Internet of Things Platforms and IoT Strategies

My friend and colleague, the always opinionated Peter Rogers, shares his latest research on The Internet of Things and the technology and platforms that are used to support it.

There seems to be two main groups of thought as to when wearable technology will become mainstream. The first group are those that believe that wearable technology is here today and are engaging both hobbyists and future entrepreneurs in building all parts of the ecosystem now. These people are creating their own hardware and working with systems to communicate with third party hardware right as we speak. The second group of people are more commercially minded and are looking at creating a full platform for the future. They are looking at big data style real-time analytics, next generation IP, and constrained REST architectures with cast iron security.

Personally I am impatient.  I want to start playing with this IoT stuff today and allow the dedicated platforms to mature over time so they are ready when the market really picks ups.  With that said I believe there are currently two tiers of vendors:

1. Those that have something that works today and that we could build products and services on top of now.
2. Those that have an actual platform that is slowly maturing and we can use in the future 

My advice is to look at combining a selection of low-end propositions to start testing custom products for their effectiveness today.  In my view the best people to start talking with for effective low risk deployments, would be those offering end-to-end solutions based around plugging in any device to a simple Cloud PaaS and with their technology readily available to hobbyists.

I will list a few vendors that I think offer technology ready to go today and then in my next article I will look at those that I consider offer platforms for the future.  The main problem is one of being locked into a proprietary Cloud system that cannot be privately hosted and that only works with embedded client software that is explicitly supported by that vendor. If there is anything the ‘MBaaS v MEAP debate in enterprise mobility taught us is that open standards with flexible Cloud hosting solutions will win out. I don't see a perfect solution at the moment, but I do see a whole lot of very exciting propositions that will get acquired and combined effectively over time.

SkyNet

This open source project aims to let disparate devices communicate via a variety of protocols including MQTT, WS/S, CoAP, HTTPS/REST and WebSockets. It supports UUID authentication and TLS certificates. Eventually non-programmers could use Skynet to create a platform that lets us program the real and online worlds in a way that’s far more powerful than If This Then That (IFTTT) or Zapier. The end result is a flexible piece of open source software that can connect to everything from servers to sensors. SkyNet can be run on a public or private Node.js instance (such as Heroku) and they are even working on an open source home gateway.

IOBridge

ioBridge makes it easy for professionals and enthusiasts to monitor and control nearly anything via their smartphone or web app using a general purpose web gateway. This is a simple gateway that lets you monitor or send commands to anything compatible with the ioBridge through a web interface. It does sound like you can only access ioBridge-manufactured or third-party sensors, that are compatible with the ioBridge web gateway.  It also doesn't sounds like you can set up your own version on a private network just yet. When you purchase one of the ioBridge gateways then you get a free limited subscriptions. For example, if you want to log data faster than every few minutes then you need another subscription.

BergCloud

Berg is a Cloud platform but they also provide hardware with built-in connectivity for faster prototyping. Devshields bring the Device API to Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and ARM MBED. The Device API is provided as a client library that runs on your microcontroller, speaking via your wireless connection to the web. If you are prototyping and don't yet have connectivity, then the Devshield developer boards have that bundled too. You can manage and message all your devices using the RESTful Cloud API, built around secure HTTPS. You control the user experience with your own website, and treat your devices like just another web service.

Sense Observation Systems

CommonSense is a platform that helps you to keep track of all your sensor data, store it in a central location, and play with it. CommonSense also processes your raw sensor data into meaningful things like sleep, exercise, or your top locations. With the free CommonSense Dashboard  you gain insights into your behavior. With the free CommonSense Tracker you turn your phone into an advanced tracking device. You can combine them, add in your Fitbit or Twitter data, and you get a powerful self-tracking system. Connections are available now for iOS, Android, Fitbit, and Twitter. They are working on connecting more devices and services.

The data is stored in their Cloud, which happens to be in The Netherlands and has been certified with according to medical device regulations (NEN-7510). It does seem to have a good focus on Health Care and the Environment. CommonSense is currently in Private Beta and it sounds more like a real-time analytics platform at the moment.

