ThingWorx

ABC faced two major issues when utilizing the data collected. One is the size, complexity, and disparity of the data collected would take lot of man-hours to process and evaluate. Two is real-time data cannot be put into use due to the nature of data science analysis.

Z Farms was facing three challenges: costly irrigation systems with water as a limited resource, narrow optimal ranges of soil moisture for growth with difficult maintenance and farm operators could not simply turn on irrigation systems like a faucet.

Joy Global's existing business processes required customers to work through an unstable legacy system to collect mass volumes of data. With inadequate processes and tools, field level analytics were not sufficient to properly inform business decisions.

Hirotec needed to ensure continuous operations and to minimize unplanned downtime in its manufacturing facilities. Unplanned downtime is costly and compromises Hirotec's ability to deliver its goods to customers on time.

Previously to working with ThingWorx, DeviceLynk built an IIoT platform but found it lacked scalability. They needed something to capture and handle data from an unlimited amount of devices and customers.

Embedded Energy Technology (EET) wanted to build a dashboard for their customers to visualize the data analytics for the stream systems. They wanted the readings collected from the sensors to provide a complete picture of what is happening inside the component, and are displayed in a Web Portal that analyzes and presents the data in a concise format. The dashboard interface will also let customers set up email and text message alerts to be triggered when temperatures of the sensors customer select fall outside of the range they set. Summary reports are emailed monthly that highlight total energy savings, component health and month-over-month / year-over-year comparisons.

Splunk was faced with the need to meet emerging customer demands for interfacing IoT projects to its suite of services. The company required an IoT partner that would be able to easily and quickly integrate with its Splunk Enterprise platform, rather than allocating development resources and time to building out an IoT interface and application platform.

Before developing an IoT solution, ICURO hit a major roadblock with its healthcare platform. Limited data sharing between healthcare providers and insurance companies impeded effective communication, resulting in frequent duplication of efforts and making it difficult for each entity to deliver better care while maintaining reasonable costs. ICURO wanted to resolve these data sharing issues, they started developing tools and systems that connect products in meaningful ways, enabling both entities to collaborate more effectively.

In 2013, LumenData found itself in need of adding new real-time predictive analytics capabilities to its suite of services. To meet this need, LumenData acquired a state-of-the-art streaming data, capture and real-time predictive analytics company. This solved the pure predictive analytics end, but left LumenData with a need to be able to build IoT-targeted services.From an IoT perspective, LumenData was still missing the means to create suitable applications and dashboards that would make it easy for its customers to effortlessly make sense of whatever predictive analysis they might require.

All Traffic Solutions needed to reduce software complexity so that they could quickly and effectively build out and enhance smart, connected applications without the need to develop their own backend infrastructure and development platform. Ted Graef, All Traffic Solution’s president, emphasizes that it is no longer enough for the company to deliver the best hardware; their hardware must become part of a larger ecosystem that is centered on automating all related business processes and evolving them into a simple-to-use suite of real-time, software-driven services. All Traffic Solutions took a significant step in its connected services evolution when the company decided to include standardized wireless capabilities in all of its products. The move required the company to its hardware costs, yet the belief was - and the reality turned out to be - that their customers would quickly be able to make up for the additional costs through significant improvements in workforce and customer service efficiency. The bold stroke, however, was not the conversion to wireless hardware. Rather, it was in recognizing that to be successful within a rapidly evolving mobile and wireless world, All Traffic Solutions had to also significantly enhance its software capabilities. Graef says the company understood that it had to deliver software that would provide valuable services, and make it easy for its customers to promptly make sense of the real-time data and alerts that would be transmitted and collected.

OnFarm needed to move quickly to capitalize on a significant "smart agriculture" opportunity to build connected applications and dashboards that captured and monitored sensors in the field and provided actionable data back to their customers. The overall solution OnFarm determined necessary was a set of "dashboard-driven connected services utilizing an IoT backend" that would accomplish several key things: • Easily collect data from incompatible sensors via wireless networks • Provide a means to integrate, analyze, and correlate different data sets of information into easily-understood and easy-to-customize reports leading to specific actionable outcomes • Manage end-user permissions, distribute reports and business intelligence through a customizable Web interface that would include dashboards, allowing custom organization of data applicable to the business employing OnFarm's suite of services

Many large manufacturers in and outside Japan are competing for larger market share in the same space, expecting a growing demand for projectors in the areas of entertainment, which requires glamor and strong visual performance as well as digital signage that can attract people’s attention. “It is becoming more and more difficult to differentiate ourselves with stand-alone hardware products,” says Kazuyuki Kitagawa, Director of Service & Support at Panasonic AVC Networks. “In order for Panasonic to grow market share and overall business, it is essential for us to develop solutions that deliver significant added value.” Panasonic believes projection failure and quality deterioration should never happen. This is what and has driven them to make their projectors IoT-enabled. More specifically, Panasonic has developed a system that collects data from projectors, visualizes detailed operational statuses, and predicts issues and address them before failure occurs. Their projectors are embedded with a variety of sensors that measure power supply, voltage, video input/ output signals, intake/exhaust air temperatures, cooling fan operations, and light bulb operating time. These sensors have been used to make the projector more intelligent, automatically suspending operation when the temperature rises excessively, and automatically switching light bulbs. Although this was a great first step, Panasonic projectors were still not equipped with any capability to send the data over a network.

IOTATOI is a division of Power Agent Systems that has developed an edge server called the Universal Monitoring System (UMS). IOTATOI is using UMS as an edge tier data collector to monitor backup battery arrays in manufacturing, mines, and chemical plants. This experience with battery backups led IOTATOI to expand the system to any condition that can be monitored by sensors such as vibration, heat, temperature, and flow. IOTATOI found they needed to move from their original middleware to something that would allow greater scalability and to also present information in a much broader way allowing them to dynamically look at the information and perform benchmarking analysis, feeding the data into analytics engines and creating a much more actionable view.

