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Internet Of Things – Next Wave


The new buzzword in technology is “Internet of Things” (IoT). The layman’s scenario that anybody will tell you is – A vending machine getting out of coke, will sense the quantity of bottles, transmit a message to warehouse that it needs more supply which may transmit a message to nearby transporting trucks to fill the order and within few minutes it’s refilled. So a person visiting, checking stock, placing an order and after processing getting a supply will be things of past. The entire supply chain scene is automated here in the era of IoT.

Internet has probably gone through 2 different phases since inception. If I leave technological advances aside – there was an era of “Internet of Content”. People browsed websites to get information. Loads of webpages, images, and movies were the part of this phase. It was a repository of data. You search it, browse through it and consume it for your own purpose. The 2nd wave was (still there) – “Internet of People” – This was when a new social media came big way and apart from email or chat – people got connected with each other. As technology advanced in parallel to enable more mobility devices accessing internet – this phase was faster than earlier. Now the 3rd phase is about to start – “Internet of Things”. Sounds magical yet, but by next year or so, don’t be surprised if your milk container starts telling you that the milk inside is not so good. Your dishwasher may place work order if it develops a snag. Things will start connecting and talking with less and less human intervention.

Technically – things will have an IP address to identify themselves. They will have sensors to receive and send messages. There will be a new protocol (like http) to exchange information. There will be new platform to develop applications. Whole new world of opportunities opening up in technologies – where you need enabled devices, programming things, new languages, new scenarios, lot of analytics, business process transformations, integrating it to different platforms, data and what not.
It may sound complex and confusing – but on high level – there are 4 types of scenarios that can be shortlisted. Let’s look at those in next article.

original Blog on - http://supplychainminded.com/internet-wave/

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