5 step of a successful implementation of IIoT solutions
Through the many years experiences in IIoT (industrial internet of things) for the oil, gas and chemicals industries, we would like to summarize the few recommendations that we can give to anyone who would like to implement IIoT solutions to optimize their processes. Such steps are based on our specific experience but can be applied to any IIoT solution.
Here are the 5 steps for a successful implementation of IIoT solutions:
- Define your involvement
- Start small but think big
- Change process to automate operations
- Set and control KPIs
- Further adjust process to maximize the savings
Define your involvement
What are you able and willing to do? Are you interested and do you have the resources for the following tasks required by your project?
Plan orders of goods, manages stocks, purchase/activate/manage/deactivate communication subscriptions, manage field tasks (installations, maintenance, uninstallations), devices management.
It’s also interesting to evaluate who is the best fitted to perform those various tasks, you, us or an external partner.
In the past 20 years, we have worked in every possible way, adapting to what our customers requested, and also alternating between selling the hardware & service and a service deal only. Our final aim has always been to coach our customers when they want to do it themselves and taking-over when they don’t want to do it, to make the whole project a success. One key aspect that is often underestimated is the management of the field work. This is something that big cloud providers never mentioned but any solution. But it’s a reality: any IIoT hardware installed somewhere will, at some point in time, require maintenance. The main variable is how reliable the hardware, the network and the network operator are, to reduce such maintenance the minimum. In order to automate such field work and the device management, we have developed already 5 years ago a task management module, called TrackUP™ (addon module of Oil Link™ our cloud portal) that helped us in growing significantly without requiring more resources.
Start small but think big
It’s fine to run some pilots to validate the partner and the technologies in your country and application but never forget to think big. For a pilot, it’s more efficient to locate it in a smaller territory to optimize the density of the installation and there for the installation cost. Once, reassured of the fit, think big as the larger the coverage, the cheaper cost per point will be. The hardware and the installation will also be cheaper and the return on investment faster.
Change processes to automate operations
Even before starting a deployment, it is key to think of the internal processes that will need to be adapted. You shouldn’t keep working exactly as you used to, specially that now you are getting valuable data coming up automatically. We see many companies that haven’t changed the way, they used to work, and we feel that don’t embrace the full power of IIoT and don’t maximize the savings that are easily in reach. And for this, some changes are required. One easy integration is to import the stock level in a logistic system and automate the delivery planning. We can also trigger a delivery imported automatically in your ERP, once certain criteria (low level threshold and nr of days before a dry run) are met.
Set and control KPIs
Set the important KPIs for your business and monitor them. Oil Link™ provides already many insights like the logistic performance index allowing our customers to view how their logistics is currently managed, which especially useful when it’s subcontracted to external companies. The integrated cockpit charts with drop size distribution over time is also very useful to quickly view how our customer are improving or not their logistics.
Further adjust process to maximize the savings
Finally, based on the evolution of the KPIs, it’s very likely that further adjusting the processes to fine-tune the operations. This will be required throughout the life of the project. These multiple improvements will lead to a maximisation of the savings. We usually this in a multi-year project of about 3 years.
If you’d like to know more of how to start successfully with IIoT, please contact us.