The client had limited or inefficient integration of its data sources, which made it difficult to see patients through a longitudinal lens. The client was, however, uniquely positioned to leverage the expansive patient data contained within its network of care, and set out to do so in 2012. Specifically, they wanted to improve the outcomes of patients with Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD) through improved care management with goals of reducing readmission rates, better managing patient cholesterol levels, and better managing patient blood pressure. Specifically, the regional healthcare provider was interested in implementing a machine learning platform, that quickly automates complex analytical processes and integrates powerful information into existing applications and portals.

With an overwhelming response to the release of their IoT solution, Elisa needed a way to manage the flood in demand without compromising on their customer satisfaction or quality.

With a mature business comprising connected field instruments for remote monitoring, Sysmex realized that the next step in order to transform their business would be to unlock more value from their data. The only way they could outpace their competitors would be to deliver higher quality customer service and improve their internal operational efficiency.

As the HCI market has grown increasingly crowded, Springpath sought to differentiate itself by providing enhanced serviceability to its customers. But it was lacking in its ability to provide fast customer issue resolution for both hardware and software components and in its ability to get meaningful, real-time intelligence from data. Springpath needed to create better operational efficiencies for its support organization. To better service its customers, Springpath would need a solution to resolve customer issues faster while collecting real-time customer data from systems to extract better insights for both internal support teams and end customers alike. Building a solution would require quick ingest and parsing of data – which was at the time often sent in the form of complex log files – and the ability to present it as actionable information. Further, a solution would need to enable support engineers to provide quick issue resolution to minimize downtime. Ideally, Springpath wanted customers to get full visibility into their own systems – and thereby be able to perform timely maintenance tasks – with the goal of maximizing uptime and ensuring optimal system performance. In addition, a solution should integrate with their issue management system, Salesforce.com Service Portal, for easy access for both the in-house support team and end-customers. “Offering world-class Customer Service in the IoT era requires a comprehensive and scalable Analytics platform that is well-integrated with an existing Support workflow,” says Brett Flinchum, VP of Global Customer Success at Springpath.

Taking advantage of the fast growth of China and the growing demands in embedded computer systems, Vantron technology was established in 2002 by Silicon Valley professionals and headquartered in Chengdu, China. In addition to readyto-run low-power embedded systems, Vantron also provides assistance in application software development, tailoring its embedded systems based on customers’ requirements, and offering turn-key manufacturing services. With customers in industries such as healthcare, heavy equipment, vehicle tracking and telematics, looking for customized solutions, Vantron saw more and more customers looking for interconnectivity through the cloud so that they could access and interact with their equipment remotely

Recent studies have found that patients return to the hospital at an alarmingly high rate among those who are hospitalized for heart failure, almost one in four are re-hospitalized within 30 days. Such a focus has led to novel approaches to improve patient care and reduce the need for re-hospitalization. Many of these strategies depend on technologies that employ remote patient monitoring (RPM), using the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing, so that their health care team can track their progress without needing them to come to the office. At the Hochschule Furtwangen University (HFU) in Germany, students across multiple disciplines are working to develop this RPM technology into mechanical devices to aid in monitoring patients remotely. Their idea is to utilize the Internet of Things to develop “smart” wheelchairs and walkers that will transmit patient information to a dashboard developed in PTC’s ThingWorx to monitor various parameters and develop alarms specific to each patient. Achim Bumüller, Senior Assistant in the Mechanical and Medical Engineering Department, is managing the project along with five other faculty members dedicated to each discipline such as electronics, informatics, and mechanical engineering. “Since our university is located in the Black Forest of Germany in Baden-Württemberg, the project was originally developed due to the need for remote monitoring in the small villages that are 20-30 kilometers from their nearest doctor or hospital; however, the target has grown to include the necessity of monitoring patients inside a hospital, nursing home or other areas,” states Bumüller.

An Advanced Design Project toward IoT was open to a handful ofundergraduate students in TU Darmstadt from various backgrounds. The team’s goal was to develop an IoT solution by semester’s end.Based on their personal experience and the survey results—which told them 85% of people had forgotten to pack something important on a trip—they decided to apply the IoT to the world of travel. Armed with ThingWorx and PTC University eLearning Libraries, they began to develop the project idea and scope.

In order for the IoT to become fully operationalized, system integration of devices and data with existing businesses systems and processes is vital. In reality, many manufacturing companies like NectOne® with individual systems often find it very difficult to build and use intelligent structures between their systems. Many of the data sources as well as connected systems may be external to the business. This systems integration work can be complex and difficult to manage, but is vital to achieving business objectives. The final goal is to deliver cloud base production control.

Devicify required a means to quickly build "connected IoT apps” without building a connected applications platform themselves, an expensive and time consuming option.There is a need for Devicify's Connected Products Management (CPM) product to create agile development environments for both technical and business users within a given company. Johnson notes that speeding up the software development process is critical, but the larger value is in combining this with agility in adapting processes that support new business services. Johnson suggests that the resulting new strategic differentiators are what will drive business transformation within the IoT space.Business users and customers stand to gain tremendously from the effective use of Devicify CPM because the technical users are able to easily and quickly develop the software needed to create full end to end solutions. Devicify specifically engaged with ThingWorx so that these technical users could easily connect the edge devices and end points established by the connected products themselves to the business processes and applications they fed into to create the innovative business services that ultimately serve as strategic business differentiators.