What Should We Expect From the ‘Smart Cities’ of Tomorrow?

There are an awful lot of ‘smart’ things these days. Even many things that were previously ‘dumb’ are becoming ‘smart’ through the addition of sensors and decision logic. From street lamps to subways and everything in between, the very towns and cities we inhabit are joining the trend.

As cities like Seoul and Vienna (among many) are using technology to revamp their communication infrastructure and resource distribution, we all have an opportunity to learn some things about what we can expect when the ‘smart’ label gets slapped onto the towns and cities we call home.

So, what makes a city smart?

Unfortunately, the term ‘smart’ applies only to the city itself and not its citizens. A global tour of the world’s smartest cities is not likely to be any more personally enlightening than a stroll through any of our regular old 'dumb' cities. However, this global tour would likely reveal some of the common traits that these smart cities share, and shed some light on how and where resources are being applied to make these cities smarter.

A city is generally considered smart when it distinguishes itself from other cities in terms of its technology, urban planning, environment, and/or overall management.  

Smart cities are expected to be cleaner, safer, and more efficient than their dumb brethren. This is accomplished primarily through the application of new technologies, but also frequently requires entirely new models for organization and management.

Some of the more prominent features of today’s smart cities include:

• Green Buildings: Smart cities tend to erect new buildings (or enforce laws requiring others to erect buildings) that have the least possible environmental impact – both during construction and operation. Older buildings can be retrofit with more efficient appliances and sensors to help control lighting and temperature.
  
• Smart Mobility and Transport: Bike-sharing programs, smart traffic lights, sensor-based parking availability detection, and real-time communication about public transportation are some of the hallmarks of a smart city.
  
• More Efficient Utilities: In addition to employing alternative energy sources like solar and wind, smart cities are frequently more inclined to employ smart grid technology and use sensors to manage the distribution of water and reduce waste.
  
• More Engaged Citizens: Another common trait of smart cities is a pronounced effort to be more responsive to the needs of their human resources. Whether through smart street lights, cleaner streets, social media involvement, digital signage, and many other initiatives, smart cities are putting more effort into involving citizens in the city’s governance.
  

Of course, these are just a few of the many ways that cities are remaking themselves as smart cities. In some cases - in cities like Santiago and Tokyo – entire smart communities are being developed according to all of these principles and more.

Since a real economic incentive can be attached to the idea of reduced waste and greater energy efficiency, it is very likely that this trend will continue well into the 21^st century, until when eventually the smart cities of today will be referred to as simply “cities”.

Virtualville, USA

Tomorrow’s smart cities are going to require new tools to consolidate, organize, and analyze the voluminous data coming in from the city’s systems. New organizational models must be established and new technology must be deployed.

Remote monitoring and management systems like the one modeled in B-Scada’s Virtualville will become indispensable tools to city administrators, allowing management personnel a real-time view into any of the city’s systems from anywhere at any time. It also provides a means of automating certain processes according to particular rules. 

To learn more about B-Scada's Smart City platform, visit: http://votplatform.com. 

How To Improve Any Business Process

If you are responsible for managing a business or organization of any type, you have undoubtedly sought out opportunities to make things run more smoothly and efficiently. It's only natural. This means that responsible owners and managers are continually looking for opportunites to optimize their business processes. 

How about some free advice? 

First of all, let's be clear about what it is we're referring to when we use the term 'business process'. In short, a business process is defined as a collection of linked tasks which can find their end in the delivery of a service or product to a client. It has also been defined as a set of activities and tasks that - once completed - will accomplish an organizational goal.  

Any business (regardless of how poorly it may be run) employs some type of business process. Some are clearly better than others.

What we refer to as Business Process Management (BPM) can be defined as the set of techniques employed to map the flow of information and communication between various business assets and departments, identify opportunities for improvement, and establish and enforce rules to optimize the process moving forward. These techniques can (and should) be employed continually.

A BPM system can provide any company with several measurable benefits: 

• The ability to identify otherwise unknown inefficiencies
• Reduced downtime and cost associated with wasted time and material
• The ability to connect processes over multiple facilities and or operations
• Automation of repeated and/or predictable tasks 
• Establishment of a program for continual improvement

These benefits are very attainable. Provided you use the right tools and follow a simple procedure, anyone can realize the improved efficiency and reduced waste that BPM systems provide. And what is the correct procedure? In very simple terms:

1. Analyze Current Processes
   Create a business process map to paint a clear picture of the current flow of information between different business assets. Use this map to uncover inefficiencies and establish a preferred methodology.
2. Establish and Enforce New Rules
   Define rules for how you would like information to flow, and create workflow tasks to automate tasks or send automatic notifications to people that need to be involved in enforcing the new rules.
3. Implement, Train, Rinse and Repeat
   Once the new process is clearly defined and automated, ensure that all parties are fully trained and equipped to adhere to these new rules moving forward. You can create custom dashboards to track real-time data, create a centralized knowledge base that is shared and continually updated, and use automated real-time notifications to be sure that everyone is always aware of the current state of the process. Finally, ensure that your new process is fully repeatable and scalable to allow for continual evaluation and improvement.

