How you can solve problems with the so-called Internet of Things

Imagine a world where your home, car, refrigerator, office, company’s assets, infrastructure and every physical object has come to life by connecting to the internet in order to give you valuable information. Well, you don’t have to imagine anymore because it has happened for a couple of years already and now we are just realizing it everywhere. It’s just a matter of time so chairs at Starbucks know how many people sit down every day, streets know how many cars pass-by every hour or water and sewage companies know the exact time and amount people consume water each day. As soon as we reach there, everything will be different.

On my last endeavor, I actually realize how IOT can transform every non-living thing into living things. Even though a company can be in good shape, there will be several things you can always change or improve but energy consumption or human resources are a huge thing for most production oriented companies. The good thing is that IOT is here to help! What can IOT do to solve this problem? Give you DATA. If you produce something, you must have somewhere a Programming Logic Controller (PLC). Then, you just need to connect some devices to your PLC, put in place some Machine to Machine technology (M2M) (Basically a SIM CARD which will give the computer the capacity of connecting to the internet and send data) and start monitoring and/or collecting data. But obviously that doesn’t solve any problem yet. You should better call a good Startup to help from the beginning on integrating all of the different machines at your process into one interface or like Mohit Agrawal refers to as System Integrators (you can send me an email if you are looking for a good Chilean startup doing this).

What really solves a problem after having data is taking actions whenever data is telling you something is not as you thought it was. If you set or program your equipment in order to operate according the manufacturer or other “standard” your industry uses, be aware. If there is something on your particular process that doesn’t behave the way it was supposed to, you will probably start having problems. Most of these problems will be difficult to detect or understand because they will be part of the same “common practices” of how things work at your company. If equipment fails to run after 2 years, the manufacturer will tell you "Well, that’s the average durability so you have to replace it", and you will probably do it. If the Operation Manager tells you "Well, this process consumes 80 and it has been consuming 80 since the beginning!" Then you will think that’s what it consumes. But what if the machine didn’t have to operate the way it was operating and because of that it broke or it is consuming much more energy that it should to do a certain thing?

As everyone knows, the more information you have better decisions you can make. IOT helps you on that. If water and sewage companies know when their clients are consuming water, then it's whole operation should be structured and oriented towards that cycle and not the standard of other companies. This is not only applied to hydraulic aspects but also to human resources or security services which will translate into a more efficient operation.

For example, if you settled water pumps at a treatment plant to start every time a floating device get’s to a certain “standard” height using a “standard” industry demand (light blue line), you could probably be mistaken. Why? Because if the level you determined is not according to reality, the pump will be starting and stopping several times a day when it could have been off. IOT can give you the exact production curve (blue line) in order to settle your pumps in a better way, being efficient in both consumption and depreciation of your asset.

IOT’s power is changing and will change our businesses and our lives but as Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker, “With great power comes great responsibility”. Internet should be free for everyone even more than education because Internet is education on itself, being both extremely powerful and cheap. IOT is making our cars drive without any human being behind the steering wheel, (Taxi drivers… please… it’s not Uber who will take your place). In the future, there will be less space for unqualified labor to control and operate in-situ because you will probably replace it for a highly qualified individual who will be operating several hectares remotely with a couple of screens, a mouse and a keyboard. This has in fact already happened in other parts of the world. Upcoming workers be prepared and suited to how the world will look like in 10, 15 or 20 more years. This is how a couple of kids in Chile understand it and have taken action instead of throwing stones to police, thinking others should help them get wherever they want to go.