3-D Interactive Wayfinding—Custom-Built in Three Months

Posted on by Micah Kaplan

Project leaders designing Moynihan Train Hall, part of New York’s iconic Penn Station, set out on a unique mission: to convert a 1913 neoclassical-style building into a train station suited to 21st-century passengers. As one of the world’s busiest transit facilities, it has been transformed into a modern civic icon.

An essential part of the station’s rejuvenation was to suit the needs of today’s tech-savvy travelers. By providing the real-time information they needed, it lets people quickly find their way around the station and surrounding city. The solution was 3-D interactive wayfinding—giving travelers streamlined access to diverse content.

Wayfinding screens and kiosks needed to be accessible via mobile devices and voice command, and support real-time GPS. At the same time, the system’s content management platform (CMS) had to be easy to update with custom content, pertinent announcements, advertisements, and even entertainment.

On top of all this, the project managers needed a short turnaround time from planning to implementation. To achieve these objectives, the Moynihan Train Hall team connected with digital wayfinding pioneer 22Miles.

Building a Custom Solution

Using the company’s low-code platform—a drag-and-drop environment with open APIs—allowed them to complete a customized project in just three months. “With our content management system, you’re not creating anything from scratch,” explains Tomer Mann, Executive VP and Global VP of Sales at 22Miles. “You’re leveraging an existing software platform that can do things a custom design firm would spend millions of dollars to do.”

While the solution’s low-code CMS allows designers to set up a new system quickly, it also includes layers of customization and the capability to draw in assets from multiple data sources.

In the case of Moynihan, the design team was able to import and incorporate the location’s existing signage and directory assets from disparate systems and file formats, saving time and effort. Once that foundation was laid, they filled in the rest of the needed solution around it (Video 1).

Video 1. Twelve interactive wayfinding kiosks provide an informative and immersive experience throughout Moynihan Train Hall. (Source: 22 Miles)

“All you’re doing is dragging your media files into a formatted layout, greatly reducing the time to implementation because all of those widgets are already in one platform,” says Mann. “The platform can host third-party media components and data feeds such as MP4s, XML files, JSON, and SQL, and create the UX very easily from there as a drag-and-drop system.”

The solution is also hardware agnostic, allowing customers to leverage existing assets, no matter the display orientation or resolution.

The Moynihan project incorporates Intel® processors to run the 3-D engine. “They really wanted 3-D models, not just a map,” Mann says. “If you zoom into the Moynihan model, you can see the stairs, pylons, and other features. To achieve that level of detail, you really need high-performance CPUs, so we leveraged the small but powerful Intel® NUC.”

Twelve 4K #interactive displays are positioned throughout @MoynihanTrains, offering visitors a range of #travel information on flight and train status, routes, destinations, and interactive maps of the facility. @22miles via @insightdottech

Twelve 4K interactive displays are positioned throughout Moynihan Train Hall, offering visitors a range of travel information on flight and train status, routes, destinations, and interactive maps of the facility and the surrounding New York area. With pandemic-era hygiene in mind, wayfinding displays installed in Moynihan include a “touchless touch” option for users to scan a QR code and control the screen using their smartphones.

The solution’s analytics system reveals how many visitors use each kiosk, which destinations they choose, and the keywords they seek.

“Site managers wanted to understand the usage, helping them evaluate the reach and effectiveness of each display and understand which destinations are most popular,” says Mann. “They’re able to take those data as a log and put it into other KPI systems as needed so they can make adjustments to content and display locations as needed.”

From start to finish, the Moynihan Train Hall 3-D wayfinding and digital signage system took about 12 weeks to develop. “They wanted to do it in four months and thought that was going to be impossible. They were thrilled with the shorter timeframe we were able to deliver,” says Mann.

Flexible Partnerships and Add-ons

Through many partnerships with other hardware and software providers and a drag-and-drop CMS that easily pulls in existing assets from other formats, 22Miles allows systems integrators and customers to bring solutions to market much faster—and incorporate a wide range of additional functions.

For example, the solution is compatible with edge devices and sensors, so some use cases incorporate occupancy and density grouping controls in agile workplace environments. It can also manage room booking, hoteling, and hot desking using interactive digital displays, and function with security cameras that detect user demographics to deliver customized content. In some wayfinding use cases, the solution connects kiosk users with a “virtual receptionist” — real human help at a distance.

“We’re always innovating and adding more capabilities based on what our clients and partners are asking for,” says Mann. “Partners don’t just view us as another vendor; they see us as equipping them to support all of their client needs. Whether it’s through one-on-one consultations, our webinars, or other resources, we’re focused on providing value for other third-party vendors, partners, and system integrators — and we’re always happy to build more relationships.”

Revitalizing Penn Station has been a longtime vision of New York City and state leaders. It is a cornerstone in also revitalizing the neighborhood and driving sustainability. Building 21st-century infrastructure includes 21st-century technology—creating a platform for the future.

Robotic Arc Welders Detect Defects With AI and CV

Posted on by Micah Kaplan

Robotic arc welders are the workhorses of the factory floor, fusing steel in the most extreme conditions. As tough as they are, robots can’t QC their work, even when common weld defects such as porosity occur. And when flaws are not caught in the welding process, disruptive and costly rework or scrapping material may be required.

Traditional quality control includes highly skilled weld technicians who use visual and auditory indicators to detect porosity. But these experts are limited in what they can catch. Miles of welds come down the assembly line, making it impossible to visually inspect each one. And they don’t have the ability to see beneath the surface of the weld without radiographic and ultrasonic technologies. As a result, items go out factory doors that can later become warranty claims.

Fortunately, innovative technologies can provide a solution. Robotic welders equipped with AI-driven machine vision can transform quality control and give manufacturers a competitive advantage.

Visual Defect Detection Catches Flaws

The agricultural equipment manufacturer John Deere is a great example. The company uses a gas metal arc process to weld the high-strength steel required to build its machinery. Across 52 factories around the world, hundreds of robotic arms use millions of weld wire pounds annually.

With this tremendous production volume, the company looked for new ways to catch flaws during the welding process. The company turned to ADLINK, a global manufacturer of edge computing solutions.

ADLINK’s AI and computer vision powered Edge Arc Welding Defect Detection solution gives Deere the ability to watch the weld pool in real time to find and correct issues as they occur.

“Machine learning gives John Deere a better understanding of the quality across every single weld,” says Daniel Collins, Senior Director of Edge Solutions for ADLINK. “That is very powerful stuff from a warranty and messaging perspective.”

#ComputerVision and #MachineLearning turn #robotic welders into the superheroes of the #factory floor, spotting defects that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. @adlink_tech via @insightdottech

Rugged Hardware + Pretrained Software

The arc welding platform comprises a combination of software and hardware, based on an industrial-grade machine vision platform using Intel® Core™ processors and Intel® Movidius™ Myriad™ X VPUs.

MeltTools welding cameras—designed to withstand high temperatures and intense light—are mounted on the robotic arm, just 12 to 14 inches from the weld. A pretrained machine learning model uses integrated ADLINK Edge IoT software that can capture, stream, process, understand, and act on vision data. The ADLINK architecture allows manufacturers to plug in modular software and hardware at the edge to create a continuous data flow (Figure 1).

Software and edge hardware elements work together for inspecting welds.
Figure 1. Edge devices collect real-time insights for inspecting welds and providing an ability to stop the process if it finds a defect. (Source: ADLINK)

“The software is a big reason why the platform works,” says Collins. “It consists of the Intel® OpenVINO™ Toolkit inference engine, which is the machine vision calculator, and ADLINK Edge, which is broken up into several different applications. These applications do everything from ingest the camera data, stream it to the inference engine, understand the results, and take action. And this all happens in real time using the ADLINK Data River or the Edge communication layer.”

A decision-making app waits for the inference engine’s results to assess the quality of a weld. If it says to stop a weld, a DIO app fires a 24-volt signal to the robot and pauses the weld. At the same time, it sends an alert to the factory floor manager that the weld has been stopped.

“If a quality issue was identified after the fact in a batch, likely they would have to pull all the welds from that batch to further inspect and rework them. That could even mean scrapping entirely and rebuilding from scratch,” says Collins.

AI Brings Business Opportunities to SIs

The robotic arc welding space is growing, and large manufacturers are moving away from manual weld quality practices, which creates a huge opportunity for systems integrators.

“If you do a quick look at what is available from a robotic welding quality inspection perspective, you won’t find much that inspects during the weld job,” Collins says. “You’ll find various components here and there, like cameras and models. What you won’t find are all the components or building blocks bundled together in a single offering.”

Designed for PoCs, the ADLINK kit includes machine vision algorithms that can identify one of the roughly 10 quality inspection issues that are pervasive in welding. To customize the solution for its customer, SIs may need to do some configuration and retraining.

“A customer in a new environment may be able to identify porosity, for example, using the out-of-the-box solution,” says Collins. “Likely however, we would need to do some model retraining to increase the accuracy for that environment. We did the legwork required to identify all the right components. The SI’s job is to configure them in such a way that their client gets immediate value once deployed.”

In addition, many manufacturers are interested in weld quality inspection as a service, adds Collins. “There’s a potential opportunity to offer managed services,” he says. “That, combined with an industry that’s growing and the need to configure and retrain for every customer environment, is quite a bit of services revenue for an SI.”

Computer vision and machine learning turn robotic welders into the superheroes of the factory floor, spotting defects that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. By leveraging AI technology, manufacturers and the SIs that serve them gain an advantage in today’s competitive marketplace.

Predictive Maintenance: The Recipe for Commercial Kitchens

Posted on by Micah Kaplan

Despite the shift to modern machinery, commercial food companies are still being held back by maintenance or machine failure issues.

In an industry where competition is strong and margins are thin, producers often push these machines to their limits. Instead of optimizing operations, this practice increases the likelihood of unexpected equipment downtime, excessive material waste, and the inability to measure true production numbers.

On a mass scale, food production operations run like a factory, where keeping machines up and running while reducing material waste are must-haves. Even more critical is food quality—for health, safety, and regulatory compliance. The good news is that the same innovative technologies enabling the smart factory can also create a smart commercial kitchen.

A Machine Maker’s Digital Transformation

One company that’s making this possible is ANKO Food Machine Company, known for its high-quality, multipurpose filling and forming dumpling machines. Serving restaurants and commercial food producers around the world, ANKO needed a better way to understand its customers’ equipment wear-and-tear conditions, reduce the number of repair visits, establish maintenance records, and service overseas customers no matter what time zone they’re in.

And by doing so it could also better support its customers and help solve their business challenges:

Managing material waste. The faster the machines run, the more items they can produce, but that in turn also produces more material waste. ANKO customers needed to determine the best operational speeds to balance food production and waste.

Minimizing unplanned downtime. When operators detect potential problems by noise, vibration, or visual means, they may not find glitches until it’s too late. Predictive maintenance can catch problems before they happen.

Extending machine lifecycle: If producers overrun their machines, mechanical parts and motor failures require costly repairs and reduce the equipment lifetime. Optimizing production processes can help.

The Recipe for Automated Machine Control

To tackle these problems, ANKO worked with NexAIoT, a subsidiary of global IoT solutions provider NEXCOM International. And the path to achieving its primary objectives—predictive maintenance and improved production yields—was digitalizing its machines.

ANKO’s multipurpose filling and forming machines have five functions that perform dough extrusion, auxiliary dough extrusion, filling extrusion, auxiliary filling extrusion, and dumpling formation—each determined by motor speed. This complexity requires determining the best operational combination for each recipe.