Electric Imp

Electric Imp offers a complete end-to-end solution that makes it simple to connect almost any product to the Internet through an innovative and powerful cloud service tied closely to leading-edge hardware. The Electric Imp connectivity platform, featuring fully integrated hardware, software, OS, APIs, cloud servers, makes it possible to effectively empower your devices with intelligence, scalability and flexibility. If you’re a developer, hobbyist, or maker, then you can get started with one of their development kits and bring connectivity to your project, idea or concept.

Electric Imp offers a comprehensive solution designed to connect your product or project to the Internet quickly, easily and effectively. The platform includes:

• Imp Hardware: The Electric Imp platform starts with the imp, a powerful module containing WiFi and a processor that acts as the gateway to connect your device or service to the Internet
• Imp OS: The software foundation for the imp’s features and services that allows your code to concentrate on bringing your product’s functions to life.
• Imp Cloud: Their cloud allows you to run agents - server side code that runs in a secure environment - that are used to provide HTTP I/O and cloud-side processing, and easily connect your products to anything with Internet access. Agents can act as a central hub to your products, apps, third-party services, and even your own servers.
• Imp Open API: Enrich your customer experience and build your business by developing enhancements like messaging, monitoring, and much more.
• Imp BlinkUpTM: The proprietary Electric Imp setup solution (BlinkUp) integrates seamlessly into your apps, letting you and your customers connect products in seconds using just a smartphone or tablet.
• Imp Services - IDE and Ops Console: Maintain your software, push new code and features easily to devices anytime, ensuring that your users always have the latest features. The Ops Console enables you to gain more insight into your factory production lines and scale to millions of devices.

1248.io

1248.io offers Geras, which is a scalable time-series database for your sensor data with quick storage for your Analytics. They also offer HyperCat, which is an open, lightweight JSON-based hypermedia catalogue format for exposing collections of URIs. HyperCat is simple to work with and allows developers to publish linked-data descriptions of resources. HyperCat is designed for exposing information about IoT assets over the web. It allows a server to provide a set of resources to a client, each with a set of semantic annotations.

Geras offers the following:

• HTTPS support for strong security and per-user API keys
• Standard HTTP/HTTPS support allowing sensors to traverse firewalls and proxies
• Sensors can supply data over HTTP POST or very lightweight MQTT publish
• Supports modern standards for posting, getting and discovering data: HTTPS; JSON; RESTful; SenML; MQTT; and HyperCat
• Built on a fault-tolerant, distributed database
• Data can be stored in the country of your choice with an option to buy Geras as software and host the data yourself

If you have an IoT platform or technologies that you want Peter Rogers to be aware of please email him at Peter-2.Rogers-2@cognizant.com.

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation Cognizant

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Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The First Article on How to Truly Implement the Internet of Things

My colleague, mobility and IoT (Internet of Things) guru Peter Rogers has written one of the first articles I have ever read that explains how consulting companies and developers can truly design, implement and support the Internet of Things ecosystem.  Mark your calendars with this historic day.
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I was talking with friends today about the whole notion of wearable technology and soon stumbled upon the following important question, "What does a consultancy actually bring to the table in terms of wearable technologies?"

My opinion is that it is not about writing software for Google Glass, which seems to be the first thing anybody does at the mention of wearable technology. I mean firstly it is not (officially) on sale in Europe inside a retail outlet and secondly it does not actually have an official App Store.  I believe it is more about the hardware, the life cycle maintenance for wearable software and the supporting ecosystems. I also believe it is about the creative experiences that showcase the kinds of M2M scenarios that the film Terminator demonstrated. I aim to use the rest of this Blog to explain this argument clearly.

