internet of things digitalization (iot)

In any process automation & control industry, the most widely used control algorithm is proportional-integral-derivative (PID), according to National Instruments. PID control has been widely adopted throughout industrial control markets, dating back to the beginning of trying to optimize any process. 

It’s a quiet December afternoon in 2015. In the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Western Ukraine, workers are preparing to finish their day and make their way home into a cold night. Inside the Prykarpattyaoblenergo control center, which distributes power to the region’s residents, operators are nearing the end of their shift. Suddenly, an unprecedented series of cyberattacks takes place as they watch in amazement. The attacks eventually knock out parts of Ukraine’s electric grid, thus cutting the power to nearly a quarter of a million residences.

The May 2019 The RELIABILITY Conference™ saw a significant increase in the number of sessions and vendors that included the Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, or digitization topics/themes. The IoT related content has been on a steady rise for the past couple of years, with no sign of slowing down as evidenced by the agendas for the MaximoWorld 2019 and IMC-2019 conferences in August and December 2019, respectively. Of course, if you are in the business of maintenance reliability, this subject prevalence is nothing new to you.