The following are news announcements made during the past week:
PRESS RELEASE:
Industrial Internet Consortium Launches Smart-Factory Machine-Learning Testbed
The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), the world’s leading organization transforming business and society by accelerating the adoption of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), has announced the Smart Factory Machine Learning for Predictive Maintenance Testbed. The testbed is led by two companies, Plethora IIoT, a company, designing and developing cutting-edge answers for Industry 4.0, and Xilinx, the leading provider of All Programmable technology.
This innovative testbed explores machine-learning techniques and evaluates algorithmic approaches for time-critical predictive maintenance. This knowledge leads to actionable insight enabling companies to move away from traditional preventative maintenance to predictive maintenance, which minimizes unplanned downtime and optimizes system operation. This would ultimately help manufacturers increase availability, improve energy efficiency and extend the lifespan of high-volume CNC manufacturing production systems.
“Testbeds are the major focus and activity of the IIC and its members. We provide the opportunity for both small and large companies to collaborate and help solve problems that will drive the adoption of IoT applications in many industries”, said IIC Executive Director Dr. RichardMark Soley. “The smart factory of the future will require advanced analytics, like those this testbed aims to provide, to identify system degradation before system failure. This type of machine learning and predictive maintenance could extend beyond the manufacturing floor to have a broader impact to other industrial applications.”
“Downtime costs some manufacturers as much as $22k per minute. Therefore, unexpected failures are one of the main players in maintenance costs because of their negative impact due to reactive and unplanned maintenance action. Being able to predict system degradation before failure has a strong positive impact on machine availability: increasing productivity and decreasing downtime, breakdowns and maintenance costs,” said Plethora IIoT Team Leader Javier Diaz.
“We’re excited to lead this testbed with Xilinx and work alongside some of the leading players in IIoT technologies. This is a unique opportunity to test together machine learning technologies with those involved in the testbed at different development levels starting from the lab through production environments, where a real deployment solution is utilized. As a result, from these experiences, we can significantly reduce the time-to-market of Plethora IIoT solutions oriented to maximize smart factory competitiveness.”
“Xilinx is committed to providing the Industrial IoT industry with our latest All Programmable SoC and MPSoC platforms – ideal for sensor fusion, real-time, high-performance processing, and machine learning from the edge to the cloud,” stated Dan Isaacs, Director of Corporate Strategic Marketing and Market Development for IIoT and Machine Learning at Xilinx. “The combination of these highly configurable capabilities drives the intelligence of the smart factory.”
Additional IIC member companies participating in this testbed are: Bosch, Microsoft, National Instruments, RTI, System View, GlobalSign, Aicas, Thingswise, Titanium Industrial Security, and iVeia. They provide technologies to enable the Smart Factory Machine Learning testbed, including factory automation, OT and IT security, edge to cloud machine learning and analytics, time-sensitive networking (TSN), data acquisition, smart sensor technology, design implementation, embedded programmable SoC technology, and secure authentication.
Plethora IIoT and Xilinx will provide more information on this testbed at the EMO 2017 trade show, from 18-23 September in Hannover, Germany. They can be found in Hall 25 at Stand B60, in the Industry 4.0 area.
IIC testbeds are where the innovation and opportunities of the Industrial Internet – new technologies, new applications, new products, new services, new processes – can be initiated, thought through, and rigorously tested to ascertain their usefulness and viability before coming to market.
PRESS RELEASE:
Meshed IoT Integrators Launches Local Hosting Internet of Things Network
Meshed IoT Integrators has has launched the provision of local hosting infrastructure to support the global “Free IoT” initiative, The Things Network, making Australia a “first class region” and augmenting the network performance through higher network availability, lower network latency and higher data throughput.
This exciting announcement is great news for local IoT developers and start-ups to help them accelerate their IoT innovations, as well as communities and industries who are driving next generation smart cities, environmental management, intelligent asset management and industry 4.0 solutions.
Andrew Maggio, Director of Technology for Meshed, who has been leading the adoption of open standards in IoT states: “Meshed has been a strong advocate for The Things Network and its global public access IoT initiative since the start. We have seen steady demand for TTN here in Australia over the past 18 months and we’re excited to be contributing to its continued growth. With Australia as a first class public region, we now have local infrastructure and resources in place to support more devices, more users and a more resilient service.”