Firstly, it was interesting to see Samsung using Tizen as the operating system for their Gear 2 wearable devices. I have long mooted that it make little sense to have full operating systems on wearable devices and mobile handset vendors seem to want to keep their actual devices in the loop (the iCar and iWatch are both rumoured to work with an iPhone). If the iWatch ever appears then will it be running iOS 7.1? Even if it was running iOS 7.1 then I doubt you would build Apps using the same UI capabilities as for a standard phone or tablet. I would wager that the mobile device will continue to act as an arbitrator between the wearable device and the Internet (of Things) for some time to come and that the wearable devices will be running lightweight operating systems. In which case surely Ubuntu Mobile, Tizen and Firefox OS will make a play.

If that is indeed the case then the whole development cycle and life cycle maintenance of wearable device Apps is going to be a little bit different than before. It will be more constrained, but not in the earlier definition of the word, when wearable displays could only effectively display a pre-processed bitmap image. I would suggest that the Mobile Consumer Application Platform (MCAP) or Portable Native vendors who are geared up to supporting new operating systems quickly will be able to offer support for wearable devices faster than any other toolset vendor.

Proof of the pudding would appear to be Appcelerator's Titanium platform which already offers Tizen support. Whilst disappointingly Samsung say they will not commit to a Tizen powered mobile handset in 2014, at Mobile World Congress they most definitely did commit to Tizen powered wearable devices. Likewise, Marmalade supports the Tizen operating system, although this technology is predominantly (but not exclusively) used by game developers.

I would therefore conclude as my first point, that a consultancy wanting to get into the wearable technology space should first of all have a good knowledge of the MCAP / portable native platforms that are available to support both portability and the fast creation of applications for the wearable device market.

The second point I would make is that there is a definite need for ecosystems that support wearable devices. Such an ecosystem needs to support secure integration of remote devices, discoverability and messaging (to, from and between) disparate devices. I talk about SkyNet a lot at the moment as it is an actualisation of this concept and is available today. SkyNet is an open source Node.js based discovery, messaging and secure integration architecture for wearable devices. It can be hosted on a Mobile Back End as a Service (MBaaS) and acts to consolidate a vast amount of disparate technologies available in this space. As a solid example of this then in a few months you should be able to write JavaScript based Constrained RESTful servers that run on the SkyNet Node.js service tier and use them to discover and communicate with JavaScript based applications running as first class citizens on a Tizen OS powered Gear 2 device. That is one technology stack that covers the whole end to end architecture. It means that the solution architects can focus on security governance, as opposed to integrating disparate technologies, and worrying about what happens 3 months down the line (namely when a new version of the OS is released for the device). Likewise the creative experiences are empowered by a simple and powerful underlying framework.

SkyNet is not the only solution of course, but it is the best Blueprint I have seen so far and it is MIT licenced and available on GitHub today.

Here are two very cool 60 second videos of the Team SkyNet demonstrating their Internet of Things:

1. Bluetooth Low Energy integration. They appear to be messaging some custom built Pebble-type watch.
2. Voice control. They have a voice controlled remote lamp that can be called from a standard telephone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBNoSB_bac4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2emg81H6pI

Each connected device has its own 36 character UUID and a secret token.  These device credentials are required for authenticating and communicating with SkyNet. They also have TLS certificates available on the network by the time you read this. SkyNet can be deployed as a Private Cloud (in your enterprise or even in your home on a Raspberry Pi).  SkyNet networks also have UUIDs and can forward messages to other SkyNet networks.  You can also encrypt your messages if needed for additional security.  SkyNet currently supports 3 protocols over TCP (HTTP(S), WS/S, and MQTT).  They will be adding CoAP (a UDP protocol) this quarter for real-time communication. MQTT and CoAP are optimised protocols for constrained devices.  They are also working on a SkyNet Gateway device that can run in your home or office to communicate with local devices such as Nests, Phillips Hues, Wemos, Insteons, etc. The Gateway (and indeed SkyNet) are all open source and designed to support any protocol or transport layer.

