Many days ago at noon (this article has been sitting in the back office for at least three weeks), I was chatting with Mcrazy about technology when we suddenly started talking about the widespread "anxiety" surrounding the Industrial Internet—why are companies discussing the Industrial Internet? Why are they going to the cloud? This seems to be a kind of "anxiety"—everyone around us is discussing all sorts of high-level topics. It's a lot like the anxiety of parents. Your social media feed is full of "other people's children" showing off their calligraphy, piano, and math skills, as if everyone is on the path to becoming a "master." It's as if if you don't enroll your child in a class or create a learning environment for them early on, you'll fall behind, you'll be an irresponsible parent, and your child will be just another face in the crowd. This kind of anxiety seems to be consistent.
Discussions about the Industrial Internet are raging in various online groups, with widespread debate and skepticism, even extending to a sense of anxiety. This anxiety stems from the apparent control of discourse surrounding the development of the Industrial Internet by a group of people outside the manufacturing sector. Whether it's about whether to pursue this path or who controls it, these debates have brought a profound sense of anxiety to people's minds.
Too much anxiety is pinned on the "Industrial Internet".
Behind the Industrial Internet boom lies the anxiety of "transformation." For enterprises, external factors such as trade wars, industrial policies, and rising labor costs, along with intensified competition from cross-industry operations, are causing challenges. Similarly, internal issues such as low operational efficiency, insufficient product innovation, and unstable quality are leading to a continuous decline in profitability. All of this has created greater anxiety than ever before. Stories abound in the market about how the Industrial Internet will reduce costs and increase efficiency. People hope that the Industrial Internet can cure this "anxiety" of transformation. The root of this anxiety may lie in the sense of bewilderment that comes from losing direction in the future, leading to a fear of life and death. Because enterprises face enormous pressure to survive, people place their hopes on the Industrial Internet to solve various problems.
The power of capital has driven and fueled this trend. They have given each target a dazzling label such as "industrial internet," "artificial intelligence," and "edge computing," coupled with the "trillion-dollar market" researched by globally renowned consulting firms and the "the future is here" hype created by various experts and scholars, which has forced everyone living in the era of social media to fall into anxiety.
All of this has led many companies to feel lost, believing that this is an opportunity for the future. They think that if they don't seize this opportunity, they will miss out and fall behind their peers. Moreover, they see that others have already launched industrial internet projects, and people in various market scenarios are talking about industrial internet. They feel that if they don't talk about it, they will be marginalized by the world, and if they don't invest in industrial internet projects, they will lose the opportunity to win the future. This feeling is like parents thinking that if their children don't attend this tutoring class or that interest group, they will lose at the starting line.
Industrial Internet Platform Construction under Anxiety
The Industrial Internet itself seems to be becoming a source of "anxiety." If you ask a company why it is going to the cloud, it will definitely say that its peers have already moved their data to the cloud. As for why they are going to the cloud, they may not be clear. In short, they can't fall behind, especially not behind those competitors who are not as strong as them.
There are now more than 260 domestic industrial internet platforms in China, each seemingly capable of curing various companies' anxieties. Some need big data analysis of energy issues, some need to solve order scheduling, some need to solve data connectivity and intelligent analysis, and some even claim to be "cure-all." In short, if you have a problem, I have a cure.
Treatment of anxiety disorder
There are many causes of anxiety disorders. Various physiological and psychological factors can lead to anxiety. Prolonged fatigue and an irregular lifestyle can weaken the body's immune system, which in turn reduces tolerance to environmental disturbances (such as noise or jet lag), resulting in symptoms like agoraphobia and panic attacks. Of course, a loss of direction in life and sudden life changes can also trigger anxiety disorders. Typical medication for anxiety disorders is usually a "sedative," meaning that medications for anxiety disorders often only address the symptoms, not the root cause. This is because medications that "calm" emotions by suppressing anxiety do not address the underlying cause of the anxiety. The "Anxiety Disorder Self-Help Manual" mentions that there are actually many psychological and physiological methods for treating anxiety disorders, including physical exercise to improve physical fitness. The human mind also has a "tolerance"—improving physical fitness can increase a person's tolerance and psychological resilience to noisy environments. Agoraphobia and speech phobia are examples of this type of anxiety.
For modern people, anxiety disorder is also related to a lack of self-discipline in life. Staying up late, frequent overtime work, and irregular eating habits can all put the body in a sub-healthy state with a constantly declining resistance, which can lead to various anxiety symptoms.
Of course, the most effective way to treat anxiety is said to be to "change your values." If you have a global perspective, you will not be so anxious.
In other words, if you have passion, you won't feel anxious about philosophy—sounds abstract, right? But I know that those who understand will understand, and those who don't will think it's nonsense—that's not important.
The Industrial Internet should be a self-driving force.
In fact, a company must not forget its own way of making a profit. For a steel company, making steel well is its job. For a machinery manufacturer, making machines more reliable and stable is its job. If you make air conditioners, make air conditioners well. If you make mobile phones, make mobile phones well. Don't forget this.
The Industrial Internet should be a "self-driven" development model. That is, if there are problems that need to be solved and these problems require data support, the Industrial Internet technology can collect data and monitor the OEE (Outcome Effectiveness) factors in the entire production process, thereby improving the continuous improvement of the entire production line. Digital twin technology can be used for early verification. These measures are intended to improve investment security and cope with various changing production demands.
Just like why we use internet technology to develop web-based HMIs like mappVIEW, it's because that's what customers need—a simpler and more intuitive experience, where operators don't need much learning. Moreover, machines now need to interact with various third-party platforms for data. Therefore, we developed mappVIEW based on OPCUA's "separation of concerns" and "service-oriented" features.
