Two weeks have passed since Cisco Live US, and yet the excitement still resonates with me. in June. We successfully concluded our second annual Cisco Reside U.S. event. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Summit witnessed its biggest attendance to date. Industry leaders converged to share knowledge, track skill trends and hurdles, and collaborate during focused industry breakout sessions.
The discussions have proven enlightening, with industry insights gathered directly from potential clients in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sector, providing valuable insight into their key concerns. For many, the most valuable aspect of having close friendships was being able to engage in meaningful conversations with others who shared similar experiences and struggles; simply knowing that they weren’t alone in facing comparable challenges brought a sense of comfort.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) summit brought together experts to explore the transformative potential of connectivity and data analytics in industries. Key takeaways included:
Industry 4.0 is not just about sensors and connectivity, but also about using data insights to drive operational excellence? The IIoT can help companies make more informed decisions by providing real-time data on equipment performance, supply chain optimization, and predictive maintenance?
A key challenge lies in ensuring the cybersecurity of industrial systems, which are increasingly connected to the internet. Companies must prioritize security measures to prevent unauthorized access and protect sensitive data.
The IIoT also holds promise for sustainable development, enabling industries to reduce waste, increase efficiency, and create new business models that support a low-carbon economy? The potential is vast, with estimates suggesting that the global market could reach $5 trillion by 2023?
To realize this potential, companies must invest in digital skills training, as well as infrastructure and technology upgrades. The IIoT requires a multidisciplinary approach, involving IT, OT, and business stakeholders to drive innovation and growth?
In a pre-event survey, we discovered that leaders across various industries reiterated cybersecurity as their top priority for the year, mirroring last year’s findings. As industrial control systems (ICS) evolve with enhanced embedded technologies and interconnectedness, organisations seek innovative ways to achieve comprehensive OT network visibility, ensure secure remote access, and isolate their operational networks. As conversations with various prospects revealed a shared desire to seamlessly integrate safety enforcement automation and expand it throughout their industrial networks, this highlights the critical importance of establishing a comprehensive and robust safety framework from inception.
As the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) landscape evolves, companies face a significant challenge in recruiting and retaining personnel with expertise that spans both operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) domains, thereby facilitating effective communication and collaboration between these two critical areas. What steps are being taken to harness the power of human knowledge and technological advancements to streamline processes and drive efficiency? It is crucial that educational institutions bridge the gap between information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT), as we’ve learned firsthand from a trusted college source about their innovative partnership to equip students with cutting-edge IT/OT skills and support companies in attracting and developing talent.
Indeed, numerous discussions revolved around the significant impact AI is having on driving innovation and optimizing processes within the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Digitization is transforming industries across the board, with the virtualization of core competencies becoming an undeniable reality. As industries increasingly focus on network modernization, mobility emerged as a top priority, with Wi-Fi technologies being deployed to enable seamless connectivity and support for emerging applications. The discussion emphasized the crucial need for secure and robust access to information within industrial edge devices, assets, and applications.
Each of our breakout summit discussions yielded valuable takeaways as well. Discover new perspectives and innovative strategies by exploring best practices from a wide range of industries?
Manufacturing Breakout: Key Takeaways
Main manufacturers are seeking dependable, always-on lossless Wi-Fi technologies, with demand steadily increasing. Despite ongoing challenges with reliable Wi-Fi connectivity, our solutions empower users to harness the potential of cellular devices and autonomous vehicles like AGVs, which necessitate rock-solid, low-latency connections with zero packet loss, undeterred by environmental hurdles or RF interference.
As manufacturers update their facilities, the choice between a routine downtime and a catastrophic failure that incurs costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars can be stark. A robust, adaptable, secure, and predictable community is crucial for advancements in areas such as hardware resource virtualization, zero-trust security, and AI-powered manufacturing applications.
Cisco’s organizational framework facilitates the acquisition of secure and reliable knowledge, empowering the development of AI and machine learning models that inform optimized manufacturing processes, guide process management, support predictive maintenance, and enable data-driven production decisions. We also learned from an electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing buyer that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to produce some of the most environmentally friendly, sustainable EV batteries globally, at a remarkable 70% reduction in carbon emissions per battery compared to competitors.
Utilities Breakout: Key Takeaways
As power demands surge, utility organizations must integrate large-scale sustainable practices while simultaneously improving safety, efficiency, and reliability. To meet these demands, upgrading the skills matrix and the decentralized infrastructure it relies on is crucial.
Our clients express a pressing need to accelerate cybersecurity efforts to safeguard critical energy infrastructure, harness the potential of emerging technologies such as 5G and eSIMs, and implement scalable network management and automation tools to minimize downtime and boost efficiency? Utilities companies struggle with the complex management of backhaul communication networks, seeking solutions to optimize their operational efficiency. The Ukraine crisis has starkly underscored the crucial importance of robust infrastructure grid resilience, particularly in the face of extreme adversity.
With that said, we explored the feasibility of leveraging ? to safeguard and upscale grid infrastructure behind robust firewalls, considering the rapidly shifting threat landscape and escalating complexity of cyber attacks? SD-WAN offers a solution for zero-touch provisioning, enabling the standardization of security policies across all routers, thereby minimizing the risk of human error and configuration inconsistencies.
Transportation Breakout: Key Takeaways
As the global economy relies heavily on the daily movement of billions of people and tons of goods, expertise fuels the critical infrastructure that underpins it, with the transportation sector accounting for one of the largest skill-based debt obligations in the Industrial Internet of Things era? Despite being publicly funded, many of these techniques operate on limited budgets. Companies sense a pressing need to streamline, contemporize, and amplify their digital presence at scale; yet, they must make judicious investments and choose the ideal networking infrastructure that is secure, elastic, and streamlined.
The primary hurdles faced by Departments of Transportation (DOTs), cities, and countries as they upgrade their infrastructure with Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)? Organizations are seeking to make strategic investments amidst heightened cyberattack surfaces, intensifying external regulatory pressures, and cybersecurity mandates such as CISA and Europe’s NIS2 directive?
A transportation official revealed how AI will enhance civic security by anticipating visitor flows, shortening travel times, embracing automation, and engaging in predictive maintenance to prevent catastrophic events like train derailments. To fully capitalize on the benefits of AI and ML, organizations must invest in infrastructure that can efficiently handle vast amounts of data across their premises, core systems, and cloud platforms.
Traditional IT infrastructures have long since adopted software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) solutions to dramatically reduce upfront capital expenditures, enhance overall system dependability, expedite issue resolution times, and gain deeper insights into Wide Area Network performance and functionality. We’re seeing several of our OT (Operations Technology) prospects embracing the innovative features of Cisco’s Catalyst SD-WAN solution. A rail buyer relies on us as a trusted partner for their operational areas, seeking solutions that enable evolving connectivity, boost visibility, yield cost savings, and amplify automation. By adopting SD-WAN, they have streamlined the management of critical visitor traffic while also simplifying network segmentation, ultimately fostering greater synergy between IT and OT teams across their organization.
By convening top industry professionals to share insights and tackle the obstacles driving innovation in Industrial IoT, we gained valuable experiences that emphasized the pressing need for embracing cutting-edge technologies to safeguard and link future prospects across all industrial sectors. As industries seek to modernize their networks and position themselves for a more connected and data-driven future, it’s essential that we prioritize the needs of our customers. Together, we will drive meaningful advancement and ensure a lasting legacy.
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