If the right level of security can be applied by using acceptable levels of encryption and the Node.js implementation can be moved to nice Mobile Back End as a Service then you have a secure, scalable and maintainable Internet of Things. We often hear about REST being used but wearable devices introduces us to both Bluetooth Low Energy and Constrained RESTful environments (CoRE). It was in fact the CoRE Working Group that did the major standardization work for CoAP. I am sure instead of mobile architecture diagrams with JSON and REST, you will soon be seeing Bluetooth Low Energy and Constrained REST appearing on wearable architecture diagrams.

I would therefore conclude as a second point, that a consultancy needs to have a good idea of appropriate ecosystems that can match their customer's requirements.

http://skynet.im
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/02/skynet/

The final point was inspired when I saw the SkyNet Team building a Pebble-Watch-Replica from scratch, a light bulb that could be controlled by voice and talking about voice controlled drones. I have to wager that hardware skills are going to be just as important as software skills - at least in the Innovation and Proof of Concept stage. The final piece of the puzzle for a consultancy then is to bring some level of hardware skills to the table.

In summary, in my view you should not be looking for a consultancy who can purely write Google Glass 'Apps'. Instead you should be looking for a consultancy who can offer you the following: tools for the life cycle management of software on wearable devices; solution architecture around supporting ecosystems for wearable device integration; and even the ability to design custom hardware for innovation projects.

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Digital Transformation Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Industrial Internet and SMAC - Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud

The Industrial Internet refers to the world of connected sensors on people, equipment, machines, parts, assets, vehicles, inventory, etc.  These items are connected by embedded wireless chips that monitor sensors and wirelessly send data to a server somewhere in the world.  Here is an example of how one of the largest companies in the world is utilizing the industrial Internet.

Every major part of a GE jet engine, locomotive or turbine is equipped with wireless sensors that continuously measure and wirelessly send every aspect of performance to a central server that is often in the cloud. As the data is received by the server, it is analyzed by big data analytical solutions and the results are used to improve everything from the flight path to energy efficiency.

This same kind of Industrial Internet platform could also be used to monitor and improve the health of large populations of people as well.  I think immediately of the elderly, those with chronic diseases, those recuperating from any kind of health issue.  If they can be monitored and cared for while staying at home, that is a far more comfortable and less expensive place to stay for many.  I can foresee a time when we will subscribe our elderly parents to a full time health monitoring plan.  Our elderly parents will wear a bracelet that contains a large number of sensors that monitor a spectrum of things from location to activity levels, temperature, pulse, heart rate, etc.

The industrial Internet will result in massive amounts of new data being added to wireless networks.  MNOs (mobile network operators) make less money supporting a small embedded wireless chip in a piece of equipment than adding a new iPhone customer, but the embedded wireless sensor chip is unlikely to change carriers, call a support center, or dispute an international call; so although the embedded wireless chip is not as profitable as a smartphone customer, the cost of sales and support are far lower.  This area is considered one of the major growth areas for mobile network operators and is currently being heavily promoted by MNOs.

In the enterprise, the ability to know about your operational area is critical.  If you are managing a fleet, it is important to know where they are, which vehicles need new tires, oil changes and other maintenance.  It is important to know and plan for how much money you need to spend each month/year on maintenance and replacement costs.  If you know the location of your fleet, you are better able to provide least cost routing, improve scheduling, avoid traffic and weather hazards and improve overall profitability.  The industrial Internet connects managers with real data, in real-time.  The Industrial Internet proves that knowledge is power.

What is the connection of the Industrial Internet to SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud)?  Let's consider the description above of how GE is using the Industrial Internet.  Every major part of a GE manufactured jet engine has a wireless sensor.  These sensors are continuously sending data to a server.  Many of those major parts are manufactured by third parties - contract manufacturers.  When strange data starts coming in from several parts - I can image there is an immediate need to analyze, communicate and collaborate among many different teams.  As many of your smartest key people are mobile and traveling, you will need mobile communications and the ability to review shared data (a good use case for a cloud-based collaboration environment).

