IIoT Hype and Reality: Caterpillar Dips a Toe in Alternative Reality Technology

I recently interviewed former VP of research at IDC, Joe Barkai, about his new book, “The Outcome Economy: How the Industrial Internet of Things is Changing Every Business.” In our chat — which will appear on our IIoT page very soon — Barkai made a point about the very real transformative effect of IIoT on manufacturing but he worries about the hype.

As we discussed older equipment and the challenges in adding sensors, Barkai said:

But in many industries we need to be much more realistic and again, this is where some of those British headlines trouble me from time to time. By 2020, we’ll have five trillion devices connected and I’m looking at this, what does this number mean? First off, nobody knows. Secondly, what do you mean – all devices, all five trillion devices will be connected to each other?

Yesterday, a UK article from theengineer.co.uk appeared in my news feed and the hype alert went off  — such as ‘the revolution that will see billions of connected devices.’ However, the article had some “meat on the bone” for operations and maintenance folks.

The article describes how Caterpillar is testing tablets and alternate reality (AR) technology that offer visual overlays to allow maintenance techs to “see” operation and maintenance steps from their devices:

On stage in Boston, Heppelmann and Terri Lewis, Caterpillar’s digital and technology director, demonstrated how AR could work in an industrial environment. Using a connected Caterpillar generator set, the pair showed how a handheld tablet could provide an AR overlay on the equipment, providing step-by-step guides for operation and maintenance.

“When our customers rent our products, they want to make sure it can run,” said Lewis. “They want the whole experience of rental to be easy… They can also connect remotely to the product, understand where it’s at, know whether it’s being used and if it’s ready to be used.”

It’s also an interesting read on Bosch’s internal IIoT activities and how they want to move some of these home-grown products to market. Onward and upward.