Did you know that some of the biggest losses to businesses have happened due to human error? Back in September 1999, a mismatch in converting units from the British imperial system to metric system resulted in a $125 million Mars orbiter getting lost in space! A small mix up between kilometers and miles flung the orbiter so far off-course that it could now be orbiting the sun.
A stupidly simple IoT implementation could have corrected such an error automatically and saved the precious millions. Today, almost 20 years since, are industries finally utilizing IoT well? They should be. Industrial IoT can single-handedly solve some of the biggest problems by eliminating, or at least minimizing human error and reducing operation costs, saving millions of dollars each year.
IoT for Minimizing Human Error
Minimizing the damage done by human errors must be a top priority for businesses worldwide, and this applies equally to small and large businesses. Barclays Digital Eagle’s online fraud prevention expert Joe Cooksey has confirmed that the largest percentage of cyber security breaches happen due to human error. Such security breaches cost businesses thousands of dollars every year. However, experts have strong reasons to believe that industrial IoT can greatly mitigate the problems caused by human error and help businesses improve processes and save money.
IoT for Reducing Operational Costs
For the early adopters, industrial internet of things or IIoT has already shown unmatched benefits in reducing operational costs, increasing efficiency and minimizing losses due to human error. One of these early adopters is the pioneer GE. Sanjeev Addala, chief digital office, GE Renewable Energy unit says “ We are able to reduce maintenance costs up to 10% and reduce more that 20% of unplanned maintenance by implementing IIoT.
GE uses IIoT to monitor data coming in from their field equipments like turbines, hydro plants and solar systems and keep everything working in top order. It applies industrial analytics to this data to see precisely which equipment is ripe for maintenance. By ensuring that maintenance is done only when necessary, the company is able to prevent unnecessary loss of funds, and keep everything working seamlessly. To take things to the next level, GE uses IIoT along with smart software analytics to predict how much renewable energy production they will see from their wind and solar turbines, in accordance with the weather conditions. By extracting smart insights from all this data, they help their customers plan the right strategy and increase their revenues by 2 to 3 percent .
What GE has achieved from industrial IoT implementation has some major takeaways for companies in all industries. Some of the things industrial IoT can streamline to improve your business, eliminate human error and reduce operational costs are:
Inventory Management
To fully keep track of your inventory from the manufacturing unit to the warehouse to the retail outlet is a tedious task most businesses struggle to keep in order. With IoT in place, you can constantly know just how many units of a particular item there are in your warehouse, what items you are running out of, what needs to be restocked and reordered. If you are in the perishable goods industry, this means even more to you, as you can clear up items that are nearing their use-by’ dates, so you don’t end up tossing recently expired goods in the trash.
Energy Management
Aspects like temperature, humidity and other forms of climate control play a magnanimous role in your storage facility. With IoT in place, you never have to worry about a mal-adjusted thermostat anymore. You can keep your storage facility idyllic as well as save big on energy costs by implementing IoT climate control solutions.
Security
In both physical and cyber security, IoT plays a massive role. Live feed, event reports and suspicious activity can now be directly reported to your phone as it happens, allowing you to control the damage and mitigate potential losses.
Wrapping Up
Businesses need to wake up to the potential of IoT immediately. From supply chain management to maintenance and logistics, every part of your business can benefit greatly by IoT implementation. Sure IoT will still rely on human input at least a little, so human error cannot be entirely obliterated. But as a technology that learns from humans to better itself, it will only keep getting smarter and ensure that we never make a mistake twice.
