By Mike Santora
At this year’s PTDA Canadian Conference, the Power Transmission Distributor’s Association chose to bring in a speaker to address the buzzword on the tips of everyone’s tongue: Big Data. A suprise to no one, the big question wasn’t “how do I collect data from my motion system?” but rather, “what do I do with this stuff now that I have it?”
Dr. Sean Wise, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Ryerson University, spoke to the group about the building blocks of using big data effectively and what the the big data future might look like for power transmission. While not convinced the smart factory Shanri-La some have envisioned will actually be here by 2020, he says it is on the way.
“I don’t think that at the grass roots everyone is racing to deploy them [big data initiatives], but they are starting. In certain regions, Germany for example, and in the manufacturing sector, the government is pushing this: providing tools, mandates, and reporting… all in the hopes that if everyone is on the same page with big data that overall, the industry will be more successful.”
Dr. Wise closed the presentation with 6 key takeways for understanding the entry-level basics for a company’s big data strategy.
- Faster analysis leads to better decisions.
- One copy in the cloud-Streamlining is crucial.
- More diversity not more data- “The more multiple data sources you can tap into, the better your insights will be. Simply getting more data of the same type is not going to be that valuable,” said Wise.
- Esponential not incremental growth.
- Focus on an existing pain- “For example ‘we lose three out of four customer’s a year…’ WHY?”
- Adopt or die.
Filed Under: IoT • IIoT • Internet of things • Industry 4.0, Commentaries • insights • Technical thinking
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