IoT 3 mins read

Finding – and adding to – the value of IoT data

Everything in the Internet of Things ecosystem has value; from motors, lifts and smart buildings, each possesses layers of data.

Nigel Harley Nigel Harley

Everything in the Internet of Things ecosystem has value; from motors, lifts and smart buildings, each possesses layers of data.

This data has increasing value when looking at the business from an end-to-end IoT perspective. It is the same in manufacturing, farming and almost any “smart” applications/solutions.

For example, a motor manufacturer can get its value from IoT sensors as the motor functions – this enables the manufacturer to understand how the motor performs in real-life situations. Analytics and insights can establish when the motor is going to fail and provide predictive data for maintenance and replacement. The insight can also help the manufacturer to design the next generation motors.

Now imagine the same motor installed into a lift. Performance data can be exchanged from the motor manufacturer to the lift manufacturer. The data has value because it can provide the lift manufacturer additional information – combined with its own IoT sensors about reliability and availability of its lift services. The lift manufacturer can provide additional services such as maintenance contracts to the user.

In a smart building the lift manufacturer is able to provide performance data to the building’s management system. Then various lifts can be provisioned to service higher demand. For example, at the start of the day the lifts are mostly on the ground floor, and the end of the day on the floors that contain the most staff. Using maintenance data, the building owner or facilities management company can factor in preventative maintenance schedules.

Adding business value with IoT data

Additional data can also flow back down the IoT ecosystem… the smart building can provide performance data to the lift manufacturer. The lift manufacturer can provide usage and load demand data to the motor manufacturer.

Analytics can provide additional insights into the layers of data – i.e. at peak times when the lifts are in most use, the torque and loads put certain stresses on the motors. The lift manufacture can learn optimum parameters for floor allocation and energy usage to provide an efficient system. The building management system can combine all the data to provide financial savings to the building’s running costs and minimize disruptions.

Taking the building data into a smart city, using data across buildings could provide context from people flow, emissions and even energy consumption. Looking at a building’s performance, for example, could provide context as to how a building influences people’s well-being or productivity.

As the IoT ecosystems evolve, future collaboration will be more important than niche solutions that aim to own the end-to-end data. Data combined with multiple sources will open the real fire-power of IoT through analytics. The power of an ecosystem is the flow of data in such a way that each layer adds value. All parts of the IoT ecosystem benefit from monetizing the layers of data. And the business value comes from the insights gleaned from the bigger pool of data.

I hope this helps to explain how to realize the value of IoT data.