Article
Remote Monitoring System: How IoT Can Improve Business Performance
Author
Ivan Muts
Published
March 18, 2021
Time
10 mins to read
Table of Contents
Since digital-centric business models have disrupted entire industries, businesses and startups need to adapt to new realities and challenges of the digital world. To gain a competitive edge and build new revenue streams, they need to implement smart product strategies. That means products must be smarter and more connected, such as IoT smart automation systems that utilize cloud-based remote monitoring, maintenance, and predictive analytics.
Asset-rich businesses from various industries have started to adopt IoT applications in their business models (manufacturing and retail, logistics, agriculture, healthcare, energy, and utilities, etc.). According to Oracle, cloud-based remote monitoring and maintenance are essential data-based drivers for business success. Thus, IoT integration helps businesses to:
- Better monitor product functioning and plant machinery
- Prevent costly breakdowns and fixes
- Lower costs
- Find new revenue streams
- Enhance customer service
- Create new business opportunities
- Generate higher profit margins
Our clients often address us with plenty of questions about how IoT can change the way their businesses operate and how their investments in automated IoT systems will have high ROI. Analyzing all these FAQs we decided to compile them and provide an in-depth study into remote monitoring systems use cases and their value for facility managers and business owners. But first, it is worth noting that asset-intensive businesses need to understand how their products and assets are performing to ensure efficient data collection, energy consumption, and to create sustainable facilities.
IoT offers huge capabilities for remote monitoring when it is integrated into enterprise systems. One of the ultimate goals of remote monitoring is predictive maintenance, and with it, businesses can:
- Better anticipate issues and failures
- Optimize use of assets
- Reduce the time for asset’s repair
- Ensure maximum product efficiency and uptime
- Prevent costly penalties and outages
Now, let’s see how IoT-powered remote monitoring and management systems can help transform business models and drive growth and value.
How does remote monitoring system work?
Remote monitoring systems involve the use of smart sensors mounted directly on the equipment and connected to the cloud. The data once captured by these sensors is transmitted over the IoT network. The real-time data collected through IoT sensors can be further used to create alerts in the system that notify users about environmental conditions or energy consumption levels. For instance, if a temperature threshold is exceeded, the system alerts the managers to take appropriate actions. With remote real-time data that is continuously transmitted to the cloud, monitoring and management systems can operate with minimal input from human operators. Also, these systems can predict failures before they occur.
Reasons to implement a remote monitoring system
1. Data-driven business decisions
Production efficiency can be extremely improved owing to equipment automation and remote maintenance. Unlike traditional data collection systems, collecting data digitally reduces the time it takes to gather and analyze it, which leads to faster monitoring processes. Since the IoT system collects data continuously, there is no need to involve manpower to perform tedious inspections.
IoT sensors can improve process efficiency and operational profitability. Analyzing the data collected through connected devices, the system determines the equipment efficiency and which one performs better; such insights can boost overall productivity numbers.
2. Reduced downtime and outages with predictive analytics
Connected devices enable real-time asset monitoring. They provide immediate downtime alerts thanks to which engineers can address issues more quickly, and as a result, it reduces time to fix equipment and increases uptime. The possibility to analyze downtime events and identify faults leads to a reduction of maintenance-related outages and costs as well.
Furthermore, businesses can leverage sensor data gathered through remote monitoring to predict potential problems. Equipped with unprecedented insights through predictive analytics of operational data, engineers can anticipate issues proactively and discover the root causes before they start to grow into bigger problems, which can lead to customers’ complaints.
3. Reduced costs of delivering service
IoT monitoring tools provide more granular data about the facility and this can be of great use to organizations. They can strategically monitor energy or track assets gathering more detailed data with sensors attached to the equipment. Therefore, it eliminates the necessity to dispatch service engineers to monitor multiple properties continuously. According to Gartner, 31% of organizations started using remote asset monitoring and digital twins to reduce the frequency of in-person monitoring, as a result of COVID-19.
One more important positive factor of IoT remote monitoring is that it reduces energy consumption in buildings by observing CO2 levels and adjusting the cooling and heating systems accordingly. With IoT-powered remote monitoring systems, businesses will not be overspending on smart HVAC, lighting and electricity, and operating costs. IoT systems are all about cost-effectiveness and businesses know that such investments into operational processes will not only pay off but also bring value and high ROI in the long run.
4. Enhanced asset tracking
IoT offers more transparency to the entire supply chain ecosystem by wireless remote tracking and monitoring of assets conducted via GPS technologies and RFID tags. It is possible to quickly obtain real-time access to data about the full product development flow, beginning from the extraction of raw materials to their ultimate delivery point. IoT applications cover remote temperature monitoring, material safety, environmental conditions, etc.
To facilitate better quality control, temperature-sensitive products must be stored and transferred under correct storage conditions, which will prevent product damage and ensure food safety throughout the supply chain journey. Furthermore, remote monitoring systems can help detect fraud during the logistics process with the help of embedded sensors in the products and notifications to online dashboards.
