American Industrial Systems simplifies IoT design for easier manufacturing.
The Engineering Design Process.(Image courtesy of AIS.)
American Industrial Systems (AIS) is offering its customers assistance when designing Internet of Things (IoT) products. AIS is a human machine interface (HMI) provider for industrial panels, computers and thin clients.
The company is now assisting its customers to ensure that products follow design for manufacturability (DFM). The focus of this service will be on the visualization, control and monitoring of the IoT, industrial IoT (IIoT) and Industry 4.0 devices.
AIS wishes to transfer its experience with designing and manufacturing open HMI platforms to providing a service that helps customers combine their contract product designs with contract manufacturing.
Other services AIS provides include quality management, product lifecycle management (PLM), order fulfillment, logistics and aftermarket services. The final product will include:
- System-wide mechanical solution, including sheet metal, plastics, casting and packaging design
- System-wide hardware solutions, including printed circuit board assembly
- System-wide software solution, including firmware and device drivers
- Verification and validation for reliable and functional products that are regulatory certified
Designing for IoT Isn’t as Easy as It Looks, So Services Are Bound to Pop Up
The services provided by AIS should be a clear message that it isn’t easy for organizations to bring their products onto the IoT. You can’t just take last year’s model and add an Internet connection. The design process needs to be more thought out than that.
Some challenges, discussed in previous articles, that design engineers might face when adding IoT to their products include:
- Finding a reliable long-lasting power supply
- Determining the communication standards and compatibilities
- Ensuring the security of the product and the data it is collecting for the consumer and company
- Sourcing hardware and sensor options for secure connectivity and data collection
- Choosing an IoT platform to develop the onboard, consumer and in-house control data
- Securing software update capabilities
- Dashboarding and performing analytics to make sense of the big data collection
- Ensuring the sensors behave properly in real-world environments via simulation
- Verifying that the transmission signals do not have an effect on the product via simulations
- Building a product development feedback system so that IoT data is fed into future design processes
Given these challenges and the industry pressure to ensure your product is available with the other 30 billion connected devices when 2020 rolls around, be prepared to see many more IoT consulting and product development services in the future.
The good news for engineers is that these firms will be looking for talent with IoT experience, so start training now.