More than 14 billion devices are connected to the internet world-wide, with a forecast to grow to over 26 billion connected units by 2020 and – possibly 1 trillion by 2035 (McKinsey 2015). Research undertaken by the IoT Alliance Australia has revealed $116 billion of potential upside to the Australian economy by 2025.
The Things Network started in Amsterdam in October 2015, with the mission to build an open, free and decentralized internet of things (IoT) network. TTN is now a thriving global community network with over 24,000 members in 500 communities across 94 countries in cities such as Amsterdam, New York, Zurich, Madrid, San Francisco, San Paulo, London, Singapore and Sydney.
Since early 2016, Meshed has been delivering its Community IoT Network initiative enabling any-one within range of an IoT gateway to connect their smart sensor device to the internet for free, without the use of Cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or other wireless technologies. The Community IoT Network initiative uses the open standard technology, LoRaWAN which is a low power, long range wireless technology that uses the 915MHz Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) wireless spectrum band.
Maggio is also excited about the interoperability, flexibility and in built security features of LoRaWAN. “The opportunities are significant. Meshed has been instrumental in activating IoT networks for Australia’s largest cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich, Wollongong and as far north as Cairns”.
Earlier this year, Southern Grampians Shire in Victoria, deployed a regional wide network across the major towns in the Greater Hamilton region. The network is being initially used to track environmental data including weather stations and air quality. It is also being mooted to support early flood warning systems and visitor interpretation on heritage trails in the future.
The CEO of the Internet of Things Alliance Australia (IoTA), Frank Zeichner has been a supporter of the Meshed Community IoT Network initiative. “The Internet of Things has great potential for societal benefit beyond the evident benefits for the economy”, says Frank Zeichner, CEO, IoT Alliance Australia. “LPWAN technologies such as LoRa can enable citizens to simply and cheaply collect and share their own data within their community and participate in the managing of their environment.”
The TULIP initiative is a case example (tulipnetwork.org). Founded in September 2016 by UTS in partnership with Meshed, TTN, Smart Locale and the Total Environment Centre, TULIP is community and industry initiative to enable climate responsive neighbourhoods.
TULIP’s aim is to fill the environmental data “void” by collecting real-time, hyper-local data on heat, air quality and noise through a growing network of environmental sensors connected to the LoRaWAN network in the Sydney CBD. The IoT platform is enabling innovation through a scalable open data exchange, for cities and its citizens. The projects principal partners include the City of Sydney, Frasers Group, Reekoh and IAG.
Catherine Caruana-McManus, Director of Strategy and Sales for Meshed sees the potential for LPWAN using wireless bands as the “last mile of connectivity” for regions and remote areas of Australia and to support industry and communities that currently need to rely on cellular networks for their remote operations, asset management, environmental monitoring and smart farming solutions.
PRESS RELEASE:
OutSystems’ Low-Code Platform Accelerates Customer Adoption of AI, IoT
OutSystems has announced that customers are taking advantage of advanced integrations to add machine learning, artificial intelligence, and IoT capabilities to their enterprise applications built with the OutSystems low-code platform. These integrations are available as connectors in the Forge, the repository where developers from the OutSystems Community upload and share open-source solutions that speed application delivery.
Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are changing how the world does business. Companies are applying cognitive learning and analytics capabilities to the data gathered from devices and sensors and discovering insights and information they aren’t necessarily aware that they have. This is increasing the power of IT in the digital transformation process.
Professional services firm Deloitte LLP used the OutSystems platform to build an innovative AI and machine-learning app. The app helps customers streamline the process of screening for “conduct risk.” Called BEAT (Behavioural and Emotional Analytics Tool), the app uses technology to spot potentially risky sales interactions rather than requiring customers to manually review hundreds of thousands of transactions. Deloitte used OutSystems to create a proof of concept in under a week and deliver a fully functioning app in five months.
ISB Global is disrupting the waste collection industry by using IoT and AI to optimise the schedule and route planning for residential and commercial waste bin collection. Most waste companies still operate using a traditional collection process, where bins are lifted on fixed days and static routes. This is highly inefficient, as trucks drive a considerable distance to collect bins that aren’t full, while ignoring others that are overfilled. As a result, logistics costs are too high, customer service is poor, and carbon emissions are through the roof.