The Industrial Internet has the ability to transform working environments, strategies, industries, processes and methodologies in big ways, just like mobile devices have changed entire businesses, industries and processes.  These two trends are not separate. They build off each other, and because of this the changes and transformations introduced will not be linear.  They will introduce exponential change at a pace most are not equipped to handle.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

SAP M2M Expert Suhas Uliyar Shares Strategies for the Internet of Things

This is one of the most informative interviews I have recorded on the subject of the IoT (Internet of Things).  IoT is a big subject here at SAPPHIRE NOW 2013.  In this interview Suhas Uliyar shares what an end-to-end M2M (machine to machine) solution looks like in an SAP world.

Learn how the SAP Mobile Platform, Hana, Syclo, Right Hemisphere/ SAP Visual Enterprise, Afaria, Augmented Reality, Mapping, cloud computing and SAP NetWeaver all work together in an M2M solution.

Video Link: http://youtu.be/vJMCzQS-9wA

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

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Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

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Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Smart Grids, ERP, Big Data and Mobility

Every Tuesday I publish a newsletter entitled M2M News Weekly.  I try to find all the interesting data that is reported on The Internet of Things and M2M (machine-to-machine) each week and then share it with a link to the original article.  This week one of those items was Cognizant's Smart Meter Management Platform (SMMP).  This platform enables utilities, using a smart grid, to turn on and off the utilities remotely for homes and businesses based on their status, plus a lot of other interesting things.  I am the Head Analyst for SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) for Cognizant, so this news was particularly interesting to me. There is a PDF available on this topic here.

The SMMP solution utilizes an industry standard called MultiSpeak for integration between the smart grid, SMMP and a utility's ERP.  Here is the clever part, the ERP is remotely turning on and off electricity based on information in the ERP.  However, this is only the start.  The vision for smart grids is much larger.  Here is how Wikipedia explains it, "A smart grid is an electrical grid that uses information and communications technology to gather and act on information, such as information about the behaviors of suppliers and consumers, in an automated fashion to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity."

Once you have a smart grid in place you have access to massive amounts of data from all the smart meters.  The next question is what to do with the data?  Going back to Wikipedia's description you would:

• improve efficiencies
• improve reliability
• improve utility economics
• improve the sustainability of production and distribution

That is great for the utilities, but the vision is also to make this Big Data available to customers as well.  That way end customers can more effectively manage their own energy consumption.  Smart grid data can be analyzed and made available to end customers through web portals and even mobile applications that enable people to look at real-time energy consumption.  Once the real-time data is available, the next step is to enable end users to access their facilities management software and/or home automation systems and to be able to adjust energy consumption remotely.

Utility companies are also interested in looking at the overall smart grid data.  They may want to adjust their prices based on the Big Data analysis and charge more for peak hours than off peak hours with the intent of influencing the consumption and behavioral patterns of their consumers.  If they can motivate consumers to reduce their energy consumption during peak hours, then the utilities can support more customers without developing more energy generation capacity.  This has the potential of saving utilities billions of dollars.  Now that is an ROI!

I have also read about companies allowing utilities to manage the operations of large numbers of irrigation pumps in California, so they schedule them to run at different times rather than all at once.  This enables the utility to even-out the energy consumption rather than having such high peak consumption times.

The challenge, however, is that many utilities have used stimulus money to implement smart grids, but they have not completed the solution by connecting remotely to the smart meters and then integrating the smart grid with analytics and their back office solutions.  Without communication and integration the smart grid is not smart.  

Big Data and business analytics play a big role in the smart grid vision.  Once a smart grid is operable, real-time analytics need to be watching it for signs of meter tampering, communication problems and effectively managing the distribution of electricity.  This is the role Cognizant's Smart Meter Management Platform plays.

I have this vision of using gamification so neighborhoods could compete for lowest average energy consumption per residence in order to win awards.  That would be very cool!

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

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Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

M2M Analysis by ABIresearch

Did you know ABIresearch is evaluating M2M/Internet of Things vendors now?  I didn't know until I saw this report about the leading M2M (machine to machine) vendors today.  The report category is called M2M Application Enablement Platform (AEP).

