One of the many advantages of the Internet of Things (IoT) is that it has introduced additional revenue streams. But to truly capitalize on these, companies might need to rely on yet another technology: blockchain.

The linear transactions involved in a traditional economy typically mean that a company produces a widget at the end of a series of interlinked processes — a product that customers then buy. Supply chain vendor interactions and marketing strategies cater to this linear model with the goal of increasing efficiencies and revenues along the way. 

Case Study: Advancing Smart Manufacturing Operations Value with Industry 4.0 Platform

But the traditional economy is giving way to new ways of doing business, spurred in part by Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled devices. The sharing economy upends the notion of an asset and the end product — think Uber and how it uses vehicles as shared assets. 

IoT allows for a larger number of opportunities where intelligence can be monetized. The assumption is that IoT-embedded devices used in manufacturing or other operations can yield valuable information about how they are being used. These device manufacturers in turn can buy and leverage that intelligence to fine tune use cases and product capabilities.

A secure ecosystem for IoT

To facilitate such sharing of intelligence, enterprises need to enable external entities to dip in and out of the information data pool that IoT generates. 

The enterprise needs to build an ecosystem comprising the following building blocks:

• Enable access to the intelligence through an application programming interface
• Enable commercial transactions to facilitate data transfer

While the idea of information monetization is a tempting one, companies also need to ensure that they’re maintaining a strict firewall around proprietary data, allowing only authorized packets to be shared.

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This is where blockchain can be useful. “Blockchain introduces trust,” says Jagmeet Singh, Director, Connected Products, at Cognizant. Think of blockchain as a ledger of information points where each data point is linked to the previous set in a series, creating a chain. The handy aspects of blockchain technology is that it always points to a single source of truth. Data cannot be altered, only added to. Such powerful encryption makes blockchain technology especially useful to deploy in conjunction with IoT devices. 

Instead of having to authenticate each transaction, blockchain can be used at scale to make authentication of partners much easier and faster, Singh says. “Now that you have established trust between devices, the speed of granting permissions to access needed data can be faster. You don’t have to go through authentication very time you make a call to a new device for transmission of data,” he adds.

Singh cautions that IoT embrace of blockchain is still not a reality. Stumbling blocks include the difficulties in bringing together different stakeholders with varying objectives. “You have to clearly articulate what the development infrastructure is going to look like, you have to navigate compliance issues,” Singh says. 

Blockchain introduces trust (and therefore, security) and transparency into the IoT equation, thereby enabling operations intelligence at scale, Singh says. Enterprises are evaluating which IoT-enabled assets might participate in such a new shared economy and what the infrastructure for such a system might look like. 

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How many times have you visited a grocery store the day before a snowstorm or other major weather event only to find the bread and milk aisles wiped clean? What might be a disappointment for you is also a missed opportunity for grocery stores, an industry with an already razor-thin 2% margin.

Hungry for efficiencies

Inventory management, especially for perishables, is a delicate dance. Too little of it and grocers have lost a revenue opportunity every time a customer leaves empty-handed. Too much of it and grocers lose revenue again, this time from spoilage or having to slash prices to clear shelves. Spoilage is a significant problem — grocery retailers lose an astounding $70 million annually because of food simply going bad. 

Market economics further muddies the picture. A whopping 82% of grocery companies are increasing their stock of fresh foods in response to customer demand so there’s simply more perishables to manage — and therefore more at stake.

To ensure not too much capital is tied up in unsold goods, grocery stores forecast demand and supply based on a variety of conditions, including weather, time of year, and even weekly foot traffic. But as Cognizant as observed, a whole host of additional factors affecting inventory management can drain grocery store revenues.

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Smart systems

One of Cognizant’s clients, a major supermarket chain, found that working with older equipment also challenged inventory management. 

