Excited about the Internet of Things? Then check out Connected World, the Internet of Things Conference. One session took place in Berlin in March and the next one is coming up in Chicago in September. Registration is open now.
One of the features in Berlin was a hackathon session in which participants tried out new ideas. One of those ideas was figuring out to catch a ball with a smartphone. Not an obviously useful task, but the point is to develop a new way of thinking about industry.What has to be done before a phone can catch a ball? For one thing, it has to be able to determine where the ball is. It has to know that the ball has been thrown to it. It has to be fairly precise about the movements required for catching and — until the catching itself is automated — it has to communicate the correct movements to a human being.
Industrial tools can now communicate with industrial machinery, robots, and workers, but that capacity can’t be turned into a useful part of modern industry until designers of tools and machines begin to keep that capacity top of mind.
NewEquipment recently asked, “How do we turn dumb data into smart answers?” Given an industrial motor that knows that its temperature is rising and can tell someone else that fact, what can usefully be done with that information? Given a factory floor where every motion of the product is visible on a kiosk, what can the machine operators do with that information to improve productivity or safety or profitability?
Making machines’ ability to communicate into something useful will require a change in the way we think about the machinery in our facilities, our workflow, and maybe ourselves.
In the meantime, we can provide phone service, field service, and factory repair and reman for all Rexroth electric motion control components, current or legacy. Caqll us today or put our phone number into your phone for future use.