZumEdge capabilities and specifications, as well as FreeWave’s comprehensive portfolio of edge computing solutions, contact your sales representative or visit www.freewave.com. About FreeWave Technologies With deployments in over 32 countries, FreeWave’s products are leveraged by industrial end users and OEMs alike to connect, control and optimize remote machines and processes to impact smarter decision-making, improve operational efficiencies and drive cost savings. Throughout our 26-year history, Freewave’s IIoT Connectivity and EDGE Solutions have solved thousands of customers’ problems in government/defense, energy, agriculture, and municipalities – achieve reliable connectivity for data telemetry and command and control in some of the most challenging, remote and rugged environments in the world. Today, we are transforming the extreme edge of operations – and the proliferation of smart devices within it – into a connected part of the enterprise with our IQ edge computing platform and ecosystem of solutions evolved for IIoT. Are you ready to transform your operation? Visit freewave.com to get started. Media Contacts: Lisa DiBenedetto Corporate Communications lisa@ldbcomm.biz 630-338-2208 Renea Sloan Director, Channel Marketing rsloan@freewave.com
The Smart Businesses Guide to Intelligence at the Edge and IIOT
Technology that enables business continuity and agility in every condition is essential today and into the future. Remote processes that enable agility in changing conditions are critical, given our current circumstances. And while today’s drastic measures aren’t permanent, it’s never been more crucial to optimize remote operations for business continuity. To that end, tools that limit on-site personnel without compromising integrity are essential. The right Edge computing and IIOT (Industrial Internet of Things) strategies and solutions, not only transform industrial environments and help a business maintain operations under every circumstance, but they also enhance overall efficiency and performance, regardless of factors outside your control. Edge computing and connected devices can give countless critical industries transformative insights into their remote operations. What is IIOT? Before getting too far down the rabbit hole of in-depth technical explanations, we should touch on the basics of IIOT (forgive us if you already know). In simple terms, connected assets and Edge devices send information to data communications infrastructures and turn the insights into actionable info. Engineers can use this data over time to uncover patterns that help identify more significant issues and their root causes. The gathered information can also drive meaningful business decisions, improve processes, and save money. As digitization becomes a critical business priority, the Industrial Internet of Things (sometimes called the Industrial Internet) is increasingly becoming pervasive. But technology is not without its faults. We won’t paint a rosy portrait without transparency around potential challenges. IIOT-specific challenges. Before your business adopts IIOT and Edge computing technologies, you need to take a hard look at security. Any technology that makes business-critical data and information available through the Internet can leave you exposed. The added expense of employee education and training and advanced network security sometimes offset the cost benefits associated with IIOT. If you’re looking at implementing these technologies, you need to be realistic with your expectations around ROI – at least in the beginning. There can also be standardization challenges when implementing IIOT and Edge intelligence technologies. Integrating your industrial environment to the IoT is more complicated than using the standard machine to machine and connected devices. You’ll need to upgrade legacy devices and infrastructures and, at the same time, implement new IIOT and Edge technologies to allow for seamless communication between connected devices, operating systems, connectivity frameworks, and protocol standards. IIOT and Edge computing benefits. Still, the benefits of IIOT and Edge computing technologies far outweigh their challenges and the initial up-front cost. We’ll give you a short run-down of those benefits, starting with overall efficiency. When you have complete visibility into every aspect of your business, from field operations to internal resources and applications, nothing is missed or wasted. FreeWave customers in varying industries have implemented IIOT and Edge technologies across all their businesses to achieve operational intelligence. Intelligence enables them to gain end-to-end visibility to increase productivity, reduce operational risks, mitigate costs, and, most importantly, keep employees and essential on-site personnel safe. IIOT and Edge technologies allow your teams to remotely monitor operations in real-time without putting them at risk – essential, considering today’s circumstances. These technologies also enhance your overall security posture and not just cybersecurity. It’s never been more crucial to track personnel and on-site visitors in the field. We’re not saying that you don’t, or shouldn’t trust your employees, but the reality is people are the biggest threat to your business. Tools that allow you to remotely track and monitor activities in the field keep your business safe – and operational. These technologies also help to maximize production and output and allow you to make real-time adjustments with real-time data, something virtually impossible just a decade ago. So, where do you start? We’ve got an in-depth discovery and implementation process when working with new FreeWave customers, but here’s a simple breakdown of the general procedure for implementing your new IIOT and Edge Intelligence project. You first need to define your overall goals for the IIOT project. Second, you’ll want to identify how you plan to measure success. Third, it’s essential that you document your execution plan to shore-up loose ends and consider every detail. Fourth, and this is the most critical component – you need organizational buy-in to move forward. And last but not least, it’s time for work on the initial implementation. The time is now. Your business needs data visibility to transform digitally. But that’s only half the battle. You also need to ensure that all relevant stakeholders can access, assess, and act on that data. FreeWave gives you the power to do it all in a complete and cloud-enabled Edge ecosystem. Our IQ platform provides immediate and expandable capabilities for high fidelity industrial data capture, analysis, control, and automation. And it’s designed for future growth or to build upon your existing infrastructure. Readily expandable as your Edge computing needs evolve, our products give you a future-ready solution to solve today’s operational challenges and to capitalize on the future opportunities that come with a smart edge. Enabling business continuity and agility is essential today. Get started with FreeWave: [contact-form-7 id=”8452″ title=”FW Bridge – Blog”]
COVID-19: A Letter to Our Customers and Partners
A Letter to Our Customers and Partners: In these challenging times, we wanted to take a moment to update you on how we’re responding to the COVID-19 virus. Our hearts are with everyone who has been impacted by this virus across our global community. In the midst of a pandemic, we are reminded of how quickly things can change and that we should take nothing for granted. With that in mind, health and safety remain our top priority. We’ve mandated all non-production employees who can work from home to do so, and have arranged for those essential production employees to observe social distancing at work to further eliminate risk. We are sanitizing our factory daily by wiping down all surfaces with anti-bacterial disinfectant. Any employee that displays or feels any illness symptoms are not allowed in the factory for a minimum of two weeks. Much like you, we’re continuously monitoring the evolution of this situation as we balance employee safety with business continuity. While these are clearly unusual circumstances, we’re committed to you our customers by trying to maintain, as much as possible, business as usual. We are assessing our supply chain daily for any signs of constraints, and at this time we are well positioned and don’t expect any changes in lead times. As things continue to evolve, we’ll continue to communicate with you. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your FreeWave Sales Representative. Best, FreeWave Technologies
Business Continuity and COVID-19
COVID-19 is forcing a change to the way we do business and globally confining employees to their homes, forcing the cancellation of public events and schools. FreeWave remains committed to our employees and customers as it has for the last 26 years and is here to continue supporting you during this challenging time. FreeWave’s solutions keep your workforce safely connected by allowing you to gather insights and analytics from the field, and transmit the data to any device, from anywhere, and at any time, without putting your employees in harm’s way. The health and wellbeing of FreeWave partners and customers is our number one priority. Which is why we offer solutions for remote and ruggedized environments that reduce costs and keep people free from harm: Contact Your FreeWave Account Manager today to learn how we can optimize and digitize your network, keeping your business on track.