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UtILItY WeeK | 21st - 27th November 2014 | 23 Operations & Assets During recent major construction, young people from the local youth centre were given a sneak preview of what is involved and engineers gave a talk on careers in the construction industry. If you have an asset or project you would like to see featured in this slot, please send your pictures and details of the project to: paul.newton@fav-house.com or call 01342 332085 Pipe up Steve Reynolds G artner predicts that there will be 2.32 billion con- nected devices this year, and 31 billion by 2020. The exponential rise of internet connected devices such as switches and sensors, known as the internet of things (IoT), creates an exciting opportunity to achieve a new level of business insight and perform predictive analytics by harnessing new data feeds. Using IoT, businesses can take asset performance management to a new level, the result being a significant reduc- tion of the financial impact of asset failure. IoT enables asset condition monitoring, predictive and preven- tative forecasting, and reliability- centred maintenance to be under- taken on remotely deployed assets. Integrating IoT within business IT systems can represent a dramatic shi from a largely reactive approach to asset management, to a completely proactive one. For example, equip- ment failure today is a comparatively drawn out process. A customer will contact the call centre to report a fault, the operative enters this infor- mation into the service management system, then an engineer is allocated. In a modern mobile-enabled world the job data is pushed out to the mobile device of the engineer, who travels to site to complete the job, logging the parts used. IoT's streamlined alternative sees the engineer dispatched directly to the asset via an enterprise mobile application. The IoT sensor data is sent back in real time to a cloud-based application monitoring key indicators such as temperature, vibration and current usage – infor- mation that is then processed in real time through the rules engine, to constantly determine the current condi- tion of the system. Should it be found to be either faulty or working out of known tolerance, a service call to repair the fault or a preventative maintenance call is automati- cally scheduled in the workforce management system. The majority of businesses have their data isolated in disparate systems, preventing a true understanding of assets, processes and people. By joining all their important data, businesses can really begin to benefit from the IoT revolution. The enabling technology for integrating IoT into processes exists and is just waiting to be harnessed; the challenge for businesses is to join up their data silos through the implementation of a uni- fied IT system, so that they can begin to transform their processes and gain a competitive edge. Steve Reynolds, president, Mobile Data Association, and managing director of TBS Enterprise Mobility "IoT takes asset performance management to a new level and can reduce the financial impact of asset failure" "IoT creates an exciting opportunity to achieve a new level of business insight"