The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will be the primary driver of the fourth Industrial Revolution and Cisco and other companies are at the forefront. It’s commonly referred to as Industrie 4.0.

“Industrie 4.0 is not digitization or digitalization of mechanical industry, because this is already there,” said Prof. Dr.-Ing. Peter Gutzmer, Deputy CEO and CTO of Schaeffler AG. “Industrie 4.0 is getting the data real-time information structure in this supply and manufacturing chain.”

“If we use IoT data in a different way we can be more flexible so we can adapt faster and make decisions if something unforeseen happens, even in the cloud and even with cognitive systems,” says Gutzmer.

From the 2013 Siemens video below:
“In intelligent factories machines and products will communicate with each other, cooperatively driving production. Raw materials and machines are interconnected, within an internet of things. The objective, highly flexible individualized and resource friendly mass production. That is the vision for the fourth industrial revolution.”

“The excitement surrounding the fourth industrial revolution or Industrie 4.0 is largely due to the limitless possibilities that come with connecting everything, everywhere, with everyone,” said Martin Dube, Global Manufacturing Leader in the Digital Transformation Group at Cisco, in a blog post today. “The opportunities to improve processes, reduce downtime and increase efficiency through the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is easy to see in manufacturing, an industry heavily reliant on automation and control, core examples of operational technology.”

Connectivity between machines is vital for the success of Industrie 4.0, but it is far from simple. “The manufacturing environment is full of connectivity and communication protocols that are not interconnected and often not interoperable,” notes Dube. “That’s why convergence and interoperability are critical if this revolution is to live up to (huge) expectations.”

Dube explains that convergence is the concept of connecting machines so that communication is possible and interoperability is the use of a standard technology enabling that communcation.

Cisco Announces Interoperable IIoT Standard

Cisco announced today that a number of key tech companies have agreed on an Interoperable IIoT Standard. The group, which includes ABB, BoschRexroth, B&R, Cisco, General Electric, National Instruments, Parker Hannifin, Schneider Electric, SEW Eurodrive and TTTech, is aiming for an open, unified, standards-based and interoperable IIoT solution for communication between industrial controllers and to the cloud, according to Cisco:

ABB, Bosch Rexroth, B&R, CISCO, General Electric, KUKA, National Instruments (NI), Parker Hannifin, Schneider Electric, SEW-EURODRIVE and TTTech are jointly promoting OPC UA over Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) as the unified communication solution between industrial controllers and to the cloud.

Based on open standards, this solution enables industry to use devices from different vendors that are fully interoperable. The participating companies intend to support OPC UA TSN in their future generations of products.