Next time you’re out for some Chinese dumplings, Italian ravioli, or Polish pierogi, there’s a good chance that delicious meal was due in some part to the #IoT of dumpling #machines. @NEXCOMUSA via @insightdottech

For ANKO and its customers, monitoring these functions and machine health required experienced technicians to regularly observe equipment operations. Too often, problems were discovered after they happened, leading to line stoppages and even damage to the dumpling machines.

This is where the NexAIoT CPS-200 IoT Edge Gateway and NEXCOM IoT Studio came in. Connecting the gateway to the ANKO machine, the solution automatically enables I/O modules to collect machine vibration amplitudes and data regarding operations, abnormalities, and maintenance (Figure 1).

NexAIoT smart dumpling machine solution architecture from edge to cloud
Figure 1. Connecting the edge gateway with IoT Studio Software to the dumpling maker helped ANKO attain its goal of a complete conversion to smart machinery. (Source: NexAIoT)

“With our solution, the dumpling machine can get the production rate, the rotational speed of the motor, and monitor the whole machine’s health status,” says Eric Lo, director of strategic marketing at NexAIoT. “So ANKO can actually know how the machine is running and current status like production stability or if there are material waste issues—without the expense of going on-site.”

The built-in IoT Studio software handles the edge data collection and publishes that information back to a cloud service like AWS for remote monitoring and support. The software also provides a no-code tool to customize the parameters for each of their customers’ specific needs.

Based on Intel® technology, the CPS-200 is designed for a wide range of industrial IoT applications. For example, one NexAIoT customer uses the system for water treatment monitoring, while another monitors production process for PCB manufacturing to optimize predictive maintenance.

“Intel offers industrial-grade solutions with the performance and product longevity our customers need,” Lo says. “And customers also benefit with the ease of upgrading their systems to next-generation Intel platforms.”

Proof-in-Point

The results of deploying the CPS-200 with the ANKO machine can be remarkable. A more stable production process helped one customer reduce its material scrap rate from 5% to 4%. And with an output rate of 7,000 dumplings per hour, per machine, the company eliminated eight tons of wasted raw materials per year.

Since installing the CPS-200, ANKO has been able to establish maintenance records, reduce repair visits, and service overseas customers no matter what time zone they’re in.

Attaining its end goal of a complete conversion to smart machinery created even more opportunities for ANKO. “Now ANKO can have a more profitable ‘as-a-service’ business model—enabled by our edge-to-cloud solution,” says Lo. “And we think this is the future for machine makers from commercial kitchens to the factory floor.”

So the next time you’re out for some Chinese dumplings, Italian ravioli, or Polish pierogi, there’s a good chance that delicious meal was due in some part to the IoT of dumpling machines.

OT and IT Optimize Smart Factory Operations

Posted on by Micah Kaplan

As the worlds of OT and IT converge, manufacturers are gaining a clearer picture of what’s happening on the factory floor—allowing them to develop solutions to potential problems before they occur. In this way, companies save both time and money—responding faster to shifting market conditions—and increasing productivity.

When OT and IT systems are interconnected, manufacturers can analyze machine data in the cloud to uncover trends for predictive maintenance, rather than risk losing precious production time due to unexpected failures. And operations engineers can view information from plants scattered across the globe and securely manage machines—without setting foot inside a single factory.

This level of integration is vital to a manufacturer’s ability to keep pace with evolving trends and grow their business. But making it happen, while preserving data security, demands the right technology. This is especially challenging because machines on most factory floors are huge capital investments, and any new system must work seamlessly with the old.

IoT Edge Computing Power-Efficient Operations

Schneider Electric Holdings, Ltd., a global leader in digital transformation, is making it possible for manufacturers to realize their production potential with its Harmony P6 iPC platform. The company’s industrial advanced edge computing systems securely connect legacy machines and their data to the people who need it—eliminating manual data collection and the errors that come with it (Video 1).

Video 1. The Harmony P6 iPC solution uses IoT Edge computing to deliver improved data management, secure remote monitoring, end-to-end cybersecurity, and predictive maintenance. (Source: Schneider Electric)

A Smart Factory at Work

For example, the Schneider solution is in use at a global company that provides solutions to the pharmaceutical industry for its high-purity water, clean-utility requirements, and process application.

The Harmony P6 includes an innovative display with best-in-class visualization for the company’s factory production processes, and ensures ease of maintenance for troubleshooting. This unique solution is powered by 8th Generation Intel® Core™ processors for a boost of data integration response and an additional layer of cybersecurity protection.

Harmony P6 Customer Adoption Key Success Factors

  • Critical parameters are shown for ease of decision-making
  • Reduction in overall service costs with remote maintenance and troubleshooting
  • Enhanced operator experience with innovative display and high-performing processors

#Edge applications connect to #factory machines to collect and preprocess data for #IT, while other applications analyze #data on-site—enabling streamlined operations. @SchneiderNA via @insightdottech

Secure Connectivity and Remote Monitoring

The Schneider iPC, combined with its EcoStruxure software platform, are at the heart of the solution. Edge applications connect to factory machines to collect and preprocess data for IT, while other applications analyze data on-site—enabling streamlined operations (Figure 1).

Edge applications connect to factory machines
Figure 1. With IoT edge computing, AI, and an open architecture, the platform connects, controls, and enables real-time data analytics. (Source: Schneider Electric)

The platform digitizes industrial machines and processes through:

  • Smart Design and Engineering: Shorten time to automation implementation—improving productivity and reducing costs
  • Workforce Empowerment: Visualization and control with associated software
  • Asset Performance: Connecting OT and IT for data management and optimization
  • Cybersecurity: End-to-end cybersecurity, including remote connections
  • Investment Continuity: Reliable and better user experience, along with longer lifecycle

Integrated Security Protects Data

While the integration of OT and IT data allows companies make more-informed and more-productive decisions, at the same time they must manage the growing risks of cyberattacks. The combination of Schneider and Intel hardware, software, and security assurance expertise help keep manufacturing systems and data more protected. Harmony P6 with Intel-integrated, hardware-based security prioritizes capabilities such as authentication, encryption, and resilience.

Depending on a company’s needs, this information can also be sent to other factory machines such as a distributed control system (DCS) or SCADA. Redundant drives are essential, since losing historical data such as chimney smoke analysis may result in fines.

The Schneider EcoStruxure Machine SCADA Expert software combines data visualization with additional SCADA functions, providing major operational improvements compared to using HMIs. To help factory-floor machine operators, edge applications parse machine-sensor data, sending real-time alerts and showing workers via a dashboard how to fix problems—instead of inundating them with unnecessary information. And manufacturers can analyze machine data in the cloud to uncover trends for predictive maintenance, allowing them to solve problems as soon as, or even before, they occur.

“It’s so much easier, and faster, to manage data when you already have everything in the SQL database—rather than uploading it manually from CSV files. Then you can do whatever you want with it: generate reports and graphs or analyze system data,” says Krzysztof Aleksandrowicz, Senior Sales Engineer OEM, Schneider Electric.

Nonstop Operations

Having 24/7 access to machine data means more timely maintenance since factory managers can now fix machine problems during scheduled downtime. And they can connect to the system remotely at any time, allowing them to evaluate problems before sending technicians to the site to investigate. As a result, maintenance time can be cut by as much as 25 percent.

With solutions like the Schneider Harmony P6 and the EcoStruxure software platform, just-in-time manufacturing is now a reality. As a result, Schneider Electric and Intel are helping manufacturers transform their operations, strengthen security, lower costs, and better serve their customers.

The 5G Factory of the Future with Capgemini

Posted on by Micah Kaplan

Philippe Ravix, 5G, edge, industrial IoT

[Podcast Player]

Did you know it is almost impossible to separate 5G and edge computing? 5G is giving a boost to manufacturers’ digital and IoT journeys by eliminating the need for wired connectivity on the shop floor. But it relies on the speed and low latency capabilities from the edge to do so. Together the two power the future of IoT.

In this podcast episode, we explore the challenges facing the manufacturing industry today with the rise of IoT, and the importance of 5G and the edge to address those challenges, and what’s next for 5G and manufacturing.

Our Guest: Capgemini

Our guest this episode is Philippe Ravix, Global Digital Manufacturing Solution Architect at Capgemini, a global leader in digital transformation, technology, and engineering services. In his role, Philippe aims to shape and define the company’s digital manufacturing offering and create an ecosystem of partners in the digital manufacturing and industrial IoT space.

Podcast Topics

Philippe answers our questions about:

  • (3:01) The evolution of the manufacturing space since the advent of IoT
  • (5:55) The biggest challenges with growing and scaling IoT initiatives
  • (7:33) How 5G will play a role in manufacturing’s future
  • (10:48) The importance of edge architectures
  • (15:02) Complexities that manufacturers are dealing with today
  • (26:14) Successfully deploying 5G and edge computing

Related Content

To learn more about this topic, read People, Technology Power Machine Uptime. For the latest innovations from Capgemini, follow them on Twitter at @Capgemini and LinkedIn at Capgemini.

Apple Podcasts  Spotify  Google Podcasts  

Transcript

Kenton Williston: Welcome to the IoT Chat, where we explore the trends that matter for consultants, systems integrators, and end users. I’m Kenton Williston, the Editor-in-Chief of insight.tech.

Every episode I talk to a leading expert about the latest developments in the Internet of Things. Today I’m talking about the impact of 5G on manufacturing with Philippe Ravix, Global Digital Manufacturing Solution Architect at Capgemini.

The way I see it, 5G will be critical to making Industry 4.0 a reality, and it will set us on the path to Industry 5.0. But what’s the right way to adopt 5G in the factory? How should manufacturing processes change in response to this new technology? And what role will edge computing play in all of this? I look forward to hearing how Capgemini is answering these questions.

So, Philippe, welcome to the show.

Philippe Ravix: Thank you, Kenton. Nice to spend time and to discuss with you.

Kenton Williston: So, tell me a little bit about Capgemini and your role there.

Philippe Ravix: So, Capgemini, it’s a huge company—more than a 250,000 people in the world. So, Capgemini is a global system integrator. Capgemini is well known as a global leader in consulting, digital transformation, technology, and engineering services. The group is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of clients’ opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital, and platform.

Within Capgemini I’m VP; I’m part of the global digital manufacturing offering team. I cover Capgemini worldwide. My role is really to define and shape the digital manufacturing offering, and to develop business in digital manufacturing transformation.

To be more precise, my main activities are to define the offering at the group level, to support salespeople during process, to create and develop an ecosystem of a partner—it could be a strategic partner, it could be your local partners—to lead a strategic alliance with Intel®, and to be involved as the solution architect—or CTO—in our key projects.

Kenton Williston: So, just to get a little bit more of your personal history—what did you do before your current role?

Philippe Ravix: I spent my first 10 years in Capgemini working in the IT system as enterprise architect. After this first experience, in fact—so, about 10 years ago—I oriented my career to start a new challenge and work in IoT.

That was the beginning of IoT. I had the opportunity to launch this activity within Capgemini. During this period, in fact, we developed the business in all sectors—like retail, medical device, aerospace, and manufacturing. And we also developed some assets and IPs within Capgemini in collaboration—many with Intel. So, I would say my career is both in the IT system as an architect, and after, now, in the IoT—meaning the IT and OT system, where I work as business developer and solution architect.

