Vendors Get Consortium's Help In Tackling Industrial IoT Space

Some technology vendors are getting an assist in their efforts to make inroads in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

Bill Hoffman, president of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) in Needham, Mass., sat down with CRNtv to discuss how his organization is helping major tech vendors build out the ecosystems needed to support IIoT. The IIC helps accelerate the development, adoption and widespread use of interconnected machines and devices, and intelligent analytics

’We were formed by five big companies - AT&T, GE, Intel, IBM, and Cisco - who all felt that none of them alone could build an ecosystem required to support the Industrial Internet of Things. So, we’re here to build the ecosystem,’ Hoffman explains.

Industrial IoT focuses on systems in industries such as healthcare, agriculture, and finance, as opposed to consumer-facing industries.

’One of the key deliverables of the IIC are testbeds,’ says Hoffman. ’Right now, we have 27 of them up and running.’

One testbed is for the agricultural industry. Its function is to help better define when plants should be placed in the ground, how much nutrition they need, when they need water, and when they should be harvested, Hoffman says

’This is done by using sensors in the field with drones to pick up that information in real time,’ Hoffman says.