Today's world is full of systems, gadgets and devices that are inevitably made by different manufacturers in geographically dispersed regions of the world. In your car garage, you might have an electronic door that was assembled in the U.S., a motor and materials from China, software designed and tested in India, and a remote control produced in Vietnam -- all installed in a German automobile. While each of these components was designed for a specific purpose, each was likely also designed to be integrated with related components in order to be a functional part of a more complete solution.
This concept of complete and comprehensive solutions consisting of integrated individual applications has become increasingly common in commercial-grade business systems. Today's expectation is that systems do not have to operate in isolation, and users are demanding the benefits that come from integration.
Furthermore, the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) technology is driving points of integration to lower levels, such as sensors that gather and transmit data as well as receive instruction from related technologies. If we follow the spend within industry in general, Bain & Co. predicts that the combined markets of IoT will grow to about $520 billion globally by 2021, almost doubling the $235 billion spent in 2017. The trend is definitely toward using the best solutions connected together, based on interoperable standards enabling devices and software from a variety of producers to work together in concert to deliver the desired results. With the ability to gather increasingly accurate, timely and related data, the opportunity to analyze the amalgamated data and transform it into meaningful information with which to make more accurate and timely decisions increases.
In the past, companies often had a "silo" mentality to systems, data and communications often due to lack of interface options. In plant operations, it was not unusual to find discrete and separate equipment lists, personnel lists, methods and operating procedures, and other critical information being duplicated across the production sites. One can imagine the effect of this on one plant, let alone a large corporate environment with multiple facilities trying to share information; the room for inefficiency and error was tremendous. And in addition, the ability to aggregate data in a timely manner to facilitate decision making was challenging. This was partly because of the technology limitations of the past and the inherent risks involved with unreliable methods of integrating discrete solutions. Companies often relied on a single solution to manage a broad range of disciplines and job functions and negate the risk of managing multiple solutions with less-than-perfect integration technology.
With the advancement in technology and the adoption of standards partially driven by the proliferation of internet-based applications, businesses should expect to benefit from system integration. The risks of procuring applications for the operational business from different vendors and integrating them to ensure the robust and auditable flow of information have dramatically decreased in today's operational landscape. Operations personnel are now, based on my experience, more empowered to choose tools that suit their role and function with the confidence of knowing that these can easily communicate with engineering, finance, human resources and other departments across the plant and broader corporation as required.
Today's expectation is that systems do not have to operate in isolation, and users are demanding the benefits that come from integration.
Companies want to realize the benefits of "best of breed" solutions, selecting applications that are best suited to address requirements. Fortunately, with current technology, that does not require sacrificing the benefits to be gained by the flow of information between systems.
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