Kenton Williston: Certainly a lot has changed in the manufacturing space—which is the topic I want to talk about today. And how do you think the manufacturing space has evolved since the advent of the Internet of Things?

Philippe Ravix: We are now in the digital transformation era, or edge—called also Industry 4.0, factory of the future, or intelligent industry, or smart factory. A lot of terms to express not only that we enter in a data-oriented approach, but in collaboration with the foundation of what is manufacturing—meaning what we call the Golden Triangle based on the three main systems, that is the PLM, the MES, and the ERP.

So the advent of IoT is something that will have an impact on the manufacturing process based on, I will say, data collection, real time, and analytics, and will complement existing systems that are more process oriented, in fact.

So it’s not I will replace, it’s really I will complement and collaborate with the existing systems that manage the shop floor and the manufacturer.

IoT is clearly one of the driving forces behind the Industry 4.0 movement. I think we’ll first enable immense automation. That is one of the key points. First, leverage data collection from the shop floor to the cloud, and at the end, leverage analytics—advanced analytics, in fact.

Why? To optimize workflow and processes inside the manufacturer. So it will be—I will say, today—the next step after the lean strategy, it will be a kind of lean software to have another step of process optimization inside the company and inside the shop floor.

Kenton Williston: Yeah, I agree with that assessment. You’re talking about all the different systems that are involved from an IT side, or from an operations side in the manufacturing sector. You have your PLM, your ERP, your MES—all these systems have an important role to play and, like you said, a big focus over the last couple of decades, really, has been on lean manufacturing.

Although, I have to say the last year or two has exposed some of the flaws in that manufacturing, and we’re still facing a lot of ongoing supply chain challenges. But, nonetheless, moving on to that next stage of a greater level of intelligence I do think is where the future is pointing, and having everything being increasingly data driven, right? That’s really the point of digital transformation. So, I think these are things that pretty much every manufacturer is thinking about, or has embarked on, or has already completed some digital transformation, and is aiming towards this Factory 4.0 regime that we’re heading towards.

But I think there’s still a lot of challenges in this space, and I’m sure you’ve got to see a lot of those firsthand working with your clients. So, what do you see as some of the biggest challenges as manufacturers are trying to grow and scale their IoT initiatives?

Philippe Ravix: For sure there were a lot of challenges for the manufacturers, and where IoT has a, I would say, central role. So, today in the Industry 4.0 there is, I will say, three main challenges, in fact. So, the first one is automation. So, automation is clearly one of the key topics that we see in the market. How we can integrate technologies to automate manufacturing processes?

The next one is flexibility. Flexibility is also clearly something here. In fact, today it takes a long time, if you manufacture a product in the line, you take a long time to change the line, to manufacture another product.

And after, for sure, the sustainability, in fact. So it’s the big trends. In fact, all the clients, all the manufacturers’ industry have this big objective in mind.

In fact, to make the manufacturing cost effective by improving the efficiency of the equipment and processes to minimize the energy consumption; to decrease the manufacturing time, the lead time; to reduce the waste and to use less material. So: automation, flexibility, and the sustainability are the three main challenges that we see.

Kenton Williston: I think there certainly are challenges ahead—not only the technological challenges, but the supply chain challenges I mentioned earlier. A lot of things are changing in this space. And one of the biggest changes—and the key topic I wanted to get to today—was the advent of 5G, which I think is opening up a lot of really exciting new possibilities.

So, can you talk to how you see 5G addressing where manufacturing is going next?

Philippe Ravix: I would say there are two game changers, in fact, today in IoT that will create the IoT of the future. The first one, 5G, is definitely one of the game changers, and edge is the other one, in fact.

So, when I started IoT 10 years ago what it was, it was a device sending data to the cloud for analytics and for human interaction. So it was more cloud to human. So this is a south-north connection from device to cloud, without a lot of data. Now the amount of data, the number of devices deployed, the type of asset connected—for example, in manufacturing if you connect the PLC you should be able to collect data within milliseconds and then 200 parameters. So, at the end of the day you have a lot of data, and you’re not able to send everything to the cloud.

So the edge is really important, and the key part in the architecture and to address this manufacturing challenge—to have this intermediate platform to collect data, to standardize data, to compute data, and after to say: I can send to the cloud, I can send to my colleague, another edge, and so on and so on.

So, edge, it’s quite difficult, I would say, to separate edge and 5G, because 5G—it’s an edge network. So, edge—it’s clearly a game changer for IoT in manufacturing, and it’s something we see now. After, 5G is also, for sure, a key technology for IoT. Why? Because what is interesting with 5G, in fact, is that you will be able to suppress, or to avoid, having wire connectivity in the shop floor.

Meaning, with the capabilities of the edge—meaning speed and near-zero latency—5G will eliminate wire connectivities and will offer a degree of flexibility that I mentioned as a key challenge in the process, by adding mobility for everything.

Kenton Williston: So, it’s wonderful to have this wireless factory that’s so flexible. But then it also means: one, you need to think about where the compute is being done to make the most effective use of those wireless connections. And two, it presents an opportunity to gather so much more data, that you really have to be thoughtful about how to process that data so only the right information is being transported over all of these networks.

So, can you talk a little bit more about the edge architectures you see emerging out of this new paradigm?

Philippe Ravix: So, edge platform is really this intermediate platform that you can have at the device level, you can have at the machine level, you can have at the plant level. So, there are three levels of edge today that we can say each level of edge will have a feature or capabilities for compute and storage. And after, you will say, at the sensor level, at the machine or line level, at the plant level, and after you send to the cloud. And so this is the value of the edge.

The edge is a platform, so it’s 100% a cloud-style architecture. So we can see the edge as part of the cloud—so we do not disconnect the edge to the cloud, or the edge to the cloud. In fact, the edge is seen as part of the cloud—same architecture style—and it’s why the big cloud providers, like Microsoft Azure, AWS, or Google, have now on the market their own edge platforms. Azure Stack, Outposts, or Anthos. So this is why there was an interest from the bigger players in the cloud first.

And with this kind of architecture there was also an interesting point, that today the main connectivity is from device to cloud—so, south to north. With edge, you can create a collaboration from edge to west. So you can create east-to-west connectivity—meaning, edge will be able to discuss and to manage integration and to exchange data from one edge to another one from other specific use cases.

So, everything at the shop-floor level to optimize the process—meaning that you don’t need to send data at the cloud to optimize the process. You can optimize the process at the plant level. So it’s why you have this collaboration between edge and all this data.

One of the key points, also to do this with the edge, is to have this data-standardization feature. One of the key points—that is why it’s quite complex today, because when you collect data from the shop floor, there is a specific model. It could be OPC UA, orif you have Modbus, Profibus, and so on—but it’s always all the protocols. So, protocols first—meaning, that to the OPC UA it’s quite interesting, because you standardize data coming from the shop floor at the device level or at the machine level.

So, very interesting. And after, you send data to the data leg, or somewhere. After—this was the first integration—after, the second integration is how to integrate or to collaborate between PLM, MES, data platform, edge, and so on and so on. That is, specific system with specific data model. But you need to collaborate PLM to ERP and MES for digital continuity, for example. Data platform to MES, for example; to in line quality or process optimization in the shop floor. So there was specific use case for this collaboration and for this, you need to have an integration.

In terms of integration, what happened today in the market, we have more or less integration by the process, integration by the data, integration by the UX/UI. Now, if we can consider that the edge is also able to have a semantic layer, we can add an integration by models directly at the edge level to accelerate the integration between all the systems involved in the manufacturing process—meaning PLM, ERP, MES, and the edge and the data platform.

So, the edge—it’s also the place where you will standardize and create the semantic layer to manage the collaboration and integration between all the systems. So it’s why the edge is so important today in a reference architecture.

Kenton Williston: I can imagine just a whole variety of challenges if a manufacturer will try to do this themselves. So, I would love to get a picture of how Capgemini helps manufacturers actually implement such a system and deal with all these complexities.

Philippe Ravix: The manufacturing is a complex system, for sure, with a lot of complexity from everything—from the connectivity, from the data management, from the data, from the use case, and from the architecture point of view.

So, we support a lot of clients in digital manufacturing transformation. We have a dedicated approach for this, starting both by a business vision and business use cases, and an architecture view. We always start by business and architecture, because in digital transformation there is transformation that is—what is the right use case? What is the value of this use case? And so on and so on. What is the roadmap? But also there is digital—so, meaning that there is the technology. Why? It’s quite impossible, or it would be, I would say, a mistake to separate business from technology today.

So we start to support the client in the business and IT roadmap—I would say that is the first phase. After, we enter in the next phase—that is, depending on the maturity of the client. Because today in the market, most of the big clients’ companies have developed during the last five years, I will say, minimum a lot of proof of concept, proof of value experimentation—I do not know how you can call this. But I will say not hundred, or perhaps sometimes hundred of for proof of concept in digital, for predictive maintenance, for predictive quality, for control, for mobility, and so on and so on.

So, there is a lot of experimentation in each client, and the key problem now is not to identify or to validate the business value; it’s how to scale. This is the challenge today. We know that in IoT we can develop a lot of proof of concept, but the value of IoT is not on the proof of concept that costs money; it’s in the global deployment.

After this business and IT roadmap, we directly go to a scaling program with the client—meaning architecture, so, detailed architecture. And one of the key points is really to have a platform strategy. Do you have the connectivity platform? Which one? Do you have the data platform? Which one? Do you have the analytics platform? Which one? How do you manage the global integration between all the systems? It could be machines, it could be another system based on the semantic layer that is an integration platform, and so and so.

Everything is based on the platform. Everything is based on the cloud-style architecture. So we define this detailed architecture. From the key use cases that have been validated during the phase one or during the previous work done by the client, we select, I would say, a few use cases—no more than five—for development and global deployment. And after we enter in a giant mode with the client.

Kenton Williston: So, we talked earlier about, for example, how the major cloud providers are moving into platforms that go from the cloud to the data center to the edge—and I’ll take Microsoft Azure as the example. So, of course there’s the main Azure platform, which is the cloud platform; but there’s also Azure Stack, which lives in the data center; and the Azure IoT platform, which pushes analytics and all the rest all the way down to the edge, right? So, really important for enabling that east-to-west communication, like you were describing, for providing a level of flexibility for compute and storage networking to be located where it makes the most sense from an architectural perspective.

And then, of course, we’ve talked about all the other systems that are already extant in these plants: you’ve got your SAP systems and your Oracle systems and all the rest. What does Capgemini have in terms of a platform? Or is that part of your offerings?

Philippe Ravix: In Capgemini we have some IPs or assets that we propose as accelerators, as we are a systems integrator—we are not an editor. Most of those industrial assets or IPs have been developed through the Intel Alliance. So, the first one we have, we’re stuck with; it’s an IoT platform that we call XIoT that we have deployed for many clients to manage the connectivity, the wireless connectivity. It could be at the shop floor, but for the distributed assets; so it’s something that we use in the energy for example, in fact, to collect data from the plant. It’s an IoT meter web device management—something that we’ve have had for now around 10 years.

The second one is quite an interesting one. It’s what we call Ensconce. So, it’s a 5G-plus edge platform. It has been developed also in partnership with Intel. So, it’s a 100% pure edge platform that we position in the manufacturing. It’s interesting because it’s both an edge platform and a 5G platform—meaning that we can manage globally the cellular connectivity with the 5G. But also we have the capabilities and features of an edge platform—meaning compute storage. And this platform today is used in many contexts and for many clients too. So, quite a powerful platform to prepare the future, as it’s first an edge platform, and, secondly, it’s a 5G platform. Even today we can use it as a 4G or cellular platform.