Using OutSystems, ISB Global developed an advanced app to read IoT-enabled bin fill levels on a set interval, process the data, and forecast the future fill rates. This enables the determination of when the bin will reach the maximum fill level and to define the optimal collection time. This produces order proposals including a can-go and must-go functionality. These provide maximum flexibility for the routing engine to generate routes that meet agreed customer service levels, minimise logistics cost, and maximise truck load capacity utilisation. The app runs automatically in the background and gives waste companies the visibility they need to achieve dramatic cost savings. It provides full visibility of demand and collection requirements including volume and weight, and is the first big step towards a full ‘Uberization’ of the Waste Industry.
The key to success for OutSystems customers is the ease and speed with which they can quickly build new applications and leverage new technologies. New components available in the open-source OutSystems Forge library provide customers with a great starting point to integrate machine learning, AI, and IoT technologies into applications built with OutSystems. These connectors work with the leading machine learning and IoT platforms from IBM Watson, Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services and Amazon Web Services Machine Learning and IoT. Check out these connectors and many more at www.outsystems.com/forge.
“We’re really in the dawn of a new age that will transform how we gather, analyse, interact with, and learn from the massive amounts of data all around us, thanks to recent advances in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. This will impact everything from how businesses improve their bottom line to how we shop and get to work,” João Tedim, Cloud & Enterprise BG Lead with Microsoft Portugal.
“Leveraging the power of AI in our BEAT application has massively reduced both the time and cost of reviewing call records. This is a game-changer,” said Rui Vaz, partner with Deloitte.
PRESS RELEASE:
Fresh Ideas Expands Use of Altierre’s IoT System to New Venues
Fresh Ideas, the food service management company that serves universities, schools and businesses in the Midwest, is expanding the use of Internet of Things (IoT) technology to three locations following a six-month pilot of the program. The IoT platform, from Altierre, is empowering Fresh Ideas to convert manual processes to automated updates of meal menus, detailed ingredient descriptions, food allergy warnings, vegan and vegetarian highlights, and other key factors.
“It is not just electronic shelf label signage. Everyone has that. What is unique about Altierre is the wireless functionality, the ability to place signage in high or low temperature areas, and the level of informational detail we can provide for our customers,” said Bob Love, Chief Technology Officer, Fresh Ideas. “We chose Altierre because of the unique way they help us showcase our food. Our chefs can pre-schedule detailed signage 20 days ahead of time. They can also change an item and the signage instantly,” Love said. “No one else in the marketplace is doing this.”
Fresh Ideas conducted a pilot at Drury University using Altierre’s IoT system to update close to 50 signs for every meal. This month, the company is rolling out the system to two additional universities and one large business. The positive impact on the environment and overall sustainability is also important. Fresh Ideas partners with organizations that value green efforts.
By going with Altierre and an IoT solution, Fresh Ideas is showing that they care about the same issues as their customers. “It is the right thing to do,” Love stated. There are also labor benefits, as associates can now focus more time on customer-facing activities versus changing signage. “What we needed was a solution easy enough for a non-technical person to use,” Love said.
“Our system makes it easy to schedule and update signage anywhere, anytime. Altierre’s IoT technology is the only solution that operates seamlessly regardless of temperature, humidity, line-of-sight issues and other frequencies or channels in use. Those issues hinder other companies,” said Rob Crane, Senior Vice President, Global Sales, Altierre.
One of the most crucial benefits of the system is enhanced accuracy and precision in listing all ingredients, especially allergens, which are a growing problem for all food service companies and restaurants.
“Years ago you could get away with simply naming a menu item. Customers expect more in this day and age. Now you need to spell out nutritional information and highlight all allergens. We have to be extremely careful,” Love said. “Some of our customers carry Epipens. That is how sensitive people are to allergens. Altierre’s product has helped us ensure that we flag and highlight any menu item that might pose issues.”
Altierre’s technology is capable of enabling future IoT capabilities that Love envisions rolling out, including tracking how many people pass by an item without trying it, leveraging dynamic pricing to offer targeted promotions on special categories or by time of day, and replacing older signage with larger screens tied in to Altierre’s technology platform.
“We are pleased with the results from our pilot program at Drury University and excited to utilize this technology in three other locations with Altierre as our IoT partner,” Love said.
