The advent of IoT has transformed the way in which modern companies, especially manufacturers, conduct their business. Manufacturers are now integrating their traditional, physical product offerings with backend services based on and supported by the internet. For example, the best VFD manufacturers in India, SCADA system manufacturers in India, and even Industrial metal detectors suppliers in India, such as Indexel Engineering Pvt Ltd, are moving in that direction. New entrants in the market have no other option but to come equipped with a range of IoT based offerings if they wish to make a place for themselves in the market.
Even though the picture looks rosy for manufacturers who have taken to the IoT, it isn’t exactly a bed of roses. With every innovation, come a handful of its own, specific challenges, and things are no different with IoT solution development. There are a plethora of challenges facing IoT solution developers. Here are 3 of the biggest and most urgent among them all.
#1 Developing customizable IoT solutions
Even though IoT solutions and applications are rooted in individual IoT projects, it is only a matter of time before these solutions become pre-packaged or standardized. IoT solution vendors have already begun to develop standard IoT solutions, which are then sold in different markets and to multiple customers. We have already observed a similar pattern in ERP, CRM, PLM, and various other packaged applications.
However, even while manufacturers are moving towards standardization, the consumers are not exactly following suit. They are demanding customizable IoT solutions that could fulfill their requirements and satisfy their business-specific needs. Customization, in fact, is the need of the hour. But why exactly? The reason is simple - every customer has varying requirements for process integration. For instance, different customers may take different routes for solving a problem which occurs during a particular tightening step. Besides, customers may also require different tools that need to be integrated. Hence, standardized solutions are not long term options for IoT solutions. Customizable, made-to-order solutions are!
What acts as a hurdle in the move towards customization is the lack of hardware knowledge that developers possess. Most developers are software engineers which in a way limits their exposure to hardware-related knowledge. And IoT essentially deals with connecting devices, i.e. hardware.
#2 Building IoT solutions at a rapid pace
The ‘need for speed’ has spread to every business, every service, every innovation, and pretty much every single thing in the modern world. For a space that is expanding its base as rapidly as IoT solutions are, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this ‘need for speed’ is escalating pretty rapidly in IoT solutions development.
IoT projects are both revolutionary and evolutionary in nature. As a result, most of them need applications that could be developed as well as modified rapidly and flexibly. This fact becomes even more relevant for projects that are still in their early, or rather, exploratory stages because requirements could very well change during the later, and more mature stages.
Also, certain IoT applications have pretty high and rigid requirements pertaining to the data value, the performance, as well as algorithmic complexity. These may take time to construct but the client may be in a hurry to launch their product and would hence require the IoT solution provider to come up with the solution as quickly as possible.
#3 Effective management of heterogeneity in IoT product portfolio
A lot of product vendors are planning to introduce a variety of new services like predictive maintenance, usage-oriented billing, etc by leveraging device connectivity as well as cloud-based applications. However, they struggle to manage their IoT product portfolio’s heterogeneity.
The ever-increasing levels of heterogeneity could be attributed to 3 factors - a vast number of product categories, numerous product versions, and the perennial evolution of each individual product. This combination makes it extremely difficult for IoT vendors to expand their range of services. But they know that if they want to sustain themselves in this business, then they have to find a way through this problem.
These 3 challenges need to be given their due importance and dealt with on a priority basis. There is still a lot of time and scope for IoT solution providers to come up with answers before the customers become impatient. Industrial automation systems, in particular, need to be optimized for dealing with these challenges. And considering how rapidly this space has progressed, you shouldn’t be surprised if the solutions are found sooner rather than later!
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