Kenton Williston: Just hearing even the name Ensconce gives me some questions. So, when I think of that word, I think of settling down into a secure, sheltered location. And I’m wondering if security is part of that offering. And, just in general, where security factors into your thinking in all of this. Because obviously we’re talking about a much greater level of connectivity, and that connectivity is wireless. So there’s at least the potential there for a much larger surface area for attacks. So what are your thoughts on security? And does that fit into the Ensconce offering, or any of your larger offerings?

Philippe Ravix: So, in the platform that we propose and in the expertise that we can have in 5G, in fact, we manage all the security capabilities inside the platform. So, for Ensconce, we manage their security for the network. For the other connectivity we manage also the security. For example, we manage the encryption with PKU management, for example, between the device and the platform. We manage the security by the IAM identity manager to avoid having an intrusion in one of the systems or one of the machines. And after, we manage the security by the network. But if the network is replaced by your 5G network, we have all the key security features deployed in the platform.

So security can be seen globally in the shop floor. We have this platform, and most of the time in the shop floor we have a private network and we manage the private network in 5G first. And we manage also all the security between the system and machine with encryption, and so on.

And after, on the cloud, we use the security coming from the cloud provider. When we work Azure and AWS—meaning that we know that it’s a secure system—we don’t need to add something. The point is how to manage security between the plant and the cloud. Sometimes we develop some specific network, like what will take place for Azure for Microsoft, for example, or LPN plus secure protocol, HTTPS, and so on.

So we can manage the security from plant to cloud, and inside the plant we manage the security with the network and with the different security topic. So it’s something that we address by design in the solution that we have.

Kenton Williston: Wow, that’s a lot more than I expected. So, we’re glad to see such a heavy focus on security. So, in all of this, how do you work with Intel to achieve success? And how does that relationship with Intel support everything you’re doing?

Philippe Ravix: First, Intel is a strategic partner for Capgemini for many years now. So, in Capgemini we have a global alliance team at the group level. And Intel is part of this global alliance team. So Intel is seen as a strategic partner. So, this alliance is managed at the group level with dedicated organization and governance, and we cover all the geographies or the sectors.

So, now how we work, and what this alliance brings to Capgemini? So, this is first with value for Capgemini. First, because with Intel we know that we will always have the, I will say, the access to the best technologies, to the expertise, and to the innovation. Meaning, with Intel we deliver a lot of webinars, technical sessions, and deep dives in technology or partner technology. Intel brings up the latest technology on cloud, on edge and 5G, reference architecture, and technical support on demand.

So it’s really a technical, or technology, partner that is very powerful, and it’s very powerful in the digital transformation world.

One of the key points also with Intel is that they have a huge ecosystem of partners that is probably powerful for us. And we can access all these partners from Intel. So when we have a question, Intel will be able to put in front of Capgemini the right partners with the right technology, and we can have direct access to the right technology for all projects. So it’s really also a way to accelerate and to secure our delivery.

And, the last point, and very important for us, that we have a joint collaboration in solution development with Intel.

Kenton Williston: So that leads me to my final question, which is, we’ve covered a lot of ground in our conversation today—if you could give manufacturers one key thing they should think about if they’re considering how to deploy 5G and edge computing, what advice would you give them?

Philippe Ravix: Well, if you want success, you need to have a clear vision of where you want to be in terms of business tomorrow. You need to have a clear vision of the market—meaning that if you don’t move, your competitors will move, and you will have lost market share.

So, to be sure that the Industry 4.0 or Industry 5.0—that it’s the next generation with 5G that we’ve got today, if you think we have this Industry 5.0 transformation. But to be sure that the client has a very good understanding of the technology where it is today, and where we want to go tomorrow, and why.

So, first: have this big global strategy at the group level. After, you can start by whatever you want, because more or less we know today what are the best use cases by sector, by industry, discrete process—assembly, packaging, and so on and so on.

Second point: it’s to have the right architecture.

So, meaning the right platform, integrating with the edge—a giant architecture, because everything will move very, very quickly. Second point: so they have a clear view on the architecture and to use the cloud-style architecture. So, the architecture and the way you address the project with the architecture—it’s also a key point. So, the architecture. Because if not, you will have silos.

And after, also to be sure that the client has the foundation of the Industry 3.0; a lot of clients do not have an MES, for example. So, they have an ERP, but they do not have an MES. I just finished a project just to define the requirement for the next MES. And we are in 2021, so, meaning that if you discuss data platform Industry 4.0, you collect a lot of data, and so on and so on, with a client that does not have MES, do not collect data today.

It’s too early. So, meaning that, start by the Industry 3.0. So, it’s why—do you have the right foundation for this? And the right foundation, it’s what we call the Golden Triangle with the PLM, ERP, MES.

Kenton Williston: Yeah. So, a couple of key things that really stand out to me, I think. One is to get to this future you need to start by understanding where you are today. Are you an Industry 3.0? Are you at Industry 4.0—where are you today? And then, two: you have to have a clear vision for where you want to go and buy-in from the individuals at a particular plant that this is the vision we want to pursue, not just something that’s been forced on us. That totally makes sense.

So, with that, I’d just like to say, thank you so much, Philippe, for your time today. This has been a very interesting and engaging conversation.

Philippe Ravix: Thank you very much.

Kenton Williston: And thanks to our listeners for joining us. And to keep up with the latest from Capgemini, follow them on Twitter and on LinkedIn at Capgemini.

If you enjoyed listening, please support us by subscribing and rating us on your favorite podcast app. This has been the IoT chat. We’ll be back next time with more ideas from industry leaders at the forefront of IoT design.

Demystifying Digital Transformation for Manufacturers

Posted on by Micah Kaplan

The term “digital transformation” has largely been overused and misunderstood, leading many manufacturers to believe they must make huge investments in these efforts. But the point of digital transformation, Industry 4.0, or smart-factory initiatives is to make small but impactful changes that improve operations, performance, and costs.

“You’re trying to increase the efficiency on the plant floor, look for insights, look for ROI, and unlock data,” says Bryan DeBois, Director of Industrial AI at RoviSys, a leading automation and information solutions provider. “How can we use digitalization to make a transformative impact on operations?”

Why Digital Transformation Projects Fail

Many digital transformation efforts fail because organizations try to do too much upfront, DeBois explains.

“Walk before you run. The ones who start small and grow from those are clearly winning,” he says. “There’s a lot of areas that you can find ROI on this digital transformation journey.”

For instance, RoviSys recently helped a disposable-packaging maker automate, collect, and track its production data, providing more insight into downtime and productivity. The packaging maker was using a manual recording process to track data during the production process, resulting in inaccurate or out-of-date information. By just implementing a new data-driven process, the packaging maker was able to increase its uptime by nearly 30%.

“Walk before you run. The ones who start small and grow from those are clearly winning. There’s a lot of areas that you can find ROI on this #DigitalTransformation journey.” —Bryan DeBois, Director of Industrial #AI at @RoviSys via @insightdottech

While it can be possible to “swallow the elephant in one gulp” and do everything all at once, DeBois says that it’s rare and can happen only with 100% leadership buy-in. Leadership buy-in from the top ensures everyone is on the same page and working toward the same goal to improve manufacturing processes.

Much of the operational data necessary to realize areas of improvement is locked on the plant floor. To unlock that data, OT and IT teams must understand each other and work together. It is up to leadership to guide those two parties to the table, help build mutual respect, and provide a collaborative environment.

“The companies that are going about digital transformation right are making sure that OT has a seat at the table right from the beginning and has a voice. We have seen it happen where IT will drive these projects completely without even involving OT, and they’re a failure because OT buy-in can make or break a project,” says DeBois. “IT must recognize that OT is the lifeblood of the company.”

Where to Start Digital Transformation Efforts

Manufacturers know the importance of digital transformation (Figure 1), but it’s not always clear how or where to start. Digital transformation efforts must be tied to a use case or a problem statement from the beginning, DeBois explains.

Smart Manufacturing Chart
Figure 1. Expected benefits from smart manufacturing include operational excellence, agility, flexibility, and optimization. (Source: Gartner)

Without a proper use case, the amount of data available can become overwhelming and overload IT systems. By narrowing down the scope, teams can find the right insights from data analytics to solve a particular problem.

Involving an OT System Integrator (SI) like RoviSys early on in projects can help an organization identify its problem areas and build a solution around that.

“We can prioritize use cases, design a solution to solve it, implement that solution, and then support it long term. We can advance the conversation so much faster, and then you can continue to move the conversation forward to get to the higher-value ROI,” says DeBois.

For instance, a recent digital transformation project included an Allen Bradley PLC-5 Control System, which is about 20 years old. The project came to a screeching halt because the team could not figure out how to get data out of the system at a rate that would benefit them. In addition, the system wasn’t scheduled to be replaced for years, and even if it was, it was going to be too expensive to remove.

With its deep manufacturing industry experience and knowledge, RoviSys was able to come in and quickly tweak the PLC’s code to save the entire project.

“One of the things that’s unique about RoviSys is our ability to get tactical. The success of some of these projects is about getting very tactical and getting down to the plant floor, understanding it at a very intimate level, and making sure that everything is set up for success from the beginning,” DeBois says.

Data Guides Implementing the Right Tools for Success

No matter what type of operations a manufacturer has, DeBois explains that once you can access the operational data on the plant floor, it is critical to historicize everything. Historians collect all the data sources coming from the plant floor and put it in a centralized place to visualize, analyze, and diagnose areas of improvement.

An overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) solution can then be added to measure availability, throughput, and quality. “If you can maximize those three factors, you already are going to see huge improvements,” DeBois explains.

An aluminum wheel manufacturer was recently struggling to keep up with the demand for wheels. It needed to figure out how to make more wheels and address throughput. The use case was tied to the saw’s performance.

RoviSys implemented a historian and OEE system to collect information about the saw and operations across multiple manufacturing sites. The manufacturer was able to visualize all the data to compare how different sites were performing or struggling at each phase of the process.

“When you put all of those advantages together between all those different sites, you suddenly could now squeeze more performance out of every single one of those sites,” says DeBois.

Digital transformation efforts can be extended even further with the availability of machine learning and deep-reinforcement learning. These AI models not only help predict value but advise teams on what action they should take next.

RoviSys is one of eight SIs that implement deep-reinforcement learning models from Microsoft’s Project Bonsai. The deep-reinforcement learning models are trained in the Azure cloud and deployed on industrial PCs powered by Intel®.

By leveraging technology and advancements from partners like Microsoft and Intel, RoviSys can provide a complete, holistic manufacturing solution for customers and help guide them toward smart automation manufacturing.

“Eighty percent of the solution typically comes from other software and hardware vendors, and we provide the 20% that makes it one holistic solution across vendors that we can support for customers. Intel has created this great ecosystem for us to be able to do all that,” says DeBois. “They’re pushing the envelope with things like computer vision, OpenVINO™, and chips that are dedicated to AI.”

Manufacturers that have the right partners, have leadership buy-in, tie efforts to a use case, include instrumentation, and achieve IT/OT convergence will see huge success and improvement in their manufacturing systems, according to DeBois.