PRESS RELEASE:
Kerlink Continues Global LoRaWAN IoT Network Expansion With Subsidiary in India
Kerlink, a specialist and global leader in network solutions dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT), has announced its expansion into India with the creation of a subsidiary that will coordinate the company’s partnership with Tata Communications and the emerging IoT ecosystem to deploy the world’s largest LoRaWAN network.
The rollout, which will bring a cost-and-energy-efficient IoT network to more than 400 million people in nearly 2,000 cities and communities across India, will include more than 10,000 Kerlink Wirnet iBTS Compact stations. The subsidiary, Kerlink IoT Solutions India Private Ltd., is based in Chennai, India.
Kerlink, which recently announced a partnership to roll out a LoRaWAN network across Argentina, is ramping up its global supply chain to meet strong demand for its equipment and network design, installation and operation services worldwide.
The new Kerlink subsidiary, which will oversee the company’s continued growth in India, is headed by Girish Dadheech, vice president of technology, customer & partner engagement.
“This expansion into India underscores Kerlink’s commitment to provide Tata Communications with superior customer service for the rollout and operation of their LoRaWAN network,” said Kerlink CEO William Gouesbet. “It also signals the success of our ongoing strategy to rapidly expand in regions around the world where our equipment and services are increasingly in demand.
“Girish Dadheech is an excellent addition to our teams in India and Asia,” Gouesbet added. “He has been in the forefront of technology innovation, with extensive experience especially in digital transformation, evolution of exponential data and customer-experience segments. He has broad and deep exposure to virtualization, cloud computing and big data analytics. Moreover, his cross-border and diverse experience in leading and managing technological transformations will help Kerlink India to meet its strategic objectives. Girish will help devise synergies bridging Kerlink capabilities and customer expectations, while helping to grow our footprint throughout the region.”
Prior to joining Kerlink, Dadheech served as chief technology officer for Astellia India, a leading provider of subscriber intelligence to improve customer experience at mobile telecom operators. He also co-founded a technology-consulting firm in London, primarily dealing in fraud analytics.
His professional career has been divided between Europe & India, where he worked for companies like Telefonica, Hughes, Astellia, Orange & Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). Dadheech also has been associated with the IoT for more than 10 years, including work on a pilot for smart metering in London.
Dadheech noted that the IoT will help boost India’s economy in a variety of ways, such as supporting infrastructure projects and creating demand for innovative services and applications.
“The Internet of Things will have enthusiastic reception in India in the major application categories of transport, agriculture, asset tracking, logistics, smart cities, smart homes and security and safety. These are being driven by strong and dynamic programs led by the state and private companies, like ‘100 Smart Cities’,” he said. “The LoRaWAN network, powered by Kerlink stations, can be deployed simply and will quickly begin delivering the efficient, two-way connectivity throughout Tata Communications’ targeted nationwide coverage areas.”
Kerlink’s subsidiary is located in Chennai, and is close to Flex, a leading end-to-end supply chain services company, selected earlier this year by Kerlink to manufacture its stations locally. Production for the India network deployment began this summer on a new manufacturing line.
Kerlink’s new Wirnet iBTS Compact stations include a 3G dual-SIM modem to ensure backhaul continuity of service for data transmission to applicative servers. Moreover, its geolocation-ready design also immediately enables Tata Communications to anticipate new global, innovative and cost-efficient services for its customers, based on the native geolocation capability for LoRaWAN connected devices.
PRESS RELEASE:
eMotorWerks, EDF Partner to Expand JuiceNet IoT Electric Vehicle Charging Technology
Further expanding its reach as the leader in internet of things electric vehicle charging solutions, eMotorWerks announced a new partnership with EDF. The partnership, based on due diligence from EDF Innovation Lab located in Silicon Valley, provides EDF with cloud-connected and intelligent charging stations (EVSE) using eMotorWerks’ charging hardware and its JuiceNet software platform. The charging solution aims to empower customers to charge their EVs on clean energy, while providing a valuable software platform on which EDF can develop new solutions.
