You may be aware that in 2018, Frost & Sullivan presented the Company of the Year Award in Global Edge Controls and Analytics to the pioneers in edge computing and developers of outcomes optimizing control, which are now Emerson’s Machine Automation Solutions professionals. In the process of presenting that award, Frost & Sullivan made interesting observations about the growth of edge computing. These observations and their commentary about the trends in the marketplace are key to automation in Industry 4.0 and we see the value in sharing this information with you.
Here’s what they said:
The changing industrial environment is becoming increasingly complex to manage, and fluctuating market conditions continue to impact primary business drivers such as asset reliability and utilization. Other challenges include productivity stagnation, legacy control systems limitation, competitive pressures, and cybersecurity. In comparison to dramatic growth in consumer sectors, industrial businesses grapple with waning productivity, even after reducing waste and production costs. Legacy systems are often not compatible with remote monitoring or control. Outdated manufacturing processes and technologies require onsite workers to manage assets efficiently. Additionally, companies face continual competitive pressure to reduce risk and total cost of ownership while maximizing assets to increase revenue and acquire customers. As companies seek new solutions to stay competitive by digitizing their plants, they also face the mounting pressure of maintaining secure networks and plants.
Emerging trends such as Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing offer new solutions and are bringing data analytics to a new era. As plants increasingly digitize, original equipment manufacturers and end users anticipate the next wave of innovative products, services, and business models. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is altering the way companies generate, collect, and analyze data. Generated data is now available faster and at a much higher volume than ever before. This new generational pace requires evolving infrastructure. Traditional operating models involve moving the data from the field devices to the cloud for deeper analysis and route back the feedback and actions. The limitations of this model are latency, responsiveness, cost and business efficiency.
Recently, the industry saw the release of innovative solutions such as edge controls; intelligent gateways that securely collect, aggregate, filter, and analyze data closer to industrial processes or the data sources. Access to unprecedented amounts of data in real time and the ability to generate valuable insights to reduce performance variability are critical factors in manufacturing.1 Edge controls and analytics are poised to revolutionize the way companies will collect, ingest, and drive value-creation for their businesses. Other factors driving edge analytics adoption are time efficiency and data volumes. Insights generated from the edge facilitate product optimization and orchestrate intelligence across asset fleets. Furthermore, edge intelligence reduces the cost of data transmission and enables real-time decision-making. It also supports remote and preventive maintenance by gathering and analyzing data from the plant floor. Edge devices combine asset data and process IIoT data to ensure a holistic view of operational metrics. Rather than moving massive amounts of data from its origin to a data center or the cloud, edge computing moves the processing power and ability to produce insights.
Frost & Sullivan expects edge computing to gain traction across other industry verticals such as manufacturing, oil and gas, chemicals, healthcare, and utilities. Edge analytics solution providers play a major role in making manufacturers understand the impact of advanced technologies. Frost & Sullivan predicts edge computing to evolve and estimates 1.7 billion IIoT devices will be connected to edge solutions by 2020.
You can read the full Frost & Sullivan report here. How are you implementing edge computing?
1Intelligence at the Edge—An Outlook on Edge Computing (Frost & Sullivan, September 2017)