Charging the Digitalization of the Power Grid

Posted on by Pete Berta

The power grid is undergoing massive changes with decarbonization initiatives and the fight against climate change leading the way. The need to digitize the power grid is more important than ever as it can help move forward and accelerate these efforts.

But government regulations, emerging security threats, and the need for renewable energy are putting a strain on the grid.

We talk with Jani Valteri, Technology Center Manager for ABB, a leader in industrial digitalization, to discuss the ongoing evolution of the power grid, key considerations for modernization efforts, the role government regulations play, and what this means for the industry.

How has the power grid evolved over the past couple of years, and what drives those changes?

During the past couple of years there have been more changes than in the previous two decades. One big driver is the decarbonization of our society and fighting climate change. It is, of course, one aspect that addresses all parts of the society, and electrification of our society is one big tool to really support in this, because electrical energy is one of the few flexible forms of energy that can be produced with zero carbon footprint.

We see many things happening because of this. On the production side, we see distributed renewable energy production. On the consumption side, we see demand response, controllable consumption, and all kinds of new devices.

We also see new active components connected to the grid. It may be energy storage. We have started to see electrical vehicles and other similar components.

On top of that, one key thing is digitalization, which is really giving a lot of speed for this change and making it possible for change to happen at quite a fast pace.

What do you see coming next in the grid?

Many powers are pushing toward individual consumer behavior and government regulations. On the other hand, we are starting to see more mature technologies coming.

There is also a flavor of unpredictability. Whatever we now predict for the next five years, I expect the change to be even faster than that. And that’s another reason why we really need to take digital technologies very seriously, because they are the only technologies that are flexible enough to really accommodate this and make this transition happen in a smooth and reliable way.

What are governments and other regulatory bodies doing to modernize the power grid, digitalize it, and make it more flexible?

Multiple things are happening on different fronts. Just during the past couple of months we’ve seen different kinds of governmental investment packages and financing schemes directly focusing on clean transition and digitalization.

Government regulations also are putting even more stress on the reliability of electricity. We see that electrical energy, the share of electrical energy, is growing. It means that it’s becoming an even more critical part of society.

The technology is also getting more mature.  Virtualization is one example. It is now mature enough that it is being used in the energy sector more.

What does virtualization mean in this context?

When we talk about energy or the electricity grid, we often talk about the primary equipment and the secondary equipment.

The primary are these switches and power transformers and the devices that integrate either opening the circuit or closing the circuit—transforming the energy from one form to another. The secondary system is the intelligence part on top of it, which is monitoring all the time to make sure things are in order or if there’s a fault that you need to react to.

The secondary system, this intelligence layer—that is an area where the software orientation is growing very rapidly. There’s a history of having a lot of separate, smaller devices with some level of intelligence. Now we see a trend toward having more standard devices where the customization is done more on the software level.

We see the introduction of more PC-like technology, or industrial computing technologies. Then, on top of that, we see a trend of going from bare metal or these kinds of native software solutions toward more virtual images that can be run in many places.

It is really separating the physical and digital world even more, and then giving much more freedom to quickly react to any kind of change that may happen.

Can you provide a practical example of what you’ve done with some of your customers to implement this kind of technology?

One example is the discipline substation. In traditional formats, have multiple different protection relays doing specific protection functionality for a specific component. We made a pilot where all this functionality was put into one device as a pure software product that we then could update in real time without making any changes on the physical level.

We have multiple kinds of pilots where we really go from multiple separate devices into one—or two if we want redundancy—where all the customization is done; the software and the hardware are always the same.

What is the importance of the substation?

The substations have been, and they remain to be, very important hubs of the electricity grid. Similarly, like we see data centers as the important hub of the information network, base stations are the important hub of the communication network.

As we see society getting more and more dependent on electrical energy, it’s even more important that the substation is in a very good shape and performing well, having a very good and elegant selective protection and performing optimally.

Do you see the function or the role of substations changing significantly as we move forward?

I don’t see a dramatic change in the role. I see it more as an emphasis of the role and then a growing of the role. It has been an important part of that already earlier, and we see that it will remain very important.

How do you see cyber threats evolving, and what should the industry be doing to deal with those threats?

We want flexibility. We want digitalization. We want remote-update ability and remote reconfigurability. All this needs to be very cybersecure, but how? One way is to participate very actively in standardization’s latest activities.

We have increased our research and development efforts, increased a lot of testing, bringing new technologies into use. The update ability and flexibility of the system is giving tools, in the sense that whenever something happens, or we notice some need for change, we can deploy cybersecurity improvements all over the network at a very fast pace.

We need to increase the awareness and then share best practices, and really have a solid working model in different places. Often the technology takes you only so far, but then you need certain, let’s say, personal guidelines and rules that people really respect and that go according to certain guidelines. And then keep the cybersecurity on the high level and keep eyes open when the system is used and unsupervised.

Would you say a well-proven foundation is necessary before you can really do anything?

It’s very important that the device and the electronics and the physical reliability are on a high level. It’s not enough to say that you have very reliable hardware, and then you can just put your software on it.

We similarly need to think about software in layers. We need to have a very robust digital backbone, or the bottom level of the software, which is also keeping the software integrity on a high level. Because when we go to this kind of area where we are maybe updating remotely, reconfiguring, doing changes in the live system, which is all the time securing and protecting the network, we similarly need to have a good, layered approach to software, so that we know that certain aspects are robust and reliable, even if some other part is changed.

So it’s bringing quite interesting needs and new requirements only if you want to look at software.

What are some key considerations for modernizing infrastructure?

One important part on the national level, political level, is the governmental regulations. Often, they tend to guide quite a lot on what, for example, utility distribution system operators do or do not do. It’s very important that these governmental regulations are really supporting taking new technologies into use—are supporting innovations—and are not promoting, let’s say, old-fashioned ways of addressing challenges.

Apart from that, it’s important that you are open toward new technologies, but you do it in a very controlled manner with zero tolerance for low quality. And you do it with good partners that you trust that take the security and reliability very seriously.

How has the partnership between Intel® and ABB helped move these solutions forward?

The partnership with Intel® has been very good. We have been making very nice pilots in terms of taking the substation functionality to a totally new software-oriented level, going toward digitalization, going toward virtualization, going toward digital technologies. So it has been a very good collaboration.

It’s important to think that it’s not just about technology. It’s about the networks. It’s about ecosystems, which are not just technical ecosystems, but business ecosystems. When we see a converging of the IT and energy side, we see utilities and telecom operators getting closer to each other.

It also means that the business landscape is changing, and we will see some changing of roles. We might see some new roles that will manage specific digital aspects of the electricity network, bringing some new digital services to the energy network. It must have a really secure layer so this access can be granted.

I also see that there will be new roles and new kinds of business ecosystems that will further change the game or change the landscape, but also increase the speed, and bring new players that can bring new innovations to the area.

What I see now in the future, when these things get closer together and we see new ecosystems, we also see a rate of change in how the system is set up.

The resilience or protection will also mean how we combine this paradox. How do we give flexibility and adaptability—robustness to the environment—while at the same time allowing maximum flexibility? There are also different kinds of what I call resilience, what we haven’t earlier considered as resilience, but now it will also come.

The meaning of many words will broaden, and the security and resilience will mean a bit more, if you understand what it means today.

Any final thoughts you want to leave our readers with?

My concluding remark is to really make this shift in a good, reliable way. We do need, let’s say, systemic resilience—a systemic approach to keep a system secure—but we also need to have a good, open collaboration.

We have it now with ABB and Intel, and with many other utilities and customers. This is a good path, and bringing a lot of good building blocks for carbon-neutral energy systems.

Related Content

To learn more about the evolution of the power grid, listen to your podcast ABB Talks Smart Grids, Substations, and Security.

One-Click Meetings with Interactive Digital Displays

Posted on by Pete Berta

From smart speakers to smartphones, we use innovative technologies for seamless entertainment, security, communications, and much more. It seems logical that we should be able to do the same in the workplace. For example, what if you could pull into a parking spot reserved from home, while at the same time, schedule a meeting room, order lunch for 10, and confirm a teleconferencing system is available and ready to go?

There’s no reason these things can’t be achieved, except that our current office environment typically involves disparate apps that don’t speak to one another. Fortunately, that can be solved in a cohesive ecosystem.

Preconfigured, Interactive Screens Keep Trains on Track

The conference room is a good place to start, and UK Network Rail is a great example. The organization operates and develops Britain’s railway infrastructure: 20,000 miles of track; 30,000 bridges, tunnels, and viaducts; along with thousands of signals, level crossings, and stations.

Network Rail needed to upgrade and standardize more than 1,000 conference rooms and training facilities. The company’s goal was to create a standard experience across its countrywide footprint. Clevertouch, a provider of interactive touchscreens, digital signage, and collaboration software, makes it possible.

“Network Rail’s biggest challenge was disconnected technology in every meeting space,” says Adam Kingshott, group marketing director for Clevertouch. “None of it matched and the whole thing was so complex people weren’t using the rooms.”

The company deployed the Clevertouch Interactive Communication and Collaboration Solution, which includes a preconfigured PC module—powered by Intel® technology—in every meeting room. Someone can walk in, press a screen button, and perform at most three steps.

“Our mantra is to minimize the number of clicks,” explains Shaun Marklew, CTO of Boxlight, the parent company of Clevertouch. “You can connect and collaborate. Either way, staff knows that all the A/V equipment will work together as it should.”

With the same system configuration in every room, UK Rail employees can connect to the interactive screen and launch a presentation or share a document in the same way—whether they are in London or Cardiff. “This capability to collaborate quickly has become even more valuable as they realize not everyone will return to work on-site,” Kingshott says.

And with remote management, I.T. support resources are not overburdened—leaving them time for more constructive tasks.

“The capability to collaborate quickly has become even more valuable as companies realize not everyone will return to work on-site.”—Adam Kingshott, Group Marketing Director @myCleverTouch via @insightdottech

Wireless Displays Are an A+ for Education

With the aim to boost teaching time, a similar transformation is underway at the New South Wales Education Standards Authority. The government agency is responsible for setting and monitoring teaching, learning, assessment, and school standards in Australia.

“The agency came to us requesting a completely wireless solution that would allow teachers and students to connect using their own devices,” Marklew says. “They were interested in components like a screen on the wall, a room booking system, and digital signage.”

Now, students and teachers don’t have to worry about cables or wires, and the interactive screen’s all-in-one configuration makes it easier to get classes started.

“Previously, it may have taken 10 minutes for an instructor to boot up a computer and launch a lesson plan,” says Marklew. “The time savings is immense—especially when calculated over the number of lessons given daily, multiplied by the number of days across all the schools.”

Digital Signage Serves Many Needs

This type of digital communication is also fundamental to productivity in a wide variety of markets such as retail, medical, fitness facilities, public spaces, hospitals, and more.

Companies can display announcements and send out emergency alerts building-wide. A gym might update its schedule and inform members of health and safety protocols. And the marketing opportunities in retail stores are practically endless.

In these fast-growing markets, systems integrators benefit, too. With every customer looking at digital signage solutions, there are additional, integrated applications with the ability to add on new sales and services. “We build the tools so clients can purchase the solutions they need,” says Marklew. “And our systems integrators help customers rethink their strategy to focus on a broader set of high-value solutions.”

These are exciting times. Technology is evolving faster than ever, giving companies the ability to innovate in ways that increase productivity, lower costs, and create better experiences. Interactive displays, one-touch control, and a single digital ecosystem are making it possible today.

