June 2015
36
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Brilliant machines enable
the industrial Internet of Things
By Bernie Anger,
GE Intelligent Platforms
As the Internet of Things matures, it
will develop from a “catch all” model
to one that delivers specific functiona-
lities and benefits depending on the
environment in which the enabling
network is located.
n
As a concept, the Internet of ings embraces
an enormous span of commercial, industrial,
military and consumer paradigms. In the mil-
itary, for example, there has long been talk of
network-centric warfare and the connected
battle eld. ese concepts have at their heart
the principle of powerful machines – o en
vehicles – with substantial embedded comput-
ing power and equipped with multiple sensors
communicating with each other, sharing infor-
mation – and becoming collectively smarter as
they learn from each other. In industry, GE has
coined the term Industrial Internet – an appli-
cation-speci c instantiation of the Internet of
ings. In today’s connected world, machines
can communicate and coordinate with each
other in ways that were not before possible.
ese brilliant machines are changing the way
businesses work, enabling them to optimize
e ciencies, boost productivity, reduce costs,
and bring products and services to market
faster. ere’s a major transformation taking
place in industry.
What are these brilliant machines? ey share
numerous characteristics. ey are, for exam-
ple, equipped with processing power that can
run to hundreds of GFLOPS – o en enabled
by GPGPU (general purpose processing on
graphics processing units) technology with its
massively parallel architecture. ose embed-
ded computing subsystems are small and
lightweight, enabling them to be deployed in
the most challenging environments. ey’re
designed to require very little power: the GE
mCOM10-K1 rugged COM Express module,
for example, delivers 326 GFLOPS of pro-
cessing power yet consumes 10 watts or less.
And, because the Industrial Internet encom-
passes the harshest, most demanding loca-
tions – energy exploration, transportation,
heavy industry and so on – they are rugged,
able to withstand extremes of temperature,
vibration, shock, contaminant ingress, and so
on. ey are designed to operate right out at
the furthest edges of the network. at mas-
sive processing power is needed because these
brilliant machines are equipped with, or have
access to, multiple sensors of di erent types,
collecting enormous amounts of data that
needs to be captured, processed, analysed,
stored and transmitted.
Powered by the Industrial Internet and with
brilliant machines at its heart, this new way
of doing business is revolutionizing how
decisions are made and generating unprec-
edented value. Combined with the more
recent advances in computing, information
and communication systems - in addition to
data collection and data sensors - the Indus-
trial Internet delivers the power of data and
advanced analytics. With intelligent insights,
decision makers can drive smarter design,
operations, and proactive maintenance as
well as higher quality service and safety. e
Industrial Internet is taking place through
the convergence of the global industrial sys-
tem with the power of advanced computing,
analytics, low-cost sensing and new levels
of connectivity a orded by the Internet. It
brings together three key elements: brilliant
machines, advanced analytics, and people at
work. It drives powerful outcomes and a ords
new possibilities for industry - enabling busi-
nesses to reach never seen before perfor-
mance levels.
Take, for example, an oil and gas company that
can increase asset performance by 10% and
more, or improve production uptime by more
than 20%, or lower overall total cost of own-
ership by 15%. ese are signi cant outcomes
that companies are achieving today by con-
necting their machines, data and people and
leveraging well-orchestrated analytics. Even
a 1% productivity increase in the oil and gas
industry from the application of the Industrial
Internet could generate approximately $90
billion of value. Or supposing a manufacturer
could drive inventory costs down by more
than 15%, or improve quality by over 10% or
enable labour e ciencies by 30%. ese are
the real-life results of forward-looking manu-
facturers that have taken steps to leverage the
power of the Industrial Internet. Such numer-
