Five steps to avoiding IoT project failures

Proteus Invents
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

Five key steps manufacturers can take to avoid IoT project failures and ensure they transform their business models to take advantage of the huge opportunity IoT presents, while minimising the risks.

1. Rethink your product strategy

The real value of IoT is not about creating connected things, but the potential that connecting them brings. As connectivity is embedded into your products, revenue will begin to shift from the products themselves to the services you can deliver via those connected devices.

Customers in consumer-facing industries already expect to be able to deliver new services throughout the life of even the simplest products. At the very least, you need to be able to facilitate this new service model. And manufacturers that take the lead and develop and either deliver or partner for the delivery of value-added connected services will have a competitive advantage and reap the financial rewards.

2. Plan for the future

Regardless of the size and reach of your business today, it’s important that you build in the ability to scale to meet future market and customer demands. Short-term thinking can save money up front but cost you dearly if you are prevented from responding to opportunities down the line.

When scoping your IoT projects, be sure to think through the different future scenarios, for example serving customers in different territories, significantly expanded volumes of users or a more complex supply chain.

3. Automate everywhere

Manufacturing is no stranger to automation, yet many companies are still reliant on manual processes to manage their automated machines. Remember that for each connected device you need to handle connectivity provisioning and billing, not to mention support diagnostics and training.

4. Build in security

IoT is one of the reasons that manufacturing is now one of the top three industries targeted in cyber-espionage and at a greater risk of cyber-attacks overall. Not only has the number of attacks on legacy industrial control systems sharply increased as they are increasingly connected to corporate networks and the internet, but the shift to producing connected devices has also introduced new risks.

5. Think human

Last, and by no means least, some of the biggest barriers to IoT success do not involve technology itself, but human factors including culture, organisation, and leadership. Successful IoT projects include a significant degree of collaboration between IT and the rest of the business and beyond, to an often-complex ecosystem of third parties, which is often difficult for manufacturers where operational managers are used to making decisions aboutplant-floor technology.

The shift to IoT means IT needs to become part of the culture, with IT embedded in every aspect of strategy rather than being the role of a function that is far-removed from the decision-making.

Resource: https://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/five-steps-avoiding-iot-project-failures/

Proteus Invents is now offering a full engineering design and consulting services to worldwide customers.
Our goal is to help clients in a variety of fields to improve their productivity and flexibility in the industrial instrumentation, measurement, control and networking applications.We provide production test and automation support for products we design and assist with manufacturing sources. We have the right team and expertise to work with customers to enhance productivity and build profits. We offer our clients the highest quality design solutions that work within technical and price constraints and fulfill project objectives.
Our engineers include electronic, firmware, software. mechanical, embedded system design and automation design experts, and operating under an ISO 9001 certified design process.

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Proteus Invents

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Proteus design experts are operating under an ISO 9001 certified design process.

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