The Doctor Will View You Now

Posted on by Pete Berta

Telehealth may have felt like an adaptation to the COVID pandemic, but is it just a sign of the times? A glimpse into the future of healthcare? And how can healthcare organizations take advantage of the technology adaptations of the past 18 months to create better patient and caregiver experiences?

We talk with Peter Shen of Siemens Healthineers, a leading medical technology company, about key advances in healthcare technology, including the emerging role of AI and edge computing, the future of healthcare digitization, and how the concept of the “digital twin” could revolutionize patient treatment.

To hear the full conversation, listen to our podcast Digitize Healthcare (Faster) with Siemens Healthineers.

What are some of the key advancements in healthcare technology that you’ve seen during the past 18 months of the pandemic?

I think the pandemic just emphasized digitalization. It’s helping in terms of trying to ease the burden that has been on our healthcare workforce.

Some of the initial lessons that we’ve learned here are that we need to be flexible, especially from a healthcare provider standpoint—trying to be able to manage changing demands on a temporary basis and trying to help scale based on the different needs of the patient population.

From a digital perspective, I think the pandemic really taught us to redefine the way that we deliver healthcare—forcing us to standardize and to try to efficiently manage operations. And then trying overall to reduce workloads.

Certainly, a lot of remote types of solutions came to the forefront here.

A lot of people also tend to forget that these remote and telehealth services not only benefit the patient but our caregivers as well. Our caregivers can use technologies to be able to, let’s say, remotely monitor and operate a scanning device. For instance, if they need to take an X-ray or a CT or MRI scan of the patient, they can actually do things remotely, while sitting physically in a different geographical location or a different area of the hospital.

It’s more than just efficiency and connectivity, but really the ability to allow flexibility, and to allow both the patient and the caregiver some ability to adapt to the changing environment.

“The #pandemic really taught us to redefine the way that we deliver #healthcare—forcing us to standardize and to try to efficiently manage operations.” —@peteshen of @siemenshealthineers via @insightdottech

Cost must be an important factor here, too.

I think it’s cost-effective being more efficient.

How can we leverage concepts like artificial intelligence to allow us to be more efficient in terms of when we’re administering a test? And more accurate, or more precise, in the way that we’re diagnosing those types of exams, as well.

I think digitalization has always been a desire for healthcare institutions, but certainly the pandemic has really accelerated the timeframe around that.

Where do you see AI and edge computing playing a role as we move forward?

There’s been this exponential growth of healthcare data that contains a wealth of critical clinical and operational information to help treat the patient. The goal now becomes how to process all this data in a timely fashion so that we can deliver those important clinical results back to the physician.

We’ve got to focus on developing technologies and solutions that process these critical clinical findings as quickly as possible. And that’s where the technologies like artificial intelligence become so important.

A great example of that is a new AI platform that we’ve created here at Siemens Healthineers: the AI-Rad Companion. It leverages artificial intelligence to process large amounts of imaging data to identify, characterize, and quantify clinical results automatically for the physician, so they can immediately review them and create a diagnosis.

How do you think the industry needs to continue evolving on this point?

We want to make informed decisions about what to do with a patient—whether in diagnosing or trying to treat the patient. So, it’s not just the quantity of information, it’s also ensuring that we have a high quality of information. And that means the accuracy, the completeness, the timeliness of the information—say if somebody is on the surgical table. It’s so critical in terms of making an informed decision to have this high quality.

Another example is active participation of patients in their own healthcare—whether it’s the wearables that we’re all familiar with, or active engagement in terms of monitoring your vital signs and whatnot. Getting that information to the clinician becomes very important as well.

We have to have a digital health platform that can gather all these different, disparate, large amounts of healthcare data that we’re talking about and try to consume all this information in a timely manner so that the provider can effectively see all this information and digest all this information in a really simple way.

There are a lot of different flavors of EHR (electronic health record) systems. What is Siemens doing to create a more standardized ecosystem?

There are several characteristics that are necessary for this digital health platform to be successful.

It needs to be accessible to broaden the digital portfolio of clinical and operational tools that might be available to the clinician or other end user. It needs to be flexible in order to leverage technologies and to allow for ease of deployment without dependency on technical limitations or infrastructure. It’s got to be scalable to be able to facilitate organizational growth. And, finally, it’s got to also provide interoperability to drive connectivity amongst different systems, and to simplify the whole concept of information sharing.

We’ve created a digital health platform, which we call the teamplay digital health platform, that brings together data and evolving applications to provide a unifying platform for accessibility, flexibility, scalability, and interoperability. It leverages the latest computing technologies that are out there and provides the flexibility to not only be a cloud-based solution but also an on-premises solution—or within the walls of the institution for security purposes.

What we want to do with our digital health platform is to really move away from having our end users—those clinicians—having to worry about technical limitations and technology challenges in order to get that critical clinical result.

What are you doing to make sure they get the performance they need?

We’re creating on-premises solutions to make sure that we’re delivering those results in a timely fashion.

It’s leveraging cloud computing to be able to always make sure that our customers and those clinicians have the latest and greatest AI algorithm to be able to process those studies that are out there. It’s edge computing—where we’re able to take a hybrid of those scenarios to be able to deliver the result in a timely fashion. It’s also leveraging the technology partners that we have.

We have a wonderful partnership with Intel®, for example, that is so critical to how our digital health platform works. The processing performance that we get from Intel to help us design our AI algorithms and deliver those critical findings that are assimilated by solutions like the AI-Rad Companion is so important.

What’s great about our partnership with Intel is that their OpenVINO™ toolkit allows us to configure and optimize those different AI algorithms for our platform. And, quite frankly, it allows us on the Siemens Healthineers side to focus on developing our algorithms and clinical solutions to process those clinical findings, without having to worry about technical or infrastructure limitations.

One of the hallmarks of the AI-Rad Companion is that we run multiple AI algorithms at the same time on a particular image that’s being processed by that solution. This is important from a practical sense because, in the real world, the clinician might not actually know what disease or ailment is affecting the patient. If I want to run multiple algorithms all at the same time, I have to have multiple computing powers, multiple capabilities. And this is where OpenVINO makes things so much easier for our team.

There are some really interesting opportunities for AI to go beyond individual diagnoses, and to better understand the patient as a whole—or even to know what questions to ask to begin with.

That’s where we at Siemens Healthineers see the greatest potential for technology like artificial intelligence.

We really strive here to be that leader in clinical decision support—not only at the point of diagnosis, but through the entire care continuum for the patient. And that also means driving concepts like personalized medicine. It’s not just trying to figure out what the right diagnosis is, but also maybe trying to figure out what the optimal therapy plan or treatment plan for that individual patient is.

We’re in the process right now of developing another solution, which we call the AI-Pathway Companion. It is really looking to leverage patient data from all these multiple sources—not just imaging data, but also the patient’s laboratory results, pathology report, or even their genomic data and history. Then leveraging AI to ingest all this information, to find correlations between all those different, disparate pieces of data, and then to analyze that data to create an optimized and personalized treatment plan for that individual patient.

How do you ensure that all these different solutions coming from different partners are able to work together in a secure and compliant fashion?

The great thing at Siemens Healthineers is that data security and patient information security is built in and inherent to the design of our solutions. It’s the ability to compartmentalize the data—if it’s not necessary, then let’s remove all the patient information, all their PHI information, or protected health information.

That design thinking is inherent in all the products that we’ve created.

What else can we expect in this area of healthcare digitization?

We’ve talked about a couple of different concepts around leveraging technologies like AI.

I think what we see in the future is if we can assimilate all those different, disparate pieces of data—if we have information about your lab results and your pathology reports and your genomic makeup—what we’re doing here at Siemens Healthineers is we can start to create a digital twin, if you will, of the patient. A digital replica of the patient.

That digital twin could be used to simulate different diagnostic or therapeutic decisions—to test them virtually and see what the response is of the virtual patient before we do that exam or do that procedure on the patient for real.

We can use that digital twin to help us drive concepts of wellness going forward.

EdTech for Social Good with ViewSonic and Intel®

Posted on by Pete Berta

Chris O’Malley, Manuel G. Edghill, EdTech for Social

{player}

Want to address inequality? Help students with special needs? Support hard-working teachers? Technology can make it happen!

EdTech can help schools modernize the learning experience, reduce workloads, and better support their students. But it requires more than just the latest and greatest technology.

Listen to this podcast to learn how to get started with EdTech, where it fits in school budgets, and how it can elevate the overall educational experience.

Our Guests: ViewSonic and Intel®

Our guests this episode are Manuel Edghill, Head of Software Growth and Partnerships at ViewSonic, a global provider of computing, consumer electronics, and communications solutions; and Chris O’Malley, Director of Marketing for Internet of Things Group at Intel®.

In Manuel’s current role, he works with clients to solve issues and improve solutions. He started his career in finance, but after moving to Taiwan to obtain his master’s degree he entered the technology world. He has been at ViewSonic for over six years in various business and partnership development roles.

Chris O’Malley is mainly focused on in-school technology for education and corporate collaboration. He first joined Intel’s legal team working on healthcare and benefits contracting before moving to marketing.

Podcast Topics

Manuel and Chris answer our questions about:

  • (4:56) Key challenges in education today
  • (7:33) Current trends changing the educational landscape
  • (9:06) Addressing different learning abilities and styles with EdTech
  • (11:08) How EdTech can make a meaningful impact
  • (14:31) How technology can support teachers better
  • (19:59) Where EdTech fits into the budget
  • (28:26) The first step into the EdTech journey

Related Content

To learn more about technology in schools, read Ed Tech Goes the Distance. For the latest innovations from ViewSonic, follow them on Twitter at @ViewSonic and on LinkedIn at ViewSonic.

Apple Podcasts  Spotify  Google Podcasts  

Transcript

Kenton Williston: Welcome to the IoT Chat where we explore the trends that matter for consultants, system integrators, and end users. I’m Kenton Williston, Editor-in-Chief of insight.tech.

Every episode I talk to leading experts about the latest developments in the Internet of Things.

Today I am talking to Ed Tech with Manuel Edghill, Head of Software, Growth and Partnerships at ViewSonic, and Chris O’Malley, Director of Marketing for the Intel® Internet of Things Group.

Technology has played a huge role in the educational sector over the past 18 months as classrooms around the global were forced to switch to remote learning. But there is so much more to the story. EdTech can be a powerful force for social good, addressing inequality in education, helping students with special needs, and supporting hard-working teachers in a myriad of ways.

It can even help schools alleviate budget constraints, which is a completely counterintuitive idea that I’m really looking forward to discussing.

With that, I thought it’d be nice just to start by learning a little bit about both of you. Manuel, we’ll start with you, could you tell me a little bit about your career path and what led you to your current position?

Manuel Edghill: My current role is the Head of Growth and Partnerships. However, the title doesn’t really tell you what I’m up to. Most of the things that I do, and the team does, is we just listen pretty much. We listen and solve issues that our clients have, that’s mostly what we do.

And the way that I ended up here is my background was in finance and then I went to school and then I did an exchange in Taiwan. Currently I’m in Taiwan. And then I got into tech. If you’re in Taiwan, it’s very hard not to get into tech. So then I just jumped from an incubator to a startup, to a corporate and now to this big international company that is ViewSonic. And now we’re doing some really cool stuff in EdTech, so that’s how I got there.