Therefore, the Industrial Internet must always be closely related to improving its own competitiveness. We should not build platforms or go to the cloud for the sake of building platforms or going to the cloud. Often, people treat these projects as "top priority projects".
Those who take the lead often know why they are doing something, while those who follow often do not. This can have serious consequences because if it is not related to your core business, the time-consuming and laborious project may eventually exhaust the company's resources without any output.
The most important thing is to cultivate internal strength.
People often say that top-tier companies sell standards. In reality, many seem to view standards as a "monopoly," but standards are merely an outward manifestation of technological and managerial capabilities. Behind standards lies a company's overall strength, as standards represent its ability to integrate technology both horizontally and vertically, and its ability to grasp demand. Leading companies can set standards, so why can't lagging companies? Logically, there's an "inclusive" relationship: leading companies have greater control over the technological, operational, and managerial dimensions than lagging companies. Leading companies have already exceeded the average technological dimensions. Therefore, in the standard-setting process, lagging companies are actually unable to control the technologies beyond their "boundaries."
In the construction of industrial internet platforms, European and American companies have already chosen the same standards. Organizations such as Industry 4.0 and IIC have prioritized standards, including interoperability standards, security standards, data dictionaries, software standards, and standards between simulation platforms. Our industrial internet platforms seem to be being built at a rapid pace, but if you ask them about their standards, it seems that no one can really explain the ins and outs.
Even in large companies, i.e., on the user side, we find that the first hurdle—data "connectivity"—has remained unresolved in the past. This is because even very large domestic enterprises lack the effort to establish internal data standards. In order to make quick money, we introduced systems, often in a chaotic, multi-faceted manner. We were busy making money in the past, and no one considered how to build a long-term data architecture that could interconnect and optimize globally. As a result, in the process of rapid development, we overlooked the mechanisms and strategies for building "sustainable development," leading to a lack of standards. Now we need to go back and develop standards, and it seems there's no way to skip any of the steps we've taken.
OPCUA is a prime example. Its data dictionary and industry information models reflect how leading companies view data, how data should be unified, how to structure it, what kind of models match production (such as AutomationML, MTConnect, and PackML for different industries to solve the connection problem between the field and MES), how to transmit data efficiently (such as the Pub/Sub mechanism), and how to achieve asset management (such as AutoID to manage RFID and barcode data). OPCUA solves all these problems, which is the charm of OPCUA—it is actually based on advanced manufacturing operation levels, rather than a "monopoly" to restrict. We always try to label technology with conspiracy theories like "bottleneck," but in fact, the development of standards itself is a reflection of industry trends. On the other hand, standards come from the need for "connectivity." If there is no need for connectivity, there is no need for standards. Another type of standard, such as those related to safety, is based on protecting consumers and reflects the level of industry management.
The Industrial Internet is currently just a bunch of platforms, but there are no standards. Some people know about OPCUA, but many others don't. If you say that you can do without OPCUA, then you won't achieve the goal of collaborative development. The original purpose of the Industrial Internet was to reduce enterprises' IT expenses and solve production and operation problems with economical solutions, but it also requires a lot of time to connect and debug interfaces, and write drivers for numerous interfaces and protocols, which is not an economical thing.
Speaking of this, what I want to say is that the "Industrial Internet" needs standards, and the standards themselves are a reflection of the management level of the manufacturing industry. Therefore, you should still go back to the essence of your management and operation level, hone your internal skills, and the first step to cure anxiety is to exercise your body, because only when you are healthy can you improve your tolerance and withstand pressure in complex environments.
Standards can provide us with a learning opportunity to learn the management logic and models behind them, thereby improving our own operational management capabilities.
The most effective way to treat anxiety is to change one's values.
In "The Anxiety Self-Help Manual", the author mentions that the most effective way to treat anxiety is to "change your values". In fact, I think this treatment method is the same as the transformation of our company. We need to establish the right values and how we treat our customers.
A company's competitiveness lies in enhancing its own value by providing value to users. Focusing solely on potential subsidies or benefits will only lead to being misled by the false promises of the industrial internet. Many companies, perhaps inspired by the success stories of the internet, have jumped into the already booming industrial internet wave, likely hoping for quick financing and an IPO, a win-win situation where everyone profits, stocks rise, and everyone achieves financial freedom.
In fact, the stories of the internet boom are always full of excitement and tragedy. So many companies that rose up in the capital frenzy eventually disappeared quietly. Just like people touting new media and saying that traditional media will die out completely, in reality, in the past many years, the number of new media that have fallen may be far greater than that of traditional media. For example, apart from WeChat, other instant messaging tools have all died (except for Tencent's QQ). People see Jack Ma's success, but they don't see how many e-commerce platforms that started with Jack Ma have died.
The anxiety of transformation lies in bravely abandoning illusions, choosing your own path in a down-to-earth manner, providing consumers with convenient and reliable products, constantly refining your craftsmanship and technology, and leveraging the capabilities of the Industrial Internet to optimize production processes, improve efficiency, and reduce costs. This is the "right path." Don't follow the example of other companies sending their children to tutoring classes, or thinking that if other companies have cloud platforms, we'll fall behind. In fact, what you want is always an eternal topic in philosophy. Every enterprise must be cautious about which path to take. Otherwise, the game of throwing money down the drain is only suitable for children playing by the river, not for enterprises that want to go the distance.
This article has been sitting in the background for many days. Actually, what I really want to talk about is that the current industrial internet has taken a wrong turn. I'll write about it next time!
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