The Origins of the Industrial Internet of Things
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) refers to the application of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the industrial field, as opposed to the Consumer Internet of Things (CIoT). There are many definitions of the IoT, but the most basic ones all revolve around the connection of physical entities. For example, Gartner defines the Internet of Things (IoT) as a network of physical entities that contain embedded technologies that enable them to communicate with and sense or interact with their internal states or external environments. Another example is McKinsey's definition: the Internet of Things consists of sensors and actuators embedded in physical entities, linked via wired and wireless networks, typically using the Internet Protocol (IP).
More broadly, the Internet of Things (IoT), as a new wave of internet development, will connect tens of thousands of physical devices to the internet, enabling them to interact with existing information networks and social networks, thus building an all-encompassing Internet of Everything.
Figure 1 The Continuation of the Internet Revolution
The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is now generally considered to have been first proposed by Kevin Ashton in 1999, during the peak of the internet boom. At that time, Ashton, along with Sanjay Sarma and David Brock, were at the newly established Automatic Identification Center at MIT, connecting objects to the internet via RFID tags. Ashton was also working on supply chain optimization at Procter & Gamble at the same time, and in a speech to senior management, he referred to the technology of connecting objects to the internet via RFID tags as the Internet of Things.
Subsequently, the concept of the Internet of Things did not immediately receive widespread attention, but rather gained acceptance gradually.
In its 2005 IoT report, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) envisioned a perpetual communication capability that, combined with new technologies such as RFID and intelligent computing, would usher in a world of interconnected devices, bringing everything from tires to toothbrushes into the communication domain. This heralded the dawn of a new era, making the then-current Internet of Things (IoT) a stepping stone for the future Internet of Things.
In 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council listed the Internet of Things (IoT) as one of six “disruptive civilian technologies,” believing it would have a potential impact on U.S. interests by 2025.
In 2010, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao designated the Internet of Things (IoT) as a key industry for China and planned to make significant investments in it.
By 2011, the Internet of Things (IoT) began to receive widespread attention and recognition in the market. In 2011, market research firm Gartner listed "IoT" in its "Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies." At the same time, other mainstream technology magazines, renowned analysis firms, and large global companies such as Forbes, Wired, the Atlantic, McKinsey, and Cisco began using the term IoT to describe this phenomenon and citing a variety of astronomical figures to predict its enormous potential.
By this point, the Internet of Things (IoT) has gained widespread recognition and acceptance from the market and society. However, the main focus has been largely limited to consumer-related applications, such as smart homes (e.g., controlling lighting, windows, temperature, and home appliances via smartphones) and smart cities (e.g., intelligent monitoring and scheduling of transportation, air quality, and water supply). Meanwhile, the understanding and promotion of IoT applications in the industrial sector have also begun to emerge.
The Origins of the Industrial Internet
The Industrial Internet, proposed by GE in 2012, is the third major wave of transformation following the Industrial Revolution and the Internet Revolution. It represents the deep integration of advanced computing power, data analytics, low-cost sensing technologies, and widespread connectivity driven by the Internet with global industrial systems. This profound interweaving of the digital and machine worlds will bring about far-reaching changes to the global industrial system. By improving efficiency and performance while reducing energy consumption and costs, the Industrial Internet will boost productivity by 1-1.5 percentage points, reaching the peak levels of the Internet era. Over the next 20 years, it is projected to add $10-15 trillion to global annual GDP.
To illustrate the potential of the Industrial Internet in optimizing industrial systems, GE cited data in its white paper, "Industrial Internet: Pushing the Boundaries of Mind and Machines," to assess the economic benefits that could be achieved by optimizing even a 1% saving in certain industrial sectors, given their scale.
In early 2015, the World Economic Forum released a research report entitled "The Industrial Internet: Unlocking the Potential of Connected Products and Services," which concluded that the Industrial Internet is indeed transformative—it will change the basis of competition, redefine industry boundaries, and create a wave of disruptive new companies, just as the current Internet has created Amazon, Google, and Netflix.
This research report indicates that the disruptive potential of the Industrial Internet stems from the new value created from the massive amounts of data collected from connected products, enabling automated decision-making and real-time operational optimization. The Industrial Internet will offer key business opportunities in four main areas:
☆ Significantly improve operational efficiency (e.g., increase uptime, asset utilization) through predictive maintenance and remote management.
☆ Software-driven services, hardware innovation, and increased visibility into products, processes, customers, and partners will introduce a results-based economy where companies compete on their ability to deliver measurable results to customers.
☆ A results-oriented economic model will encourage close collaboration among business partners within the ecosystem, integrating their products and partnerships to collectively meet customer needs. Software platforms that can better collect, aggregate, and exchange data within the ecosystem will facilitate the production, distribution, and monetization of new products and services at unprecedented speed and scale. This will lead to the emergence of new connected ecosystems, blurring traditional industry boundaries.
