Applying the Value of Automation to the IoT Debate

If you haven’t seen exactly what the Internet of Things can do for you, you might think it’s all just a bunch of smoke and mirrors. But believe it—there’s a fire under all that smoke.

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Wherever he goes, Peter Martin likes to talk about the value of automation. In your role in the plant, you know how valuable automation is. But Martin wants to make sure you can actually show that value to the people who control your automation budget. In fact, we thought it was such an important topic, we're running a four-part series in Automation World to look at how to justify the value of investment in automation. Read part 1, "How to Determine Automation Value and Focus."

The Control System Integrators Association (CSIA) brought him back to its annual conference again this year because his talk was so well received last year. And this time they put him earlier in the program to make sure nobody missed him. The value of automation is a message that’s important for system integrators—as much if not more than anyone—need to understand. But it’s important for a plant’s control engineers and system developers to understand as well.

It’s a message that too often gets lost. Automation is installed in production, it costs X number of dollars and does what it needs to do, but the loop is then not closed to show just how quickly that investment was returned or just how much money the manufacturing operation was able to save because of it.

And all the buzzwords swimming around these days don’t help matters. The Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, cyber-physical systems, Big Data, cloud, edge, fog… It starts to feel like those marketing folks are just blowing smoke up your skirt. But as Martin put it during a one-on-one conversation with me last week at the Connect 2016 Schneider Electric Automation Conference, “All of this smoke…there’s a fire underneath it.”

“We’ve never had a period of time with so many buzzwords,” concedes Martin, vice president and fellow for Schneider Electric. “Each one by itself has a contribution to make, but it’s not overwhelming. But take them together, and something big is happening.”

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