M2M is the next revolution in terms of gaining productivity

M2M Transforming Businesses

When we talk about automation, what we are talking about is reducing overall cost and providing a higher class of services with the same or lower cost. What we have seen over the last decade is many levels of technologies that have resulted in some automation of systems processes.

We went through the PC revolution, the Internet revolution and we are going through the mobile revolution. There are other things that are happening like emergence of cloud, big data and social technologies, and the whole thing around servicing physical object especially in a B2B environment and the automation around those. The one thing that we focus on is using machine-to-machine or machine communication tools to optimize servicing and maintenance of industrial equipments.

In AT&T there are a couple of areas we are focused on in the M2M sector-consumer applications (connected homes, cars, etc) is one, then we have areas where we are connecting other equipments, for eg, X-ray machines that are used in hospitals, or machine equipments in a construction site or machine equipments inside a factory. The cost of maintenance for all these equipments is very high. If something breaks, it takes a lot of time to get it fixed.

Now what will be the impact of connecting these equipments to a central repository? Think of the tractor, on a continuous basis, sending out data about itself, like what is the pressure in my valve, what is my temperature range today. All of these data around it is getting collected, organized, sent to the central repository, and the repository is continuously making decisions, like it is time to change a certain valve, or its time to do the maintenance. This means being able to take proactive, predictive decisions to avoid outage. That's where we are moving to.

All of the industrial equipments and machines are getting connected and the major use cases for this are around automation, around proactive and predictive maintenance, and around monitoring and control. So that has a huge impact on the way large companies build things, service things and handle outage management of all these things. That's the business we are in. Providing solutions that makes it happen.

Impact on the Services Paradigm

Today the typical services paradigm is that a company sells something, say a farm equipment, through a dealer, when the farmer faces a problem in the tractor and he contacts the dealer, the dealer dispatches someone to fix it and the farmer is out of the tractor till this is fixed. Now with machine-to-machine communication the paradigm changes, the machine itself tells about its health directly to the dealer or the repair person continuously. "I am good, I am good, I think I am about to break". Based on that, the repair person, the field service person, or the dealer makes a call to dispatch a person before something is broken and before the customer even knows about it. That's the change in paradigm we are seeing with anything that companies are manufacturing and selling, not just PCs but all of the equipment and devices that are being sold.

In the developed markets like the US and Japan, the issue in the industrial economy is that the number of qualified technicians is declining because of the lack of growth of population or the lack of attractiveness of the industry. So in developed markets, it is desirable to use automated systems so that they can leverage the declining human resources to service more and more customers. M2M communication will clearly have an impact on how many people are needed to service any equipment in a given amount of time.

As the level of standardization goes up with automation, how do service providers differentiate their offerings? Think of a scenario where a service Company A and Company B are getting the same amount of data, but Company B has built its own predictive maintenance models that allows it to better figure out what is happening in the machine. Company B has a better chance of identifying a problem before it occurs. It will be able to offer better services and gain more reputation. So there are different ways to differentiate in this market.

Strategy for Service Providers Like AT&T

We are investing in areas like security and cloud infrastructure. We are making huge amount of investment in core infrastructure that would make us the choice platform for companies to use as an automation service. We will have to build smart, reliable, high capacity infrastructure and we need to ensure that our infrastructure is secured.

It is very important that we provide a quality of service that people who provide mission critical application on our services demands. So priorities will remain the same. One new thing that we have to do is to invest in new technologies as the market changes.

Issues to be Dealt with

There is no doubt that M2M systems are complex, spanning many different technologies and posing considerable challenges in integration, connectivity and global deployment. As corporations of all sizes strive to maximize efficiency, the key to making the most out of M2M communications is in identifying a holistic strategy from the very beginning.

One of the biggest challenges in implementing M2M solutions is considering all of the elements prior to implementation. For example, take a heavy equipment operator that is only using one M2M application to track location. While this particular application allows an operator to find its deployed crane or tractor, there are other applications that monitor and evaluate the condition of the asset. Therefore, an operator can utilize multiple applications to examine how this particular crane or tractor is performing at particular locations around the world.

Professional services play a critical role in helping businesses see the whole picture. These experts help companies identify a complete set of solutions before building an M2M deployment that best fits their business. In addition to the devices and networks that shape the core of the technology, businesses must look at how network services, management platforms, applications and application platforms, and professional services can be used to tie it all together. It is helpful to have a senior member of the company and business unit to be a champion, as some of these solutions take some time to implement and require changes in business processes.