Seems pretty simple, right? It can be when you combine your innate understanding of your business process with the right tools.

**B-Scada specializes in data acquisition and visualization technology that empowers business transofrmation. Learn more at http://scada.com

Is That SCADA or IoT?

Clearly, SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and IoT (Internet of Things) are very different things, right? We typically don't create new terms to describe things for which we already have terms, so yes. They are different, but maybe not as far removed from one another as we may think. As revolutionary as the end results may be, the truth is that the IoT is just a new name for a bunch of old ideas. In fact, in some ways the IoT is really just a natural extension and evolution of SCADA. It is SCADA that has burst free from its industrial trappings to embrace entire cities, reaching out over our existing internet infrastructure to spread like a skin over the surface of our planet, bringing people, objects, and systems into an intelligent network of real-time communication and control. 

Not entirely unlike a SCADA system – which can include PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers), HMI (Human Machine Interface) screens, database servers, large amounts of cables and wires, and some sort of software to bring all of these things together, an IoT system is also composed of several different technologies working together. That is to say you can’t just walk in to the electronics section of your local department store, locate the box labelled “IoT” and carry it up to the counter to check out.

It also means that your IoT solution may not resemble your neighbor’s IoT solution. It may be composed of different parts performing different tasks. There is no such a thing as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ IoT solution. There are, however, some common characteristics that IoT solutions will share:

• Data Access
  It’s obvious, but there has to be a way to get to the data we want to work with (i.e. sensors).
   
• Communication
  We have to get the data from where it is to where we are using it – preferably along with the data from our other ‘things’.
   
• Data Manipulation
  We have to turn that raw data into useful information. Typically, this means it will have to be manipulated in some way. This can be as simple as placing it in the right context or as complex as running it through a sophisticated algorithm.
   
• Visualization
  Once we have accessed, shared, and manipulated our data, we have to make it available to the people who will use it. Even if it’s just going from one machine to another (M2M) to update a status or trigger some activity, we still need some kind of window into the process in order to make corrections or to ensure proper operation.

There could be any number of other elements to your IoT system – alarm notifications, workflow, etc. – but these four components are essential and will be recognized from one IoT system to the next. Coincidentally (or not so coincidentally), these are technologies that all cut their teeth in the world of SCADA.


The IoT is the Next Generation of SCADA

Again, In many ways the IoT is a natural extension and evolution of SCADA. It is SCADA that has grown beyond industry and seeped into our daily lives. The IoT is essentially SCADA plus the new technology that has evolved since SCADA was first devised. Just like how in the late 18th Century, steam power put a hook in all other industrial technology and pulled it forward into a new era, electric power did the same thing a century later. Several decades later, with the advent of microchips and computer technology, once again industry was swept forward into a new era by the gravity of a single revolutionary technology. As we sit here today, well aware of the revolutionary power of what we call the ‘internet’, we are now feeling that gravity once again pulling us toward a new era.

Object Virtualization: Digitizing the World

We are changing our world. With the advent of new sensing and communication technologies, we are finding ways of making everyday objects more intelligent and connected. As we connect more and more things to one another, however, we are finding a need to democratize the process. We have to make different things the same, or at least equal. We are still trying to answer the Mad Hatter's famous riddle: How is a raven like a writing desk?  

Though Alice's time in Wonderland may have come and gone, ours is just beginning. While we may not be connecting ravens to writing desks (though nothing would surprise me at this point), we do have a need to connect seemingly unrelated objects in new ways.

One solution to this dilemma is the process of object virtualization. By creating virtual models, or representations, of the things you want to monitor and manage, you are putting 'things' on equal footing, creating new opportunities for analysis and task automation. 

To understand object virtualization, consider the contact list in your phone. A contact can be thought of as a virtual model of an actual person. It is something like a digital identity. Imagine you have a contact named Mary Smith. Mary has a name, a phone number (or two), an email address, maybe a photo. Mary can have a Facebook profile, a Twitter alias - you can even assign Mary a special ringtone. All of these things combine to create a virtual model of Mary stored in your phone.  

Now, to make your model of Mary a bit more intelligent and useful, you could add her date of birth, her hair color, her favorite book, her pet cat's name, or any number of different properties of Mary. If we slapped a bunch of sensors on Mary, we may know things like her current location, current body temperature, her heart rate, her blood pressure. If this information is communicated to your model in real time, you have an active, living representation of Mary that tells you more about her than she may know herself.

