The opportunities of the IoT for SMEs

Digitalisation is...

...getting on a lot of people’s nerves, minds or wavelengths. No wonder, because with conventional digitalisation projects there’s usually a lot of work to do first. But that’s no reason to miss out on the opportunities — digitalisation affects us all, and above all, it can be done more easily. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular benefit from the possibilities that digital processes bring. It starts with orders and invoices, but especially in plants and production facilities there is significant potential to save time, prevent errors and increase efficiency — IoT makes it possible.

Yet SMEs in particular are often still right at the beginning when it comes to connected sensor technology and digital analysis — facing what seems like an insurmountable mountain of to-dos. The result: “Can’t be done, I can’t do it, it’s worked fine up to now.”

But it can be done — and it’s really simple: with our IoT products like the io-key or the minion and the autosen.cloud. No overtime and no major investments — for production without errors.

Digitalisation without overtime

Hire someone specifically to implement IoT in your company, or commission an IT firm? You can — but you don’t have to. Our plug-and-play systems are connected in no time at all and deliver data to the autosen.cloud at lightning speed. It’s designed specifically to communicate with our sensors and devices. Not a single line of code is needed. Promise.

IoT without debt

Our systems are flexible: start small and keep scaling up? No problem. That keeps the initial investment lower. And even then, you’ll recoup your investment quickly thanks to the many benefits of IoT: condition monitoring significantly reduces downtime due to wear. The effort required for regular maintenance also decreases: the machine is stopped less, and employees can do other work instead of maintenance. A win-win situation.

Working without errors

Machines are prone to faults — and so are people. IoT provides a remedy. With notifications or alarms when measured values deviate or limit values are exceeded, companies can prevent greater damage. That reduces scrap and error rates and, in return, increases efficiency.

With the help of the cloud and AI applications, patterns in processes can be identified — and specific events predicted. And through automation, IoT also ensures that the necessary steps are carried out promptly after a limit value or measured value is exceeded.

Small example

In a medium-sized industrial company there is a heating oil tank with a capacity of 30,000 litres. To ensure there is always enough heating oil in stock to operate the plant, the rule is that the fill level must never fall below 20%.

Without IoT: At regular intervals, employees have to read and document the fill levels. When the 20% mark is reached, they place a re-order.

With IoT: With the io-key or the minion and the appropriate sensors, the fill levels land in the cloud every day at a specific time. If needed, they can also be accessed off-site. All data is just one click away and employees only need to take care of any re-orders.

With IoT and alarming: If the fill level is below 20%, the employee receives a warning from the system and can order more heating oil.

With IoT and automation: When the tank fill level reaches 40%, the IoT system automatically scans the market and finds the best time for a re-order. In other words, it orders when the price is lowest — not when the need is greatest.

Doesn’t sound like much at first, but over the year it can easily save several thousand euros. Recently, the price per litre of heating oil varied between 90 cents and 1.05 euros. So anyone who fills a 30,000-litre tank at the lowest price saves up to 4,500 euros compared with the highest price. That pays off.

Conclusion

With our solutions, digitalisation is really simple: you don’t need staff to spend their valuable working time setting up IoT devices and the cloud. IoT helps prevent avoidable errors and saves time on inspections and maintenance. Your employees can focus on other tasks. With our devices you can start small and test how — and where — IoT helps you. Once the system has proven itself, you can simply scale it up: no tripwires and no obstacles. You’ll see: digitalisation works. And it’s really easy.