And my education street cred, I taught for about three years some ESL and my mom was a teacher for nine years and then she moved to be an early-development specialist and speech therapist. So I lived with a teacher for most of my life.

Kenton Williston: Wow, that’s great. So it sounds like everybody on this call is going to have some legit educational cred to their name. So my wife–her mother, so my mother-in-law–is a retired school psychologist. So I’ve just been surrounded for years now by people who are deeply involved in the educational system, and have come to get lots of new friends of my own through that community, and that’s been very, very interesting to hear their firsthand experience.

Chris, I know your wife is an educator, tell me a little bit about her and then also a little bit about your journey.

Chris O’Malley: So it’s funny because I’m here, I’ve a loud voice so she’s probably hearing me, and she always yells at me when I talk education, or she laughs at me and comes in to correct me. She was a classroom teacher for 10 years and then she was a high school guidance counselor for 10 years. So she’s got a pretty good handle on education. Great person to bat around ideas with or thoughts that we have from a technology standpoint.

But myself, I’ve got a circuitous process. I’m a Global Marketing Director. I manage what we call education, mostly focused on in classroom or in school technology for education. But I also manage corporate collaboration, which is think of corporate videoconferencing. That’s grown really well, too. So I manage that worldwide except for China and India. Other than that, it rolls up under me. So I’ve been doing that for about two and a half years now.

Prior to that, I used to manage all of our point-of-sale technologies at Intel, along with ATMs, digital signage.

Before that I used to dabble in the military, I did energy, and I also did healthcare for a number of years.

Kenton Williston: It’s kind of interesting hearing about all of the things you folks have been involved in.

I think it’s safe to say that over the course of all of our careers, technology has just radically changed everything in our world, right? I mean, it’s hardly left anything untouched, but the educational sector in some ways has been the exception to that rule.

My daughter’s own classroom, I have a 10-year-old daughter, it’s still very much you’ve got a whiteboard at the front of the class, and you’ve got paper handouts and all this sort of stuff. It looks pretty much like the classrooms I had when I was her age. I think it’s a ripe time for things to change.

But the purpose of this podcast and what I want to talk to you folks today about is not just technology for the sake of technology, but how technology can actually make a meaningful impact in that sector.

So I want to start by asking you, Manuel, what you see as some of the key challenges in the educational arena that might need fixing.

Manuel Edghill: Currently, what a lot of the educators are having as a challenge is competing with the technology and with the attention span that is outside the classroom. You have the TikToks and you have all these really quick bursts of information. How do you translate that in education where you need a longer attention span?

So those are some of the challenges that are being faced by educators right now. How do you engage your classes and your students inside the classroom? And now with this whole remote and distance learning stuff, how do you do that when your students are remote or abroad? It’s very tough. So these are some interesting challenges that we’ve been listening to and trying our best to solve.

Kenton Williston: I totally agree with you, and again, having a 10-year-old, she and all of her friends, I mean, just tearing them away from a screen is a challenge.

Chris O’Malley: If I could chime in on that, I have school-age children as well. But I often say when I’m presenting to educators that we live in a world of screens; we live in a world of video. All of the media we consume is video. It’s dynamic. It’s interactive. That’s what they’re used to. That’s what they thrive on. That’s what engages them. And then if you walk into a classroom that has paper displays or paper materials without any video, without any interactivity, without any of the dynamic digital content that these kids are used to, they kind of shut down. It’s like walking into the 1970s. It’s very difficult for them.

But if we bring it down to the issue we’re facing right now, teachers are thrust very quickly into balancing in-person learning with virtual learning, with hybrid learning and multiple absentees regarding aggressive student quarantine practices where sometimes you’re trying to teach in front of 10 people in class and 10 people who are quarantined at home because of a COVID issue. I think technology can address all of those different issues that they’re facing right now in the most efficient manner possible that’s good for the students and good for the teachers.

Kenton Williston: I’m excited about the possibilities. Chris, you talked about–of course, Manuel, this is true for you as well–how the areas that you work on also encompass corporate settings, something that I have a little bit more firsthand experience with myself. And it’s amazing. I’ve really gotten, with all the tools that have been developed over the past couple of years, super comfortable with remote work. I mean the quality of the experience is very, very, very close now to that in-person setting, but it’s definitely lagging in the educational sector.

So I’m wondering what you folks see as the trends that might help change that and bring a better educational experience. And I think it’s interesting that you point out it’s not just for the students that matters, but also for the teachers. Do you see things shifting now in ways that will finally address some of those things? Chris, I’ll toss that to you first.

Chris O’Malley: If I could go back to what I referenced earlier, which is children today, they’re used to video, they’re used to interactivity, they’re used to every screen being a touchscreen. That’s where I think companies like ViewSonic that happen to make 75-, 85-inch 4K screens with full interactivity and full audio and video capabilities on that where they could pull in YouTube videos. ViewSonic actually provides you access to 2 million vetted educational videos that you could pull into the teacher’s course content very easily to make it exciting and dynamic.

It also has a capability where you could be a remote student, you could be an in-class student, you could actually share the screen of your device on it. Instead of going up to the chalkboard, you could actually use it like a visualizer to look at homework that was handed in and flash it up and annotate over the top of it.

So I think that’s a simple technology that has been around for a while, but I think that its utilization now is dramatically increasing because of COVID. Because all of this course content has been digitized. The importance of dynamic digital content is being seen everywhere. And it’s unleashing the value of what you would see in a collaboration board, whereas maybe five years ago that wasn’t the case. And that’s just one simple thing.

Kenton Williston: Yeah, I totally agree with what you’re saying here. And I think one of the things that’s great about that is in the old-fashioned model, you have one student who is just very uncomfortable, and some students just going up in front of a classroom is a terrible experience for them. And then you have the kids who are not at the blackboard, are they actually getting anything out of that engagement? Probably not. So, being able to actually engage the whole classroom simultaneously, it’s amazing.

And I think there’s a real opportunity here to not just create an educational experience that’s more modern, but even go beyond that and help students with different abilities and different learning styles and all the rest.

Manuel Edghill: Yeah. Usually the students that are not being engaged are sometimes just a little shy or they have some learning difficulties or who knows what’s going on. So there’s some assistive technologies that we are working on that would assist the teacher, pinpoint and figure out these types of behaviors in their audience, in their students, so that Jamie doesn’t get all the attention when people like I would be a little bit more hands-on with.

Another thing that I think is very cool is that a lot of these features that are assistive are available by default. So that particular student who needs the help, they don’t need to raise their hand and feel the stigma of like, “Oh, man, I need a little extra help from the teacher. I don’t want to do that.” Because before that used to be the case, “Oh, I got to stay after.” But now, since everybody has the same technology in that particular classroom, they will be able to get help without having to draw attention to themselves.

Kenton Williston: That’s amazing. And what I love is that there’s just so much potential. You can even go a step beyond this, and I know ViewSonic’s got some really cool technology to gauge how much attention is being paid and what kind of reaction people are having. Are they attentive? Are they unhappy? Are they excited? You can really get real-time feedback on what kind of impact the lesson is having and take that back and not only respond in real time, but better tailor the experience for the next semester. And I think that’s really fantastic.

Chris O’Malley: That technology excites me as well. We often will call it analytics or video analytics. But what’s important about that is I don’t need to know, for example, if I was sitting in the class that it’s Chris, or if it’s Manuel sitting in a class or if it’s you sitting in a class. That technology that ViewSonic has, it could identify for the teacher and say you had 30 students in class, and 25 of them were really engaged and super happy for, say, the first 15 minutes. But in the second 15 minutes of class, for whatever reason, their attention just dropped dramatically. It’s either that’s just the natural attention span of children or is that the fact that your course content may need to be improved for the second half, or maybe you need to be interactive there or something.

It can improve the teacher’s content to make it more dynamic, to make it more interesting, and it’s going to improve the students’ engagement. So I think that technology is super exciting, and it’s 100% anonymous. You don’t have to know who’s engaged, who’s not. You just have to know is, are most people engaged? Are some people engaged? I think that’s super exciting.

Manuel Edghill: I just want to clarify real quick, that type of technology is teacher first, teacher focused, which means we’re doing our very best to help the teacher better assess their classes and their students. It’s not a rating system. It’s more to gauge the collaboration and who within your student pool is being distant. Who has been engaging. You could see patterns.

What we’re trying to do here is make it absolutely anonymous and not to pinpoint a particular student or a teacher. It’s more to get an overview of the class itself and provide assistance and help to the teachers.

Chris O’Malley: So one of the things that Intel does to enable or to help ViewSonic do that is we build a lot of models on analytics that allow you to determine if a student’s happy, sad. But it’s done entirely at the edge. So it can determine happy, sad, engaged student. That analysis is made at the edge, but then any identifying information is entirely deleted. So the only thing that would ever go to the cloud is happy student, sad student. There’s no information attributed to it. So that’s where, we were talking about it, it’s 100% private. It’s designed to be that way. You have no idea who’s happy or sad, but you can get an idea if they’re engaged or not from that. And we design it such that it can be entirely done at the edge.

Kenton Williston: Yeah. So love all these points, and one of the things I wanted to touch on a little bit further was this idea about the teacher’s experience.

So all the folks that I know in education, the teachers and administrators, they’re really passionate about the work they do, but it’s tough. I know a lot of teachers are up late grading papers and sort of thing, and so their workload is already hard. And I think it’s really easy to imagine a scenario where it’s like, okay, in addition to doing all that, now all of a sudden you have to learn all this new technology. And it’s like, where am I going to find the time for that?

So, Manuel, I’ll put this to you first. How do you see technology coming in and supporting teachers better, and allowing them to focus on the core responsibilities of the role, and actually focusing on educating and not on the tools that they need to concern themselves with?

Manuel Edghill: There’s a huge percentage of time that goes into prep and admin. If technology could assist in these areas, that would be a huge benefit. Lesson planning. Being able to share lessons with your peers. So teachers like to share a lot of content, so technology makes this very, very easy.

So, for example, we have solutions that you could save all your lessons, you can embed videos, you can write notes, you could write quizzes, and you could just save it like any file and then you can share it with your fellow math teacher. And you can say, “Okay, I had to teach three different math classes: algebra one, two, and three. So I’ll make the algebra one lessons and then my buddy Chris here will make the algebra two lessons, and then we’ll switch.” So we cut time there.

Chris O’Malley: I mean, technology can ease some of the administrative burden. You’re already seeing some from an online standpoint. Maybe you do your quizzes online and it auto-grades them if it’s a multiple choice. There are some applications where you can do say, for example, a math problem, you can do it online, and you input line by line how you would work through the problem. Now you may get the problem wrong, but rather than saying you got the problem wrong, it might highlight to the teacher and say, “You know what? They understand this, but they didn’t quite get the associative property.” So maybe you need to make that person, give them a little bit more reference on the associative property, because they fully understood the distributive property. Those are types of information that can be gleaned from online.

And then the other thing, too, that Manuel was talking about, the ease of course preparation, digitization of materials. You’re seeing that with all the educational publishers, they’re really, really improving their online digital content, so that’s going to help the teachers. ViewSonic has a suite of tools that makes the videos and they have a bunch of other things that make content preparation really easy.

But the other thing, kind of like students, is that the teachers benefit from collaboration. We actually spoke to a teacher, it was a physics teacher. He was giving a lecture on thermodynamics or something and he’s like, “I’ve never given a lecture on thermodynamics. I know what it is.” He goes, “I was looking into having to put this whole presentation together on thermodynamics. Well, myViewBoard actually had some collaboration and it syncs with a number of other things.” Where he put the question out there is, “Hey, has anybody ever created content on the laws of thermodynamics?” And there were like 20 or 30 different course materials that he could select that were all shared, and he could pick and choose that very quickly.

