As we navigate a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected, we must prioritize sustainability and circular economy in our approach to innovation. The industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has opened up a world of possibilities for connectivity and automation, but it also plays a key role in creating a more sustainable future. The goal of this edition is to illustrate this key role through specific examples: We start with “Green IT: A 360-Degree Scan of Current Research, Projects and Initiatives” by Yannic Schlimpen, M.Sc., Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information ..read more

The Industry IoT Consortium (IIC) is producing a library of IoT architectural and design patterns for cross-industry use. The first two patterns are now available to the public via free download from the IIC website. IIC members are driving the initiative. They are collaborating within the IIC’s Working Groups to crowdsource, review, revise, and publish a library of high-quality and well-reasoned patterns. The intent of the initiative is to shorten development cycles and foster best practices by using and reusing the patterns across industries. There are two IoT pattern types: Architectural P ..read more

New advances in cameras, processors and AI provide a wealth of opportunity for IoT operations. With advances in technology, cameras and AI are becoming increasingly sophisticated. It is now possible for data processing to happen directly on the sensor, at a computer nearby, at a server on premise or across the internet in a remote data center. Machine vision encompasses the methodology and technology involved in extracting data from an image or series of images to produce an output used to guide a decision-based algorithm. Machine vision requires method and expertise from manufacturers as well ..read more

Update from the Time Sensitive Network (TSN) Testbed by Florian Frick (ISW – Stuttgart), chair of the IIC TSN Testbed Connectivity is a key requirement for digitalization, and the most important driver for innovation across many industries. While open standards are typically used in the IT world, industries with deterministic requirements such as production, automotive and professional audio/video tend to use proprietary, specialized systems with limited interoperability. Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN), the next evolutionary step of IEEE Ethernet, combines the benefits of a flexible IT networ ..read more

Digital transformation enablers are specific digital technologies, best practices, or approaches that (surprise!) enable digital transformation. The effect of a given enabler extends beyond the resolution of technical problems into discovering challenges, providing new perspectives on current problems, and uncovering previously unconsidered use cases. The disruption expands beyond the boundary of technology and into the business realm, transforming how companies think, operate, and act. Industrial digital transformation (IDX) is a business endeavor focused on applying digital transformation en ..read more

The IIC’s  new reference architecture provides a comprehensive perspective on best practices for implementing AI in Industrial IoT environments By Wael William Diab Chair, Industry IoT Consortium Industrial AI Task Group The Industrial Internet of Things integrates the industrial assets and machines—the things—with enterprise information systems, business processes and people who operate or use them. With these connections to the industrial assets and machines, modern technologies enable the application of AI to machine and operational process data to gain insights into the operations, o ..read more

By Frederick Hirsch, Upham Security Third in a series of blogs from the Industry IoT Consortium Trustworthiness Task Group. For a comprehensive look at trustworthiness foundations in IIoT, download our foundational document. Connected systems introduce risks to each other, so a single system cannot be effectively trusted unless the other systems to which it is connected are also trusted. The publicized “Jeep Hack” provides a vivid example from the automotive industry of failures of trust in individual and aggregated systems. Cybersecurity researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek in 2015 a ..read more

By Stephen Mellor, CTO of Industry IoT Consortium How IIC members turn wind resistance into wind assistance The Industry IoT Consortium was founded 2014-03-27 by five global companies (AT&T, Cisco, GE, Intel and IBM). These companies understood that the industrial internet market and technological ecosystem was too wide and too deep for any one company to dominate. A consortium was established, and within five years 250 organizations joined. An ecosystem was created and a market for Industrial IoT had been established. Today’s Industrial Internet of Things Today, the industrial internet co ..read more

How IIC members turn wind resistance into wind assistance The Industry IoT Consortium was founded 2014-03-27 by five global companies (AT&T, Cisco, GE, Intel and IBM). These companies understood that the industrial internet market and technological ecosystem was too wide and too deep for any one company to dominate. A consortium was established, and within five years 250 organizations joined. An ecosystem was created and a market for Industrial IoT had been established. Today’s Industrial Internet of Things Today, the industrial internet covers multiple verticals from manufacturing (whose ..read more

Written by Daniel Burkhardt/Ferdinand Steinbeis Institute and Eric Simmon/NIST We believe “pattern” is a term that you can see nowadays at every corner, in neuroscience, artificial intelligence, data science, architecture, etc. So, it is everything but nothing? Because of this, practitioners have the impression that patterns are of no practical use and are more useful for academia. However, this is wrong. Architectural patterns or design patterns can be extremely helpful when it comes to solution design, especially in complex environments or new domains. The method of creating patterns for an ..read more