NFPA/FPIC Regional Conference Kicks off IoT Roadshow

The Milwaukee NFPA/FPIC Regional Conference held last week drew an audience of 80 and kicked off a year of practical presentations on  Internet of Things (IoT) for fluid power, presented through a combined effort of NFPA and the Fluid Power Industrial Consortium of the Milwaukee School of Engineering and offered free of charge to NFPA members.

The Milwaukee program featured:

• Chad Repp of HED, Inc. talking about real-world, currently functioning IoT/telematics applications that enable interactive field troubleshooting, vehicle monitoring, safety inspections, and inventory management. Chad covered concepts of staged deployment, five key dimensions/questions around which asset data should be planned, data transmission and aggregation, and planning for the IoT and machine life cycle.
• Shishir Rege of Balluff focused on boosting productivity with IoT systems within a factory environment, pushing the production possibilities frontier to new levels through advanced IO-Link based I/O architecture that enables cloud-based condition monitoring of power units and other machines inside the plant, helping predict maintenance needs and reduce downtime.
• Jon Prescott of Scante discussed a vision and practical solutions for the IoT-driven customer experience with case examples of IoT-enabled converting and packing machinery and production lines, as well as new business models that develop from connected machines, remote access and analytics, and highly usable customer interfaces.
• Keaton Holappa of Bosch Rexroth closed out the show with a higher-level talk on the role of IoT in responding to trends shaping the business environment for fluid power, including workforce demographics, supply chain and globalization pressures, as well as disruptive technology.

[icon pic=”arrow-right”] View or download presentations

The event series moves on…

• To Chicago, December 3, at the Renaissance Chicago O’Hare
• To Detroit, March 5, location to be determined
• To Minneapolis, June 4, location to be determined

And, not to be forgotten, the NFPA Cleveland Regional Meeting will be held November 18 in conjunction with, and immediately prior to, the WTWH Media Fluid Power Technology Conference at Cleveland State University, with a tentative presentation on the Developments in the Human-Machine Interface and What It Means for You. Mark your calendar.