Imagine applying this same process to your house, your car, your toaster, or your favorite pair of socks. Now, maybe you can't think of a good reason for your socks to talk to your toaster, but they may have a thing or two to share with your washing machine. And maybe your house and your toaster can have a nice conversation about lowering your electric bill. Of course, your things aren't just talking to your other things. They can talk to other things anywhere. Do you think it might be helpful for your air conditioning system to know something about today's weather forecast? Or for your car to know about that new road construction on your way to work?

Your virtualized house doesn't care that it's a house. It may as well be an elephant or a water balloon. The same is true of your car, your refrigerator, or your lawn sprinklers. Virtual models can share information with other virtual models without regard for where the data is coming from or how it got there. Virtualization can make every "thing" accessible to every other "thing", and ultimately to you.


**B-Scada's VoT (Virtualization of Things) Platform allows you to create virtual models using data from multiple  and disparate sources, providing a simple platform for creating powerful and intelligent IoT (Internet of Things) applications. Learn more at http://votplatform.com.

Engineering a System of Systems (SoS)

"Everything affects everything else in one way or another. Whether you are aware of that or not does not change the fact that this is what is happening. That's why I say a business is a system ... any action will reverberate throughout the entire company."  - John Woods (Work in Progress)

The evolution of an enterprise resembles the evolution of any other type of organism. Processes become more complex as the enterprise grows; job requirements become more compartmentalized. Over time, complex and varied systems are developed or implemented to help personnel perform their very specific sets of tasks. Many enterprises today are composed of many of these separate silos of activity that do not share information with each other - and when they do it is not in real time.

This organizational model has served us well, generally helping to improve operational efficiency, increasing productivity, and providing better tools for people to do their jobs. Now, as we enter the era of connected devices and the IoT (Internet of Things), it is becoming more apparent that these old models that were designed to make things more efficient are actually serving as obstacles to taking the next step.

Before now, these separate silos of activity allowed people to focus more specifically on the task at hand without worrying about any other tasks. Today’s reality is that an enterprise truly operates as more of a continuum. All of these separate systems must work in concert to ensure the health of the organism as a whole.

Imagine your own personal organism. How would your lungs work correctly without information from your circulatory system? And how could your circulatory system deal with injuries without information from your nervous system? Our brains, hearts, lungs, stomachs, kidneys and livers must be in constant communication with one another at all times. And any one of these systems can be impacted at any time but new information pulled in from outside through our senses. A healthy organism is not one where each individual system performs its specific tasks as efficiently as possible. A healthy organism is one in which every system is constantly striving to ensure the greater good of the entire organism. 

Many enterprises are discovering today that they need to implement a system of systems.  

Implementing a system that encompasses all of your existing systems can increase your capacity for management, analysis, and understanding of underlying business problems and opportunities. Gain real-time insight into how altering just one component of a process can impact all other processes. For instance, witness in real time how a change to a maintenance schedule effects productivity and asset performance. Discover opportunities to reduce energy consumption or create greater coordination between your production schedule and your supply chain. 

A system of systems can promote greater high-level situational awareness, increase your capacity for interdepartmental collaboration, and allow for entirely new models of analysis and automation. Imagine the following scenario: a plant floor machine's throughput drops below what's expected; immediately, an alarm notification is sent and the machine is automatically shut down for maintenance. Another task is triggered to generate a work order; the work order is automatically assigned to the technician who is closest and best able to perform the work (the technician is notified in real time on his smart phone or tablet). While the maintenance is performed, all of the day's numbers related to production, profit, warehousing, shipping, etc. are automatically adjusted to accommodate the downtime. Meanwhile, the technician is able to perform the maintenance, test the machine, and update the work order right there on the spot (on his phone, for instance). All other systems are automatically aware of the work order's completion in real-time and everything is adjusted again accordingly. 

Imagine creating custom interfaces for each role in your organization. Depending on an individual's job responsibilities, he/she could have real-time access to all data necessary to do their jobs - regardless of where that data was generated or where it is stored.

With a little imagination, there is a seemingly endless number of possibilities revealed when all of your data systems and personnel are working in a network of continuous communication. And the best part is that implementing an SoS does not require removing or replacing any of your existing systems. The software application or suite can be installed as a sort of top layer that ties all of your systems together. Keep your SCADA/DCS system. Keep your CMMS, your ERP, and any of the other useful systems in which you have already invested enormous amounts of time and money. They will still provide value. Your SoS is not intended to replace these systems, but to weave them together into a single fabric of continual intelligence and agility. 

Are Farmers Leading the Way to the IoT?

We have all heard the banging of drums declaring the Internet of Things to be the next great technological revolution. The IoT is expected to make production processes more efficient, reduce waste and resource consumption, improve customer service, and provide a wide array of new products and services that will change the way we all live and work.

