One of the earliest known instances of IoT being used for remote monitoring took place at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982. A Coke® vending machine was connected to ARPANET, a forerunner of the Internet, to keep track of how cold the sodas were and whether the machine was full. This notion of collecting data from an end point and sending it to a network to monitor a device is as valid a use case now as it was then. In fact, it’s at the heart of an initiative we work on with the Gates Ventures—monitoring fixed and mobile refrigeration units in remote locations to ensure the vaccines stored in them remain safe to use.

Today, however, IoT is much more than this.

IoT has grown into a massive industry that spans virtually every vertical. In fact, McKinsey estimates that by 2030, the economic potential of IoT could rise as high as $12.5 trillion globally. It plays a critical role in industries as broad ranging as energy management, healthcare, agriculture, and retail. But IoT is only one piece of a much larger data strategy. It’s no longer just about monitoring endpoints and measuring activities. It’s about gaining insight, solving business problems, and driving better outcomes.

Why a Data Strategy Matters

To move from monitoring endpoints to driving outcomes, you must establish a solid, overarching data strategy around all your relevant data sources, including IoT devices.  You will need to explore how to combine data from disparate sources, determine where to store it, for instance in a data lake, decide how best to structure it to make it queryable, and address how to visualize it. You will also need to put appropriate data governance and security policies in place.

These decisions will serve as the bedrock on which your ability to use and manage your data in the future will be built. To ensure that it is a strategy that supports long-term business agility, you would be well served by collaborating with an external partner with deep domain expertise in structuring and visualizing data who can help you explore challenges your organization is likely to encounter in the future and how will need to access and use its data to address them.

Developing a data strategy and structuring your data, is not a one-and-done project. It is a journey—you will need to put processes in place to manage your assets over time. Where you are on that journey, essentially your level of data maturity, determines your point of departure. For instance, organizations taking early steps may need a business intelligence solution like PowerBI, while others that are farther along may be ready for a data lake or solution like Snowflake that leverages a type of SQL database better suited to support AI applications.

The Impact of AI on IoT

Looking down the innovation curve, AI in general, and generative AI (GenAI) in particular, will have a significant impact on the IoT ecosystem. AI will enable edge computing, which means data can be stored and used much closer to the actual IoT device, whether it is a component of a smart grid or a robot, so it can autonomously respond in real time to changing environmental conditions. Further, by layering AI and GenAI applications on top of your structured data, you will be able to use natural language to query it to find insights that humans would not ordinarily be able to see.

Increasingly today, and well into the future, IoT, Data, and AI will serve as three-legged stool that organizations can build on to gain deep insight into their business, make data-informed decisions, and ultimately drive better outcomes.

And virtually every industry can benefit from it.

What’s the Next Step on Your IoT, Data, and AI Journey?

At Kopius, we harness the power of people, data and emerging technologies to build innovative solutions that help our customers navigate continual change and solve formidable challenges. To accelerate our customers’ success, we’ve designed a JumpStart program to prioritize digital transformation together. 

Across virtually every industry, in healthcare, industrial, retail and other settings, IoT is a go-to way of monitoring everything from user behavior, to equipment to the environment. It can even be used to keep track of what’s happening within our bodies. But the bigger question is why? Why are you monitoring those endpoints, and what problem are you trying to solve? Fundamentally, IoT is about data, and it’s often just a starting point. It is part of a large ecosystem of other data sources and technologies that you can bring to bear to solve your organization’s—and in some cases, the world’s—most pressing challenges. 

And in fact, long-term, sustainable solutions often extend beyond technology. People and processes may be at the root of your challenges, and you will need to look beyond the sensor to effect change. 

From When to Why: How IoT Brought a People and Practices Issue to the Forefront

Case in point: a leading lumber company’s door manufacturing business was among its most profitable segments. They were looking to increase their return on investment by making their machines more productive. That meant finding ways to make them run faster and reduce idle time. They reached out to Kopius, and as a first step, we worked with them to put sensors on their machines so we could pull data to better understand when they were idle and for how long. It was valuable information, but to increase productivity, we needed to understand why they were idle.  

It wasn’t because of mechanical issues. Instead, the answer had to do with the way orders are processed and initiated for manufacturing, which is a people and process issue. The company’s order fulfillment process was largely manual. When an order came in, a physical bill of material was created, then someone walked it over to the area of the facility dedicated to door manufacturing. Often, they were pulled away, distracted by a more time sensitive task or by a coworker. In other cases, materials for the doors would get delivered to the wrong area. So, to solve the problem of humans being prone to error, we recommended a change management process and leveraged automation to support better tracking of materials. The expected impact was a 40% increase in production and $50M increase in annual revenue for the door division.

For this company, the initial request for IoT sensors was just the starting point for long term efficiency, agility, and sustainability. It sparked ongoing discussions that have opened a world of possibilities for what other insights could be gleaned from their data. What kinds of sensors would generate data that would help them predict when their equipment needed servicing? How could they lay a foundation for storing and structuring their data so when the time is right, they can leverage AI to gain insights into their business that humans can’t see?

A Problem-First, Technology Second Approach

This experience underscores my initial point. IoT is just one element of a larger ecosystem of technology, data, and process improvements that can be brought to bear to solve your business challenges. If you stay focused on the why—your underlying business problem—and let that guide your technology approach, you can take your business farther, faster.

JumpStart IoT Success

Innovating technology is crucial, or your business will be left behind. Our expertise in IoT technology and business helps our clients deliver tangible outcomes and accelerate growth. At Kopius, we’ve designed a program to JumpStart your customer, technology, and data success.

Kopius has an expert emerging tech team. We bring this expertise to your JumpStart program and help uncover innovative ideas and technologies supporting your business goals. We bring fresh perspectives while focusing on your current operations to ensure the greatest success.

Partner with Kopius and JumpStart your future success.

Related Services:

• IoT Development Services
• Digital Product Development
• Data and AI Services