“The technology is there,” says Rick Veague, CTO at IFS North America. “This isn’t stuff that people are dreaming up right now. It exists; it’s real; it’s usable.”
And yet for a large swath of discrete manufacturing organizations, context-aware technologies aren’t in use – yet. That’s a problem, says Veague, because an asset “doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it exists in some context.”
Being able to correlate different types of data – including details of an asset’s operating and maintenance history and the precise conditions in which it’s operating now – can help manufacturers make smarter, just-in-time maintenance and production decisions, say context-aware tech’s biggest proponents. In fact, context-aware technologies are an essential part of asset management’s transformation into a predictive rather than reactive enterprise, they assert.
More-widespread adoption of context-aware tools should follow from falling costs for sensors and new automation technologies, but it also will hinge on a clear understanding of what the technology can do and why it’s worthwhile.
Let’s take a look at five top questions about context-aware technology.
Part 1: What does it look like, and what's it worth to my company?
Part 2: Who's leading the charge?
Part 3: What are the hurdles to adoption, and what's next?