It is already impacting manufacturing, retail, utilities, and myriad other industries all looking to get a jump on the next big thing.

It may come as a surprise to some, but of all the many industries investing in and adopting IoT (Internet of Things) technology, the most prolific may in fact be the agriculture industry. Farmers have been very eager to adopt the IoT, and have already had a significant amount of success.

There are a number of reasons for this:

Ease of Deployment

Inexpensive sensors placed in various parts of a cultivated field can quickly yield very useful actionable data – whereas in an industrial environment adoption would require modifying or disrupting existing networks and software systems.

Instant Value

Pre-existing metrics of precision agriculture can be applied more easily, maximizing the already-known benefits of established practices (knowing what types of crops to plant when, knowing when and how much to water, etc.). Farmers have also had success safely and naturally controlling pests through the intelligent release of pheremones. Of course, there is the obvious and very tangible benefit of decreased resource consumption and increased yield.

Continual value

In agricultural IoT deployments, the same practices that provide instant value will continue to provide value for as long as they are employed. Conservation of water and waste reduction provide repeated value, as well as the increased yield brought on by precision farming.

Early adopters have primarily been large commercial farms, but smaller farms are finding ways to leverage sensor data and remote monitoring to make incremental improvements to their yields as well. In fact, the IoT may eventually serve as a sort of equalizing factor that allows smaller food producers to compete with the larger commercial growers.

So, not only is the IoT revitalizing an essential industry, it has the potential to solve some very serious problems related to food shortages and ever-increasing populations. This, of course, is in addition to reducing the environmental impact of farming and bringing the family-owned farm back into the global marketplace.

That’s not bad for technology that many people think is confusing and consider to be a bunch of “hype”, is it?

Industry 4.0 - The Industrial Revolution Continues

"In times of change, learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

It is becoming a matter of common knowledge that we are in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution, alternatively referred to as the Industrial Internet or Industry 4.0. This circumstance resulted from the usual combination of capability and need, and as usual, participation will not be optional. In each previous period of revolution, companies that wished to remain competitive in the marketplace had little choice but to embrace the march of technology and leverage the same revolutionary tools employed by their competitors. In the late 18th or early 19th Century, when Jim's Widget Factory down the street bought a steam engine to power his production processes, how could you hope to keep your widget factory afloat? No clever re-organization of your business processes or motivated personnel could ever hope to compete with a steam engine. The reality is you had to get one too. The same holds true when you move into the next period of revolution (Industry 2.0), marked by the introduction of the moving assembly line and electrically-powered production. Obviously, it didn't happen overnight, but when your toughest competitors began to employ this new technology, there was no way to pretend your comparatively slow manual assembly line could ever hope to compete. The inevitably ubiquitous nature of these technological advances is exactly what made them "revolutionary". Flash forward to the advent of the microchip and personal computers - Industry 3.0 - and an obvious pattern emerges. Industrial revolutions don't just affect the few companies that have the resources to leverage the new technologies; they affect the entire industry. Whether you and your organization choose to embrace the revolution or ignore it, there is no way to stop it and there is no way to shield yourself from its influence on the marketplace. So, What is Industry 4.0? The latest industrial revolution centers around the new world of smart, connected objects. This is the realm of autonomous factories and self-healing machines. This is the world depicted in the science fiction of the mid-twentieth century. Through the convergent development of advanced computing power, sophisticated network technology, sensors, robotics, and analytic techniques, we are seeing the integration of systems both vertically and horizontally. We are seeing machines communicating with other machines and making decisions based on real-time data. We are entering a time when new rules are emerging and business processes are being evaluated anew. Much in the same way that previous revolutionary advances forced themselves into the awareness of business owners and managers, the time has come to face reality of the industrial internet. Of course, a unique thing about this fourth industrial revolution is that its benefits extend beyond the marketplace. Whereas previously advances were made by increasing the scale or speed of production, the new paradigm focuses on increasing efficiency, reducing resource consumption and eliminating waste to find opportunities for greater profit. The new industrial landscape of smart, connected devices will incidentally lead to a cleaner, safer, more sustainable planet. Industrial enterprises that have embraced the new paradigm have seen measurable results. Real-time consumer data is helping companies be more responsive to the needs and expectations of their customers, and helping to eliminate gaps between supply and demand. Predictive analysis is helping to reduce maintenance costs and incrementally improve production processes through systems of continual improvement. A plant floor machine can now be aware of its current condition and environment and make decisions about its operation - or even the operation of other machines. The fourth industrial revolution is every bit as revolutionary as the previous three, and the evidence surrounds us. We are living in a smarter, connected world full of "smart" cities full of "smart" buildings, and this is only the beginning. By 2020, what we now call Industry 4.0 will be known simply as 'industry'. Where will you and your business be?