“Electrification of the transportation sector is essential for reaching our ambitious decarbonization goals,” explained Jan van der Lee, Vice President of R&D and Innovation at EDF. “EDF has studied EVSE platform technology for a number of years, and eMotorWerks, with its state-of-the-art and fast-learning platform solution and expanded list of charging hardware options, has shown to be a viable partner from a technical and commercial standpoint. And the grid service capabilities give utilities the option to keep fossil fuel generation sources dormant and meet peak load requirements through demand response.”
By utilizing JuiceNet smart-grid optimizations, EDF will be able to leverage renewable energy generation by tapping into solar and wind over-generation to charge EVs, as well as partake in smart grid incentives through scheduled charging. This collaboration allows EDF and its customers to shape electric load, avoid peak energy costs, and improve grid reliability by better managing energy ramps and other peak demand on the grid.
“EDF has a long history and incredible vision for supplying innovative renewable ideas to their customers, and we’re pleased to provide core intelligence around load management for their EV charging solutions,” said Valery Miftakhov, founder, and CEO of eMotorWerks. “With this collaboration, EV drivers can be more confident that they are in good hands when integrating our JuiceNet cloud solutions and proven JuiceBox EVSE technology through EDF’s expertise and network. Together we will offer the best smart charging products to power the impressive EV adoption growth across North America.”
The growing eMotorWerks software and grid services business is enabled by its award-winning JuiceNet platform, which employs automated, multi-tiered control algorithms and load balancing to allow EV drivers the flexibility to charge their cars on the cleanest and least expensive energy available. The JuiceNet platform gives utilities improved real-time visibility of major grid parameters and control of EV charging demand. With this visibility, eMotorWerks helps grid operators and utilities improve load distribution and grid stability while minimizing the need for expensive generation or transmission & distribution infrastructure upgrades.
This agreement with EDF marks yet another white-label partnership for eMotorWerks’ JuiceNet platform. The EDF brand joins a growing list of key software development partners that are delivering innovative energy applications atop the JuiceNet platform. This news comes on the heels of a recent price reduction of the newest models of eMotorWerks charging stations and the company’s listing as the 16th fastest growing company in Silicon Valley and the 19th fastest growing energy company in the US by the Inc. 5000 list.
Other notable partnerships for eMotorWerks include global EVSE solutions providers AeroVironment, Share&Charge (Division of Innogy), Volta and Webasto, and the cashless payment solution provider Nayax. eMotorWerks has deployed over 22,000 smart-grid charging stations to date, with top rated products on Amazon and other direct and reseller channels.
PRESS RELEASE:
BT, Hitachi Develop Industrial and Enterprise IoT Solutions
BT, one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, and Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, has announced a global partnership to co-create innovative solutions in the area of industrial and enterprise internet of things (IoT). The partnership aims to drive better business outcomes for global customers, including greater efficiency, productivity and cost savings. The companies will initially focus on exploring and designing asset intelligence and predictive maintenance solutions to deliver the desired outcomes for customers in industry sectors such as manufacturing and transportation.
Announced at Hitachi’s inaugural user conference, Hitachi NEXT 2017, in Las Vegas, the partnership unites BT’s global network infrastructure, cloud capabilities and cyber security expertise with Hitachi’s extensive operational and information technology (OT/IT) expertise,next-generation Lumada IoT platform software and integrated IoT services and solutions portfolio.
The companies’ combined technology, infrastructure and expertise will help their mutual customers to take full advantage of connected intelligence and advanced data analytics to streamline processes and optimize business performance on a global scale.
Bas Burger, CEO Global Services, BT, said: “Our partnership with Hitachi will help BT to accelerate innovation and ease the path to digitalization and IoT for our customers around the globe. Hitachi’s OT, IT and IoT expertise, long-standing customer engagements and its Lumada IoT Platform will combine ideally with our global infrastructure, cloud services and cybersecurity expertise to create powerful IoT offerings that will help maximize the success of our global customers’ digital transformation journeys.”
“IoT represents a critical inflection point, in which the interests of business, industry and society are now intersecting and aligning like never before,” said Ryuichi Otsuki, CEO at Hitachi Vantara and vice-president at Hitachi Ltd. “We see the creation of strategic partnerships with leaders and market makers like BT as a critical underpinning to Hitachi’s IoT strategy as we move our company and business into the next phase of its evolution.”
The first business solutions resulting from this collaboration are expected to be available in Q1 2018.