Key Considerations for Implementing Industrial IoT

Fremont, CA: When it comes to transforming various industries, the Internet of Things (IoT) is making an impact across consumer goods and manufacturing, as well as utilities, agriculture, healthcare, government, and urban development. Industrial IoT (IIoT) is a specialized subset of the broader IoT framework, designed to meet the distinct requirements of specific industries, such as manufacturing, oil and gas, and utilities. While IoT and IIoT share many features, they differ in critical areas such as security, interoperability, scalability, reliability, and automation. It's crucial to grasp these distinctions before rolling out an industrial IoT solution. 

Security is one of the most critical requirements in industrial solutions, as even a minor disruption in a high-volume manufacturing process can result in losses of millions of dollars per day. IIoT solutions incorporate various advanced security measures, including threat detection, secure and resilient system architectures, specialized chipsets, encryption, and authentication, as well as management processes. Likewise, IoT solutions for industries need to integrate with existing legacy operations technologies and manufacturing execution systems. Industrial IoT solutions are efficient in supporting and integrating the necessary protocols and data sets while functioning reliably with those systems and technologies. With functionalities similar to those of IoT technologies, Industrial IoT solutions are more adept at ensuring high availability and withstanding high duty cycles around the clock for years, supporting shutdowns only during maintenance.

Both IoT and IIoT solutions incorporate these variables, but differ in their implementation. Buyers should closely examine these parameters, as vendors delivering these IIoT solutions may originate from adjacent markets and offer solutions that may not be robust enough for industrial applications.