So he’s like instead of 3-4 hours making this material, it took him 20 minutes to pull material from various different teachers, add his own edits on it and, boom, it was done. I think that’s the huge thing.

Collaboration for teachers is super important as well.

Kenton Williston: That’s absolutely a fantastic point. And something that we haven’t really talked about, but I think it’s kind of implicit in this conversation is this also helps teachers extend their reach, right? Like Manuel is describing, when you can share duties, it means you can have teachers sharing their lessons across many classrooms, and this is good for the teacher, right? Because it means you can teach a lot of students without getting into the problem of 50 students in a physical classroom and trying to manage that and make sure everybody gets what they need.

With technology, you can actually give a good-quality experience to students in multiple classrooms, no matter where they are.

Manuel Edghill: Yes. You touched on an interesting point. It’s not only helpful for the teachers because they can alleviate some of the workload, but also what we have seen is the schools benefit a lot, especially in budgeting or resources because there’s this huge deficit or inequalities on economics or education or access to resources. So one cool thing that we have seen is that schools that have tech, they partner up and they collaborate with each other.

So let’s say a university will partner up with a college, and then the professor in the university will teach a physical and a remote. They will teach both. So the schools, let’s say school number one paid for the teacher and then school number two, which is a partner of school number one, will still get access to that. So the budget of school number two, it can be a bit more flexible because the teachers are shared as well.

This doesn’t mean the workload of the teacher is doubled. It just means that the schools have an agreement to share resources. And at the end of the day, it really helps the students because they get access to new teachers, new subjects, do group work with new students that they don’t have access to. So we’ve seen that a lot.

Kenton Williston: Yeah, absolutely. And another thing I wanted to point out about all of this is that I think it can be hugely helpful in leveling the playing field in all sorts of ways, right? We already talked about how different students may have different needs. Maybe you’ve got different neurodivergent students or whatever the case might be. And then just region by region, schools that are urban or in poor communities or whatever, may have a tough time getting access to the same kind of resources as the top schools. But with technology, you can share that best of the best education without taking anything away from anybody, which I think is really great.

But I want to come to the talk about budget, right? Because if I were to mention two big concerns as an educational profession, I think the two I’d be most worried about would be how complicated is this technology going to be? And number two would be how much is it going to cost me and where I’m going to put this? Most schools don’t exactly have a generous budget to begin with, so where am I going to fit this in?

Manuel, how do you see the financial aspect of this? Is this something where the technology can bring so much benefit that actually it’s helping your budget?

Manuel Edghill: What we’ve seen firsthand is once we provide a solution and installment, a lot of the overhead applications that teachers were using, they don’t need to have them anymore. So [bringing] a lot of costs down happens from eliminating additional apps that you actually did not need anymore.

For example, we have a virtual classroom, it’s called myViewBoard Classroom. And we also have a video-assisted learning platform called my myViewBoard Clips. So the classroom version is just, we did our very best to replicate a true physical classroom in a virtual world. So you can manage your groups and discussions and students, and the teacher knows who’s doing what. And then we have the video-assisted learning platform­which is Clips–and in there it’s like YouTube, but a lot better. You have quizzes, you can share lessons, you have videos that are filtered just for education.

When we provide this one solution to the school, the school got rid of two different applications that they had previously for a virtual classroom and then for a video database. So they saved costs in those two additional fees that they had to pay.

One huge way of [bringing] cost down is by eliminating additional overhead applications that you don’t need anymore. The second one is just the time saved. We also have a lot of device management and app management software that saves a lot of time for that IT guy who has to run around and for that teacher who needs to make sure that everybody is on the same page in a particular topic or app.

Chris O’Malley: The thing I would add is the cost that a school district faces for having everything print edition of books and everything else is quite expensive and it has to be replaced on a regular basis. As you move to digital only, you can really start to save money on that cost of just the materials only, and then there’s administrative tasks, which we’ve referenced. All these different things that can start to be done by technology as well that can reduce some of the overhead.

I do think it’s incumbent upon the ViewSonic, it’s incumbent upon the Intel where we’ve taken a role and go into a school district and say, “How do you build your IT infrastructure so that it’s stable, it’s secure?” And then you can add technology piecemeal as you need it and when you have money and make sure it all works together.

So we’re trying to do an active role of what’s the infrastructure you need to manage this? What’s the IT infrastructure you need to manage with students all of a sudden having devices. So we’re trying to do that in an efficient manner where they can remote-manage all these devices and still save time and money, but it does require some education on our part.

Manuel Edghill: The government, especially in the US and in Europe, they have these huge funds that are directly focused on the EdTech segment. So what we’ve done also is we’ve helped out some of our clients and channel partners on how to assess the rollout so that it aligns with funding from the government, and it’s been quite successful.

Don’t be scared of like, “Oh, man, this is going to be costly.” It actually is a lot less costly than you think and you saved a lot more in the long term as far as total cost of ownership.

Kenton Williston: So yeah, just so many good things here. I think back to the college experience I had and how infamously expensive those textbooks were. And then, I’m reflecting on the remote learning experience we had when the pandemic hit. We went out and got my daughter a Chromebook, which was of course Intel based. And I should mention this whole podcast is an Intel production so I’m a little biased there, but this Chromebook was less expensive than some of my university schoolbooks. It was just kind of crazy how much opportunity there is for savings there.

And I really also like, Chris, your point about the infrastructure, right? It’s not like schools can somehow avoid being part of this technological world because even while the in-class experience may have lagged other sectors, everything’s going digital. And to your point, you’ve got to have that solid infrastructure anyway. So why not take a holistic approach and see where you can have these benefits across the board?

Chris O’Malley: Yeah. That’s been a big part, how to integrate your local infrastructure with the cloud infrastructure, with the edge client infrastructure and make sure it all works seamlessly. And there’s education behind all of that.

Kenton Williston: Absolutely. So I’m curious, Manuel, I’ve heard a little bit now about what Intel’s doing to help educate and prepare the educational sector for its next step. And I’ve heard a little bit from you,, too, in terms of how you’re supporting the sector by offering a lot of free tools.

Can you tell me a little bit more about how ViewSonic is enabling EdTech, and by which, I mean helping educate and train your customers or whatever else to facilitate the adoption of these technologies?

Manuel Edghill: Sure. Well, we have a whole team that does professional development. They go right on-site. If not possible, they’ll make sure that you have a webinar set up and they’ll walk you through everything to make sure that the teachers, the IT, even the students are well equipped on how to use our technology.

That’s the basic stuff. But some of the initiatives that we have are, we have fitted some universities and colleges in all the regions that we work in, and we made them into this high-end EdTech classrooms or hybrid classrooms. And we have worked in collaboration with Intel as well in some of these. And the whole purpose of these things is to equip the classroom or a particular learning lab with some technology and use it. It’s a lot of learning on the job type of initiatives. So we have made on-site and distance or hybrid learning equally important.

So what we’ve done is we have partnered with teachers who do both an in-class and hybrid lesson at the same time. And they use the technology, and then they invite other teachers. And this is a classroom that rotates teachers. So we do that in a lot of different places. We fund most of that stuff. And we actually collaborate with Intel like I mentioned in some of these things to sponsor these.

And this is not only to train the teachers and show them that the tech is not as scary as you think. And that it really works, because we have the metrics to see student engagement before and after we implement this stuff. But the main reason why our team, the team that I am in, use these is just to listen and observe and see what needs to be improved. So we use this also as ways to get feedback on how to improve our software and our technology going forward.

Chris O’Malley: This is an area where I think ViewSonic does a really good job. They produce very sophisticated hardware and software to go with it. But it’s not just a bunch of software engineers sitting in a lab creating stuff that then gets handed out to teachers and they’re like, “Yeah, how do I use this?” They work hand in hand with teachers, with graphic user interface people, and figure out what are the use cases that teachers need or are important. And let’s build the software around it so you can unleash what’s valuable in the hardware so that they can be really usable.

Kenton Williston: Yeah, absolutely. All of this leads me to the question of where do you start? And I’m sure the answer can be different for different regions. You were talking about secondary, primary education, all kinds of considerations like that. But broadly speaking, how do you get started down this journey?

Manuel Edghill: Let me jump on that one because I’ve seen this firsthand. If the school does not have a long-term vision for the rollout of EdTech and how it’s going to be used and benefit, not only the teachers but the students, it’s going to be very tough to have a successful EdTech rollout. You need senior support and at least a two- to three-, even five-year vision of what this will be.

And I say this because a lot of the time people and schools will buy the ViewBoard because it’s new. We have the budget. We have the funds. We got to use it somehow. And then, it hangs on the wall and nobody uses it. If you have someone there who becomes an internal evangelist, an evangelist for change within that school or that school district, and you have senior support that has that vision of what this technology is going to do, that will be the first pillar on having a fantastic adoption of EdTech in your school.

Chris O’Malley: The vision is super important. And as I’ve said, I’ve been in multiple industries in technology, and I’ve seen so many new technologies fail because all that they were doing is chasing the latest and greatest cool technology, but they didn’t have a business plan for the school. What does the school need? What do the students need? What do the teachers need? What are the use cases that we need technology to help us with? And then even go further and say, “What are the business processes we’re going to put in place to make sure that this technology utilized properly?” And then go step by step, is it connectivity that we need first? Is it in-classroom technology that we need second? Is it student technology that we need third? Outline every one of those, and then go figure out what’s needed, and then use technology to solve that problem. But if you just throw in cool technology, most of the time you end up creating more problems.

Kenton Williston: So anything that either of you wish I had brought up that we haven’t covered yet? Manuel, I’ll give you a first shot at that.

Manuel Edghill: Sure. I would just like to remind the audience that for technology to be adopted in the classroom, it has to be “teacher first and technology second” mentality. So if it helps the teacher do their job a lot better and it’s invigorating and it’s exciting and it evokes passion, then that is a great way to gauge if this is the right piece of technology to adopt.

The technology should definitely not compete or boggle the teachers or the students. It should be an augmentation and a support, a complement, something that assists the delivery of an exciting lesson.

Chris O’Malley: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Technology is a tool or an aid to the teacher, but the teacher is what’s important.

A great teacher could be a great teacher in the most futuristic school in the world or they’re still going to be a great teacher in an old one-room schoolhouse with chalkboards. If you’re a great teacher, you’re going to be a great teacher. What you can do is take that technology and allow yourself to be a better teacher, or allow yourself to reach more students, or reach students in a different way, or to engage them further. And that’s where it needs to be. It needs to be a tool. The technology cannot drive everything. As Manuel said, it’s got to be teacher first.

And I think if you do that, it’s going to be a great experience. And I think our children need it. We live in a world of technology. Technology is developing or evolving rapidly. If they don’t understand how to use technology, experience technology in school, when they come out into the workforce, they’re going to be behind. So I think we’ve got to incorporate technology into the teaching, but we certainly got to always remember that it’s a tool or an aid to a really good teacher and the whole process of education.

Kenton Williston: Perfect. So with that, Manuel, Chris, I’d just like to thank you again for joining us today. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Manuel Edghill: Oh, you’re welcome. It was great.

Chris O’Malley: No problem. Thank you.