IoT Monitoring — The Perfect Revenue Insurance
In God we trust. All others we monitor.
US Naval Intelligence Motto
No one likes being monitored. Even the word monitor makes me think of 1984’s Big Brother. Someone watching over my shoulder; someone snickering and judging my every move. Now, monitoring devices are so pervasive we never know when or where our movements and behaviors are being tracked. It makes me paranoid! Why would businesses ever want to inflict this potential evil upon their employees?
Practical Asset Monitors
I don’t think anyone would have a problem if the doctor put a monitor on their heart to protect them from a heart attack. Most would have the attitude: “Is it on yet?!” There is a risk/reward equation we instantly answer: it’s worth it. The invasive surveillance is worth the trouble. We don’t want to die.
What if we are considering a critical air conditioning unit for a large revenue event — like Game 1 of the NBA Finals? With the high profile nature and revenue magnitude, any Director would immediately approve monitoring this critical asset. Any maintenance personnel would, similarly, not take issue with this being monitored. In fact, it would more than likely make their job easier.
The real determination is around how critical the asset is in capturing business revenue, and how expensive the monitoring is. Setting up a Starship Enterprise control room environment for a single ice cream stand pulling in $100 per day would be ludicrous. The same is true of what the “Johnson Controls” and “Tranes” of the world typically recommend. Some owners are given quotes for tens of thousands of dollars to control a simple hallway rooftop unit. There would be no reason to spend millions of dollars to oversee a process which only nets a few hundred dollars. We need to be careful in how we evaluate what we think captures revenue. Sometimes people undervalue things they should not.
IoT
The “Internet of Things” has drastically impacted the install price and viability of monitoring practically everything from the opening and closing of doors to the individual light levels in every single office cubicle. There needs to be a true revenue reason for extreme monitoring detail, but it is at least feasible these days. The trick is installing proper devices for the proper assets.
After determining the revenue at risk is worth monitoring, it is now time to chose the monitoring hardware. There are two types of sensors: tag sensors, and advanced sensors. Tag sensors are the simplest of the two. They are great for temperature, humidity, light level, movement, moisture indication, and opening/closure of doors. Tag sensors are also the more economical choice. Advanced sensors are more ad-hoc and can be much more expensive. Miniature computer devices such as the Raspberry Pi expand monitoring capabilities to virtually anything that can be programmed.
The communication network for the monitoring must also be considered. Currently, we have 4G technology which allows devices to connect practically everywhere, but it comes with a weighty price. The other options are to use an existing wide area network (WAN), or chose a technology utilizing a radio receiver unit to pick up multiple sensors. Eventually, we will be in a 5G world with true fabric networking, but for now, we must use what technology is available. Fabric networking is the future and it is smart to make sure the tech invested in will be compatible.
Data Management
Hardware and networking are only a small portion of the IoT challenge. Data storage, processing, and analysis are the larger puzzles to solve. These monitors can provide data every hour, minute, or second if needed. There are 8,760 hours in a year, 525,600 minutes, and 31,536,000 seconds. Just a few sensors can produce gigabytes and terabytes of data. Programming notification alarms and automatic email/SMS texts from this continuous stream of data is daunting. Therein lies the crux of the challenge — handling this data without causing analysis paralysis.
These are the reasons any IoT endeavor should be well planned and tested before a full-scale implementation is undertaken. Monitoring should be practical, economically sound, and ultimately prove so useful to the maintenance personnel they don’t know how they worked without it. These devices are an insurance policy, or more aptly, an assurance policy that empowers the maintenance personnel to do what they do best — keep the facility running and lengthen the usable life of the assets. IoT monitoring should not be thought of as a predatory government agency waiting to strike. IoT monitoring is a benefit for the facility and assists personnel in assuring assets run at peak performance.
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Originally published at roireports.com.