☆ Advanced human-machine collaboration will elevate productivity to unprecedented levels and create more attractive work experiences. Simultaneously, low-skilled jobs, whether manual or intellectual, will increasingly be replaced by a "digital workforce" based on intelligent sensors, smart assistants, and robots, while future jobs will demand increasingly higher skill levels. The Industrial Internet will leverage technology to assist and enhance workers' capabilities, making their work safer, more efficient, more flexible, more engaging, and therefore more attractive.
To promote the Industrial Internet, GE, together with Intel, IBM, Cisco, and AT&T, established the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) in the United States in March 2014 as a non-profit, open organization.
It brings together relevant enterprises and institutions to explore, exchange, and promote concepts, technologies, and best practices related to the Industrial Internet (IIC), aiming to accelerate the development of the IIC and realize its value. On the technology front, IIC emphasizes promoting the widespread adoption of common architectures, interoperability, and open standards to overcome the barriers created by technology and industry silos. On the business front, IIC focuses on coordinating the ecosystem and promoting the adoption of the IIC across various industries. IIC's specific work focuses on the following areas:
☆Establish an open forum to explore, exchange, and promote concepts, technologies, and best practices related to the Industrial Internet;
☆Develop reference architectures and technical frameworks, and publish best practices and case studies to simplify IIoT implementation;
☆ Refine standard requirements, coordinate and promote the development of standards related to the global IIoT;
☆ Create case studies and testbeds to explore and demonstrate the implementation and value realization of practical IIoT systems;
☆Enhance awareness of IIoT security, promote innovation in security methods, and enhance the security implementation and confidence of systems.
Currently, the concept of the Industrial Internet has gained widespread recognition and acceptance globally, and IIC has developed into a leading international organization that promotes the development of the Industrial Internet.
The China Industrial Internet Alliance was also established in Beijing in February 2015. As a multi-functional open platform, it supports two-way communication between the government and industry, cross-border integration and collaborative innovation between the manufacturing and information and communication industries, domestic development and international cooperation, with the aim of effectively promoting the innovative development of the industrial internet.
The Industrial Internet has a wide range of applications, covering all areas involving the use, management and operation of industrial and basic infrastructure equipment and resources, and all areas that can benefit from the optimization results brought about by informatization and intelligentization, including smart cities, smart buildings, healthcare, transportation, oil and gas, electricity, mining, agriculture and forestry, and of course, smart manufacturing .
Different paths lead to the same goal
Meanwhile, the advancement of internet technology in the industrial sector is receiving increasing international attention, with Germany's Industry 4.0 being the most influential example. Industry 4.0, as a future-oriented project, originated from the German government's "High Technology Strategy 2020 Action Plan" in 2010. The Industry 4.0 platform was formally established in 2013 as an organization to integrate German domestic enterprises, industries, research institutions, government, and labor resources. Its aim is to identify all relevant development trends in the manufacturing industry, determine the understanding of Industry 4.0, and formulate joint recommendations, with the ultimate goal of establishing Germany as a major market and supplier of advanced manufacturing solutions.
The basic measures of Industry 4.0 or smart manufacturing are to establish an intelligent network that can be autonomous and mutually controlled throughout the entire value chain by connecting machines, workpieces and systems, and enterprises. These concepts, measures and technologies are integrated and interconnected with the Industrial Internet and will all be based on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS).
Whether it's the Industrial Internet, Industry 4.0, or intelligent manufacturing , although their starting points, perspectives, and application areas differ, they all share a core concept: to apply the core technologies of the Internet—computing and communication networks—more broadly and deeply into industrial systems and infrastructure to achieve deep integration of information technology and production operation technology. They all aim to achieve a common goal: to make optimal decisions in the information space through computation by real-time perception of the physical entity's state and environment, and to dynamically optimize the use of physical resources.
This can be viewed as follows: the Industrial Internet encompasses the optimization of all industrial systems and basic infrastructure resources, including manufacturing, while Industry 4.0 focuses on optimizing production resources based on the specific needs of manufacturing. Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are the foundational technologies and building blocks for achieving these resource optimizations. Ultimately, both the Industrial Internet and Industry 4.0 establish system-level (SoS-level) CPS, and these interconnected CPS have become an indispensable part of the Internet of Everything.
Literature indicates that the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) was first proposed in September 1985, before the internet had truly taken shape. At that time, Peter T. Lewis, a pioneer in wireless communications in the United States, presented a report to a congressional meeting supported by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), stating that the Internet of Things (IoT) was a trend of integrating people, processes, and technologies with connectable devices and sensors to enable remote monitoring, status, manipulation, and evaluation of these devices. This is strikingly similar to the current understanding of the IoT.