Internet of Things (IoT)-embedded sensors track ambient temperature, temperature of the food, humidity and even electric current flowing into refrigerators to keep a pulse on perishables. But this leads to grocery stores drowning in data. The sensors cry wolf too often forcing the retailer to waste expensive technician time on every perceived crisis. Such waste happens because too often, sensors do not accurately reflect the whole story. 

Cognizant has shown that data alone is not enough, strategic reading of the data tea leaves also matters in increasing efficiencies. Using the IoT sensors, Cognizant helped the grocery retailer monitor inventory in real time — the pressure on sensitized shelves changes when inventory counts drop — and restock accordingly. Even better, Cognizant’s solution analyzed the data feed in real time, at the edge. Algorithms accounted for many variables including work load, cost of energy at different times of the day, whether the door was open or closed, to recommend intelligent solutions. 

Using edge data analytics and IoT sensors, grocery stores can automate many fixes, proactive reorder inventory and even automatically churn out work orders for technicians only as and when needed.

When inventory management is a delicate and challenging operation, grocery retailers need to be strategic about how they invest precious resources. IoT + edge analytics is a game-changer. It gives retailers the intelligence they need to deploy resources effectively and proactively so they can better cater to demand and cut waste. 

IoT-driven asset management and data analytics will be key to success in the grocery industry. Climate change has increased the clamor for sustainability and less food waste. The timing for smart solutions could not be better.

Read more about Cognizant’s IoT refrigeration solution here.

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You don’t always need a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The general premise driving the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics to deliver intelligence is that the end actions usually have to be executed through some kind of blanket (often human) intervention. The shaky fallacy at the core of this idea is that it takes a sledgehammer to a nut in that even small adjustments to operating conditions requires a large investment of resources. Smart edge computing addresses this challenge and applies a solution that is more proportional to the size of the problem.

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Whether it’s a thermostat or a light switch or a card reader, most edge devices that control today’s commercial facilities are passive and wired devices, says Datta Godbole, the chief technology officer for Honeywell Building Technologies. Smart edge computing introduces a more efficient way of corralling the power of IoT to deliver operations intelligence. Smart edge devices can act on intelligence on the frontlines and save the heavy-duty computing for the cloud.

Smart edge computing helps companies, including facility management organizations, distribute computing needs more efficiently: you execute the small changes at the edge and save the heavy lifting for the cloud. “Time critical decisions are executed quickly without going to the cloud, while cloud computing is great for analyzing long-term trends through AI algorithms,” Godbole says.

Decisions at the edge

It is this “quickly” factor, the latency that is saved, that makes smart edge computing so valuable as part of the equation IoT + smart edge computing = operations intelligence.

Imagine a commercial building packed with fire and smoke detectors. Facilities management needs to maintain and periodically inspect these devices, which involves days of intensive work. What if instead the smoke detector could signal when it’s ready for maintenance – much like your car does? “In the future, all equipment in the building will be smart and can diagnose themselves and ask for help,” Godbole says.

The IoT part of the equation comes from the many sensors measuring a variety of parameters including temperature, humidity, light, foot traffic, occupancy and more. The introduction of IoT expands the working data set so management can more finely calibrate the final experience. “If we have IoT sensors that blanket a whole building, that conduct micro-measurements of every part of the building, we get a much truer picture of what’s happening in the building and you can control air conditioning or heating accordingly,” Godbole says.

Case Study: Advancing Smart Manufacturing Operations Value with Industry 4.0 Platform

In a sense, IoT allows for both personalized comfort and efficiencies at scale. When an employee swipes her card and enters her workspace, what if IoT-embedded edge devices automatically gave her what she was looking for: a slightly warmer conference room, lighting that adjusted depending on where she was working and her favorite snacks lined up in the kitchen?

Foot traffic sensors and occupancy patterns in the long term can dictate heating and cooling requirements so management can optimize these over time.

The use of IoT in conjunction with smart edge computing will lead to a more efficient allocation of computing resources and better and faster decision-making. No longer do you need a sledgehammer for every problem, a fine scalpel will work even better.

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