More big companies join the IoT bandwagon
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the Internet beyond PCs, tablets and smartphones. It includes devices that have embedded technology to sense either their internal states or the external environment. The IoT will consist primarily of machines talking to one another, with computer-connected humans observing, analysing and acting upon the resulting ‘big data’ explosion.
IoT is set to boom over the next decade. IoT devices will dwarf the number of PCs, tablets and smartphones. According to Gartners’s latest research, IoT will grow to 26 billion units by 2020, an almost 30-fold increase from 0,9 billion units today, resulting in $19 trillion in global value.
As the Internet and the worldwide web developed, more and more mobile computing devices became connected. Web servers delivered ever richer content with which they could interact. This first new Internet/web revolution has already changed the world profoundly.
But the next disruptive development, in which the majority of Internet traffic will be generated by ‘things’ rather than by human-centred computers, has the potential to change it even more dramatically. A year ago GE announced that it is targeting the industrial Internet as the next big growth arena. Well, now everyone else is jumping on the same bandwagon.
Cisco’s CEO, John Chambers reflects that you usually see market transitions occur three to seven years out. He says that Cisco started in on IoT at least six years ago. He predicted that most of the computing capability and analytics will be at the edge of the network to turn around data into major leverage points. The bottom line for Cisco: IoT is going to be a $19 trillion profit market in the next few years. That includes $2,9 trillion for manufacturing alone.
IoT is becoming the backbone of Cisco’s overall business strategy. Chambers stresses that Cisco’s IoT game plan combines the company’s cloud strategy with data analytics, mobile, collaboration, and most important of all, security. He reiterated that it’s really about how quickly you can get the desired business outcomes.
Chaotic storage
I hate shopping and I am an Amazon nut. I buy everything via Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer. My selection arrives on my doorstep within just a couple of days. Do you wonder how Amazon manages to deliver any of the huge variety of products to your doorstep so cheaply and timeously? What does it cost them to put all those items on the shelf, select them unerringly and deliver them so quickly?
Amazon delivers from 80 giant warehouses, strategically located near key shipping hubs around the world. At the heart of this global operation are people and a logistics system known as chaotic storage, which is like organised confusion. It is an organic shelving system without permanent areas or sections. There is no area just for books or any specific products as you might expect in a retail store layout. The product’s characteristics and attributes are irrelevant. What is important is the unique barcode associated with every product that enters the warehouse.
Every single shelf space inside an Amazon warehouse has a barcode. Every incoming product that requires storage is assigned a specific barcode that matches the shelf space in which it will be stored, allowing free space to be filled quickly and efficiently. There are several key advantages to the chaotic storage system. The first is flexibility – freed-up space can be refilled immediately. Next is simplicity – new employees don’t need to learn where products are located; they simply need to find the storage shelf within the warehouse. They don’t need to know what the product is, just where it is.
Last is optimisation. Amazon must handle many millions of orders, which means that at any given moment there is a long list of products that need to be picked from the shelves and prepared for shipment. Since Amazon deals with such a wide variety of products there are a few exceptions to the rule. Really fast-moving articles do not adhere to the same storage system since they enter and leave the warehouse so quickly. Really bulky and heavy products still require separate storage areas and perishable goods are not ideal for obvious reasons.
With this storage system a wide variety of products can be found located next to each other – a necklace could be located beside a DVD and underneath a set of power tools. It’s a fascinating system and chaotic storage is the best way to describe it.
Jim Pinto is a technology futurist, international speaker and automation industry commentator. You can e-mail him at [email protected].
Or review his prognostications and predictions on his website www.jimpinto.com
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