Seems ABIresearch has a Competitive Assessment that considers six criteria they use to scrutinize M2M vendors.  This Competitive Assessment provides a rating of the leading M2M AEP vendors. A total of eight companies were scrutinized against several criteria under the categories of implementation and innovation in addition to a market share analysis for the same eight companies.

Here is an excerpt, "ILS Technology has been ranked as the leading Application Enablement Platform (AEP) vendor in the latest Competitive Assessment developed by ABI Research... ILS made significant ground in the innovation category of the assessment with an industry leading score of 81 that was just enough to secure it top spot overall. Report author, Craig Foster, cited the ability of its platform to integrate into existing ERP/CRM systems as crucial to its success." The deviceWISE module can interface directly to a number of industry leading databases such as SAP, Salesforce, and Oracle. ERP/CRM integration is increasingly important as leveraging information from connected devices allows companies to optimize critical business processes and become much more efficient.”

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Using Mobile Technologies to Drive Business Visibility

Today, I presented a webinar along with Stewart Hill from ClickSoftware on the latest research I have done on enterprise mobility and how it is improving business visibility and transforming industries.  Here are some of the key topics I covered in the webinar:

• The latest industry numbers and trends
• Situational awareness and enterprise mobility
• Reducing the Fog of War with enterprise mobility
• The use of tactics with enterprise mobility
• Force Multipliers and enterprise mobility
• Force projection and enterprise mobility
• Infonomics and enterprise mobility
• Velocity and enterprise mobility
• The Internet of Things and enterprise mobility
• Social collaboration and enterprise mobility
• SMAC - social, mobile, analytics and cloud and how it is transforming industries

If you did not make it to the live webinar, you can watch the recorded version here - http://www.clicksoftware.com/webinars-using-mobile-technology-to-drive-business-visibility-and-real-time-decision-making.htm.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobilized Objects, M2M and Mobile Strategies

A good friend of mine is a civil engineer.  He works on many tidal flat and water way projects.  He was telling me about driving 2 hours north of Seattle to collect data from one water level sensor.  The data collection took one minute.  He then drove 2 hours back to Seattle.  For this one data collection activity, the cost was a 4 hours of time from a senior engineer, fuel and lost opportunity costs.

I shared with my engineering friend that there are M2M communication systems that utilize embedded wireless chips that could simply message him the data from the water level sensor using wireless technology.  He thought that would have been a brilliant idea!  Although a brilliant idea, it would have costs far more to set-up (mobilize the object) with a M2M system than it cost him to drive there and collect it for one sensor.  However, if he had 1,000 sensors that needed monitoring, the costs savings could have been enormous.   M2M systems need volume to generate a good ROI, but if there is volume there can be great strategic advantages and ROIs to be had.  Think about the endless possibilities!   What do you need to collect data on in the field?  What systems, equipment or sensors can you collect data on automatically and have wirelessly messaged to you?

In my mobile strategies workshops, I talk about the concept of "mobilized objects."  These objects can be all kinds of things you may not have considered mobilizing in the past.  Mobility is more than communicating on a smartphone with your mobile workforce.  It can be any data collected remotely and wirelessly sent back to a central management system.  Let me list a few "objects" that you may want to mobilize and collect data on in the field:

• People - Attendance//Qualifications/Experience/KPIs
• Job Status/Schedules
• Locations
• Vehicles
• Parts
• Inventories
• Equipment
• Equipment transportation
• Location and availability of vendors and subcontractors
• Job site access
• Job site security
• Inspections and Permits

All of these items may need to be monitored and data collected on them.  This data can be communicated by a human, or in many cases a remote sensor could collect it automatically.

A field service manager that wants visibility to his/her operations for optimal planning and scheduling purposes may appreciate the ability to look down at their iPad and see the location of all of their people, the status of the jobs each are working on, the qualification each have, the parts and equipment each need to complete the job efficiently and the availability of any sub-contractors or permits needed.  All of this data flowing in from the field can help a manager plan and optimize the productivity of his/her workforce.