Types of remote monitoring systems
Connected restaurant kitchen
The most important concerns in the foodservice industry are food safety and quality because there are so many cases when regulatory compliances are not achieved. Remote food monitoring can solve these problems, ensuring proper storage conditions and eliminating spoiled inventory. It is also less time-consuming, more seamless, and automated than manual monitoring.
With remote monitoring, food service managers are notified with real-time alerts about any threats so that once the temperature, for example, is rising or the door or refrigerator is left open, connected sensors capture this data and transmit it wirelessly to the gateway, and then to the software or app. IoT-connected sensors and meters attached to freezers, ovens, coolers, hotboxes, etc. can monitor temperature, vibration, humidity, and other parameters to ensure a comprehensive foodservice management solution. The collected data can be stored on the cloud-based platform, analyzed and then translated into actionable insights displayed in the app.
With IoT remote monitoring solutions, food services can reduce energy expenses on HVAC, lighting, and refrigeration. Moreover, predictive maintenance lowers equipment downtime.
Patient monitoring and management of medical assets
As it was mentioned before, IoT devices provide easy access to data. In hospitals remote patient monitoring enables medical staff to provide high-quality treatment and make evidence-based decisions. For instance, smart pills containing microscopic IoT sensors can track if the patient ingested the medication and send reminders to him/her on the smartphone; connected devices can better monitor a patient’s state, thus preventing possible accidents. Remote monitoring reduces hospital admissions by 38%, as stated by healthcare organizations.
Hospitals can better utilize their assets by tracking their equipment in real-time and locating it faster. Thus more patients can get help when they need it and more lives can be saved. Moreover, with RFID tags hospitals can also check their medicine supply and set up a minimum threshold level to avoid inventory shortages.
Remote home monitoring systems
There are many advantages of implementing remote monitoring systems at home. Homes equipped with connected devices are called smart homes. The high-tech functionality and automation that IoT offers help automate living and ensure security.
Smart home automation allows managing all your home devices from one place and remote controlling of home functions. With such capabilities, smart home systems allow users to conveniently protect their homes from such accidents as gas or water leakage. For example, by installing a smart water leak device and setting up alerts on the phone, you can get timely notifications about moisture levels and stop leaks before they cause flooding.
With remote monitoring systems, you are able to monitor your energy usage and automatically adjust your heating, cooling, and lighting. Thus, you can shut off utilities remotely when there is no one home. Smart home systems make your space more energy-efficient, so your electricity bills won’t drain your pockets.
IoT remote monitoring applications
Smart Lighting: Novalume
Remote monitoring and management systems can reveal the total energy consumption levels. Paired with smart lighting systems, they can reduce up to 75% of lighting energy and maintenance costs.
Let’s take the Danish company, Novalume, which addressed Euristiq to develop the LUMINTELL solution, an intelligent control and maintenance system that optimizes street light usage lowering energy consumption in several cities. As a result, 30K connected devices have contributed to the real-time monitoring and performance reporting which helped reduce CO2 emissions and maintenance costs accordingly.
Healthcare: Biotrinik
Remote monitoring system developed by BIOTRINIK is aimed at improving the diagnostics, treatment, and prevention of cardiovascular and endovascular diseases. Smart devices integrated with RF-Antenna collect the cardiac data about the patients and transmit it to the Home Monitoring Service Center. If it detects deviations from the norm, this information is automatically sent to the physician.
Equipment Monitoring: Samsara
With Samsara equipment monitoring solutions, businesses gain the entire visibility of their assets. Industrial Getaway transmits real-time data to the cloud, and it allows businesses to track any critical metric to enhance productivity, increase uptime, and maximize efficiency. Getting insightful performance data and analytics helps industrial companies streamline and automate their operations, and improve product quality.
Food Safety Monitoring: SiteSage
SiteSage is an open IoT platform aimed at reducing energy and maintenance expenses, optimizing equipment performance, and ensuring food safety and product quality. Remote monitoring of kitchen operations with self-installable sensors allows the platform to connect kitchen equipment remotely to the cloud. This helps control the temperature levels of refrigeration and oven equipment, enable real-time alerts, and enhance food and safety workflow processes.
Are you ready to implement remote monitoring?
In our fast-moving digital world, IoT has moved far beyond the hype. Businesses have seen huge opportunities that cloud-based IoT platforms have to offer, enabling remote monitoring and maintenance. The outcomes are obvious: by better prediction of issues and failures, businesses can optimize the use of their assets and ensure maximum efficiency and uptime, preventing costly penalties and outages.
If you are a business owner that has lots of equipment and are looking for solutions to remotely monitor the location and conditions of your assets, an IoT-powered remote monitoring system could be the answer to your demands.
In our article, we described how businesses can leverage IoT remote monitoring and maintenance systems in their operations across industries: manufacturing, food service, facility, HVAC monitoring. But if you still have any questions relating to the topic or need a consultation, contact us and we will help you streamline your mission-critical operations.
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