What can IoT actually do for my business? — answered by Engineer Saeed Baatiah
Three things in practice, and no fourth: it measures what you were estimating by instinct (temperature, level, consumption, location), it warns you before a loss rather than after (a leak, a stopped pump, an open door, a fridge past its limit), and it saves a round a member of staff currently walks. If your project does not achieve one of those three, it is a technical project with no return.
Test your idea with one question before spending anything: what decision will I make based on this number, and when? If there is no specific answer, the project measures for the sake of measuring. An example that passes: “if the fridge goes over its limit at night, send a technician immediately instead of losing the stock by morning.” One that fails: “I want to see factory data on a screen.”
And calculating the return is simpler than it looks in all three cases. Early warning: what did the last late-discovered incident cost you, and how often does it recur annually. The saved round: how many hours a week does someone walk to check, times hourly cost, times 52. Measurement instead of instinct: how much have you spent on consumption or maintenance you were only estimating. Those three figures are what project cost gets compared against, not a feeling that it is expensive.
- Measures what you estimated · warns before a loss · saves a staff round
- If no decision changes because of the number, the project has no return
- Calculate: cost of the last late incident × its annual frequency