Which Industries are Benefiting from IoT Technology?

IoT or the internet of things is described as anything in the world connected to the internet. For example, when you use Amazon Alexa or Google Home to order something online, you are using IoT. Within the last 5 years, IoT has become a standard for many organizations. Food Service industries use IoT to monitor their refrigeration and temperature, whereas the Healthcare systems are using IoT devices to monitor patients health. Consumers use IoT in their day to day life – refrigerators, smart watches, and lighting all offer IoT capabilities.

So what is the point of IoT? For organizations, it’s more than just using Amazon Alexa to conveniently order toilet paper. Companies are taking advantage of IoT on the operations front. The operational benefits of IoT devices include everything from streamlining the prioritization of maintenance and operations, reducing costs associated with consumption on a wide-scale, Improving the General Occupant Experience, and reducing catastrophic equipment failures.

1. Healthcare 

The healthcare industry is at the fore-front of IoT. With critical compliance and regulatory standards, healthcare systems are required to monitor so many areas of their facilities. IoT devices have the ability to collects and transfers health data including blood pressure, oxygen and blood sugar levels, weight, and ECGs. IoT has also introduced several wearables & devices which has made lives of patients comfortable including smart hearing aids and Ingestible sensors. 

Beyond patient health and comfort, IoT devices allow hospitals to monitor parts of their facilities. The CDC ( Center for Disease Control ) requires healthcare systems to adhere to strict monitoring of differential pressure, water temperature, and sterilization. Using IoT sensors to monitor air flow, pressure, and temperature, allows healthcare systems to stay within compliance. By remotely monitoring these area’s, facilities management can spend more time addressing other critical areas and conducting preventative maintenance. 

2. Educational Systems:

Public Schools, Private Schools, Universities, and Colleges

Schools are implementing IoT for students and teachers in the classroom, as well as on the facilities and security side. IoT Technology such as smart boards are used in the classroom. Teachers have the ability to connect these boards to the cloud and easily display content in the classroom. Students use tablets, attendance is tracked via IoT, etc. For security purposes, IoT makes it possible to gain greater visibility over assets to improve security and prevent critical loss through real-time surveillance.

Many school systems are understaffed within their facilities departments, meaning facilities teams are spending more time putting out fires on campus than conducting critical preventative maintenance. This can be a vicious cycle as more issues arise due to poor preventative maintenance efforts. By using IoT devices on HVAC equipment, facilities teams can remotely monitor and pick up anomalies through data – allowing them to respond to failing equipment before catastrophic failures occur. As a result, these solutions are saving school districts and universities in consumption costs and on unplanned maintenance/replacement efforts.

3. Government Facilities

The government is using IoT applications across the board. Departments such as law enforcement, infrastructure, facilities, and disaster management are benefiting from IoT technology. Police officers and law enforcement use IoT-enabled license plate scanning systems can help track down vehicles of criminals and traffic offenders. Within facilities and infrastructure, the government can use IoT sensors to monitor roads and bridges, power grids, water supply lines, gas supply, rail lines, airports, etc. This allows them to ensure the effective functioning of these systems. They can also constantly monitor and regulate power supply through nation-wide power grids, and help in identifying impending break-downs. These solutions help government organizations cut costs associated with ineffective system and increase sustainability. 

4. Commercial Real Estate

CRE companies have been pushing to create smart buildings to increase tenant comfort and decrease energy consumptions. This technology creates more detail and ability for building owners and CRE organizations to keep a closer eye on not only the things that happen to the space but also determine the potential of the property. CRE building owners have about 1.5 billion IoT sensors deployed.

IoT technologies integrate with building systems, like lighting and HVAC, to help both CRE teams and facilities managers run buildings more efficiently. Commercial real estate properties represent nearly 15 billion square feet of floorspace. These properties consume more than 17% of all commercial building energy use and spend more than $30 billion annually on energy. With this being said, building owners and property management companies are invested in lowering energy consumption associated with heating and cooling as well as lighting. IoT sensors give building engineers the opportunity to monitor equipment to effectively reduce energy usage. 

5. Industrial 

Factories, manufacturers, and chemical companies use IoT solutions in their organizations to monitor machinery. These organizations rely on IoT for predictive maintenance and to increase productivity. 60% of global manufacturers are use data analytics to track devices and optimize processes. Using this technology allows operation managers and factory heads to remotely manage the factory units and take advantage of process automation and optimization. They can receive real-time alerts to monitor critical machine tools that are designed to function within certain temperature and vibration ranges. Industrial organizations also use IoT to monitor assets, inventory management, production flow, and warehouse/plant safety.

To sum it up, the internet of things benefits most if not all organizations by increasing productivity and sustainability and decreasing operational inefficiencies. In a span of ten years, from 2020 to 2030, IOT devices will grow from 75 billion to more than 100 billion. The use of IoT will become an industry standard and organizations that have not integrated this technology into their facilities will find themselves falling behind due to inefficiencies. 

Visit www.bostechusa.com to learn how your organization can become more productive and lower operational costs before it’s too late.