Despite a lot of talk about the Internet of things, there are only a few solutions that are really useful, cost-effective, and capable of effectively managing the integration of existing devices or new additional ones. Technology is fast evolving and to keep up with its the pace, it is essential to have flexible, scalable and easy to integrate solutions to overcome the challenges of interconnecting devices.
The Internet of Things has gone beyond the limited capacity of previous technology due to the availability of connections on public networks, such as the internet, and the availability of light bi-directional and firewall-friendly protocols. The combination of these things has created great opportunities in every sector, especially in the industrial field where data exchanged between plant devices and machinery yields great benefits, as defined by Industry 4.0.
What does a good IIoT project need?
To start with you need to have a communication strategy before going ahead with designing an IIoT project. In order to do this, certain aspects should be taken into consideration.
When dealing with plant systems that already exist, it is more than likely that the data to be exchanged is already stored in different devices around the plant. Therefore, you will need to know where to find these data before putting them on the Internet. Once the data have been found, you will need to use gateways that are capable of communicating with the protocols of your existing devices so that they can be published on the internet using the appropriate IoT protocols.
Conversely, if the data you need to exchange are non-existent, you will need to create them by implementing sensors or I/O devices that are capable of directly communicating within the world of IoT or collect the physical values and publish them within the IoT environment.
If it is a simple matter of exchanging data from one device to another, you will then only need to use gateways that read and write data according to the type of operation being performed.
On the other hand, if you need to collect, monitor, historically log and process data from various devices, you will need an IoT Platform to manage the incoming data with specific tools to record them on DB or in the Cloud. The data can then be displayed directly on dashboards and screens in real-time or manipulated with analytical tools and displayed on Reports or Charts.
Therefore, if you are planning to deploy Industrial IoT projects in your plant, the Progea technology is just what you are looking for. Our solution offerings are at the forefront of innovation and based on technologies specifically developed for the Internet of Things.