Bar code labels and scanners can update information about parts, inventories and equipment checked in or checked out from the warehouse.  GPS tracking systems can update fleet and workforce management systems as to the location of vehicles, equipment, trailers and people.  Work Order Management systems can track the job status and schedules of service technicians and other mobile workers in the field.

M2M (machine-to-machine) communication systems can enable companies to monitor remote sensors across large geographical areas efficiently.  These are used extensively by large fleet managers to monitor vehicles, fuel consumption, location and engine performance.  Utilities monitor their smart grids and their electrical distribution systems.  Irrigation systems, canal systems, pipelines, remote security systems, and thousands of other remote systems also need monitoring.  An M2M system can provide automated data collection, and real-time alerts and notifications.

Mobilizing your workforce may be the first step, but step 2 is mobilizing your objects.  If you missed my interview with SAP's Sanjay Poonen, SAP is also focused on M2M today.

Mobility and M2M are ways of collecting data and sharing data to help people and machines make better decisions.  All enterprises should be taking some time to understand the sources of all the data they need in order to conduct business in the most efficient and productive manner possible.  Where does the data originate, and how can you make the data collection process easier, faster and more efficient?  After considering the source and collection of the data, ponder how if can be integrated with your back-end systems, analyzed and the results shared with the right people at the right time in the field via mobile devices.

This unified 360 degree view of the world can provide your management team with a "Network Centric Operational" environment.  Where everything is networked together to provide real-time visibility and situational awareness.  This is how you can efficiently manage the real-time enterprise.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

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Full Disclosure: I am a mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Moneyball, Big Data, The Internet of Things and Enterprise Mobility

"In business, economics and other fields decisions will increasingly be based on data and analysis rather than on experience and intuition...we can start being a lot more scientific," predicts Professor Erik Brynjolfsson, from MIT's Sloan School of Management in a New York Times article The Age of Big Data, February 12, 2012.  This is the "Moneyball" approach to business.  Use the data, massive volumes of data, to find the truth, rather than lean on intuition.  In the past this was possible, but the long time frames required to find answers made it impractical for real-time decision making.

Just like in the movie Moneyball, large volumes of data hide truths that are not easily apparent without in-depth analysis.  These truths can lead us to competitive advantages, increased productivity, efficiencies and completely new and different ways of conducting business.  "Data-driven decision making" achieved productivity gains that were 5 to 6 percent higher than other factors could explain reported Brynjolfsson.  Pushing real-time data-driven decision making out to the mobile workforce is a subject that I find very intriguing.

Analyzing huge volumes of data instantly, in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, has enormous potential for those that work in the field.  In an age when mobile workers are wirelessly reporting and sharing data, and thousands of "things" are constantly reporting wireless sensor data that measure vibrations, locations, movements, temperatures, humidity and chemical changes in the air from industrial equipment, shipping crates, vehicles, electrical meters and many other things, it is critical to have real-time assistance from systems that can analyze vast amounts of data instantly.

SAP's Hana is a tool that promises to make this possible.  Here is how SAP promotes Hana, "Analyze massive amounts of data up to 3,600 times faster for instant business insights and transform your organization into a real-time business."  


I remember reading a post-accident report from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.  In the report it said that oil rig supervisors experienced a paralysis in decision making due to the overwhelming amount of seriously dire sensor data coming in.  The raw sensor data was not in a form that provided guidance and direction based upon a real-time analysis of data.  We humans can easily be overwhelmed during a crisis where emotions and adrenalin are peaked and this does not lead to good scientific reasoning.


CEOs and CIOs would be well served to ponder how real-time access to real-time business intelligence could impact global field, fleet and plant operations.  I remember talking to a fleet manager who said he once notified all of his vehicle drivers to fill up with fuel before end of day, because real-time market data suggested a hike in fuel prices would occur before morning.  They reported that they saved millions of dollars by taking this one step.  It was only possible because of real-time analysis and real-time mobile communications.

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile Industry Analyst, Consultant and SAP Mentor Volunteer

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Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.