January 2022

26 n EDGE COMPUTING January 2022 www.drivesncontrols.com Big data problems? The answer may be ‘little data’ M anufacturers keen to exploit the full potential of their plants are increasingly looking at how “big data” can help them to create operational efficiencies. Big data – defined as extremely complex and large datasets – presents a number of opportunities for organisations, not least in supporting predictive maintenance strategies, but also in identifying issues, bottlenecks and areas of underperformance. The actionable information provided to managers and executives via big data enables them to implement new processes and work practices to increase safety, improve production efficiency, cut downtime and lower operating costs. However, large and complicated datasets, accumulating at an incredibly fast rate, require the implementation of advanced new technologies to gather the data, perform the analysis, and then present useful insights that can subsequently be acted upon. This is where the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) enters the fray. The IIoT makes use of a vast array of existing and new sensor technologies, monitoring devices, equipment, machines, production lines and processes – all connected via a variety of data communications networks to high- performance computer processing and analysis software to interpret and then present the data. Implementing technologies to process and analyse big data can be a major problem when companies try to do it all at once. Far too many organisations are tackling big data with unaffordable, impractical, mega-scale projects. Months or years of planning and expense may go into projects, only to end in frustration. A better approach may be to start smaller and concentrate on known problems with defined parameters, which could be described as “little data”. Focusing your field- of-view onto specific assets reduces complexity and simplifies the search for a solution. In most industries, this means starting at the machine or production line level, and one of the main technologies for creating value from this data is edge computing. Data produced by field devices is analysed by Implementing big data is a daunting prospect for many manufacturers. Dieter Gebert (left) and Luigi Ballerio (right), application engineers for machine automation solutions at Emerson, suggest solving data problems one manageable step at a time using edge controllers.