According to the World Economic Forum, 85% of industrial equipment remains unconnected to the IoT, which means it’s being monitored through a combination of manual observation and reacting to something that has already broken. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably already aware of this frustrating situation and considering your options. 

“What are we?”

Someone on my team asked me this question recently, and I keep turning it over in my mind. Of course, I have an elevator pitch I could recite, but at our core, who and what is Atomation?

The best way to answer that question is to start with the “why” behind our approach. 

Mike Johnson, owner of Heartland Sustainable, is using technology for Operations Optimization. The 20-year-old company has segued into a composting vertical that complements his existing Heartland Farm Services. (www.heartlandsustainable.com)  Currently Johnson manages 8 rows of organic compost 8’ H x 25’ W x 300’ L.  This equates to 6000 cubic yards of organic material that needs to be maintained for optimal aerobic processing.  The final product is sold to companies whose interests are in water management, landfill waste reduction, improving soil health, disease resistant products, and erosion/soil compaction. These companies often include Landscapers, Garden Centers through Fibertech Premium Mulch.

The prospect of updating and connecting legacy machinery to the IoT can seem daunting. You may not have the expertise in-house, you’re already strapped for resources, and it seems...complex. Rest assured, there are simple and effective options that don’t require a team of NASA engineers.

We’ve written recently about the negative impact poor equipment monitoring can have on your business. But how do you know if this is an area you should focus on when you likely already have a full plate? (Hint, there’s almost always room for improvement in equipment monitoring.) We’ve put together a checklist to get you started.

In a perfect world, we could all have cutting-edge, “smart” machinery, all of which would be connected for perfectly streamlined processes. In reality, the most cost-effective solution is often to keep legacy machinery in service. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t update the way we use and maintain these machines. 

The time is now to start taking advantage of Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

"Adoption of IoT is happening across industries, in governments, and in consumers' daily lives. We are increasingly observing how data generated by connected devices is helping businesses run more efficiently, gain insight into business processes, and make real-time decisions," said Carrie MacGillivray, Vice President, Internet of Things at IDC.

For businesses that have successfully adopted IoT technology, proved return on investment and are continuing to scale projects and increase initiatives across all aspects of their organizations. Implementing IoT projects is a given, but with 620 IoT platforms and counting, deciding the right approach for your company can be challenging. This blog post breaks down IoT projects into three categories:

1. IoT Retrofits
2. Custom Implementations
3. New Connected Equipment

We’ll highlight a few of the pros and cons of each type of project and help you make an informed decision on where to start or possibly reconsider your next project.

Much has been written about why utilities have been slower to adopt new technologies but there are good reasons utility leadership has employed a measured and reliable pace of new IoT project implementation and IoT adoption. Regulatory pressures to keep rates low, unproven technologies, staffing shortages and the costs to implement wide-scale projects have all contributed to slower adoption rates across the industry. However, the utility industry is poised to increase IoT adoption by 20% by 2025 - and these investments are now able to be quantified and thoroughly vetted to ensure a positive return for utilities undertaking these projects. This post explores the top motivators driving the growth of IoT adoption in utilities.

As discussed in our earlier post, A Smarter Approach to Digital Transformation in the Utility Industry, the utility industry is falling behind other industries when it comes to digitization. This affects day-to-day operations on multiple levels, including personnel. In this post, we’ll walk through a few of these opportunities and provide a few strategies to help utilities consider different ways to make incremental forward progress in their own transformation process.