by Angela Guess
A recent article in Knowledge@Wharton writes, “Today’s IoT builds on the machine-to-machine, or M2M, communication of the past. Chethan Gorur, global director of cloud application services at Dell digital business services, notes that M2M has been around for a couple of decades. A vending machine can message the distributor when a particular item is running low to signal a need for restocking, for example. But IoT goes beyond M2M, leveraging powerful analytics tools to compile and transmit a lot of data so operators can glean the most relevant bits. And the result is deeper insights than had been previously possible that can be used to transform a business.”
The article continues, “John Deere offers a case in point. The company has been making steel ploughs since 1837 and the name brand is synonymous with farming and tractors in the U.S. But beginning in 2012, John Deere embedded new sensors in its products and marketed connectivity as a key product benefit. Today, those sensors provide farms with decision-support information on where to plow, what crops to plant and when to plant. That information is potentially more valuable over time than the tractor pulling the plow. So unlike in the past, when the amount of data was limited, general in nature and often used simply to detect anomalies on the production line, IoT works in real time to provide massive amounts of data with fine-grain precision if needed. What’s more, it can help synchronize connectivity when it gets integrated into an organization’s enterprise systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and product lifecycle management (PLM).”
Photo credit: John Deere