Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1216587
MARCH 2020 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 15 IoT devices. Then, they can take all the infor- mation and find a way to improve the pro- cess and material handling, including finding out why they have bottlenecks in production. They need to improve the yield and improve the profit in the financial reports of the com- pany. That's where they need to focus their expertise. What we usually face right now is that they are focused on trying to build their IoT device, or they come to us and ask, "Can we use your IoT hardware with our software?" Industry 4.0 is not about connecting another machine and collecting the data; it's about the mindset of understanding that we solved most of the problems. Now, we are looking at improving and moving toward excellence. This is no longer trying to find the problem to solve because we pretty much solved all the prob- lems that we had. You can buy it out of the box from most companies in this area, but you need to focus on how to use the knowledge in the data and the software solutions that you have to improve your business. Matties: Who inside the factory is responsible for this? Is there a position that needs to be created in each company, or do they tap into somebody who's already employed to do this? Reuven: It will either be the people who are in charge of IT combined, sometimes with procurement, or supply chain management, because this is related to materials. In global then. When we go to a customer—or even to a user—usually, the first questions are, "What kind of problems are you facing in produc- tion?" What do you say when the customer tells you they don't have any problems and that everything is in perfect working order? This is where the challenges come from. This is where the innovation part is not so easy because you have to convince them that you can bring a lot of added value to their business. Matties: Are they fearful that they're going to lose their job or that the digital factory is there to replace them? Is that it? Reuven: Absolutely. Matties: When you visit and want to convince a company to go digital, you cited several rea- sons to do it. Maybe there are some financial incentives, but in the end, the results are finan- cial gains, lower labor costs, higher yields, and added capacity. Those four factors alone should motivate people, but does their reluctance stem from the investment they have to make? Reuven: I have a great example because I've had this discussion with various customers from the smallest customer to the largest corpora- tion with 300–400 lines that are spread around the world. We all know IoT because it's a buzz- word in all the Industry 4.0 areas, whether it's in the process industry or electronics. Every- one is talking about industrial IoT (IIoT), and it's so important—even to the point that many organizations say they have a chief IoT person. The first thing the IoT executive says—and this is usually from the IT department—is, "We want to develop an IoT tool. We want to connect this IoT to all of our devices and collect the information." They are looking at it in the wrong way, the wrong direction. Their capa- bilities as domain experts are not in building an IoT device, which is only an enabler; it's an infrastructure tool. They need to get an IoT device from a company that is focused on selling