Human and Other Implications of Cyber-Physical Systems and the Industrial IoT

As reported in an earlier ARC Insight, the theme of the recent 2015 ARC European Forum in Amsterdam, "The Information Driven Enterprise in a Connected World," was intended to help develop some clarity over emerging related concepts, such as Industrie 4.0, and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The previous report focused on specific use cases of Big Data analytics at Intel and Dow Chemical. In this second Insight we will focus on other IIoT-related topics discussed at the Forum, including the evolving role of humans in industrial facilities, the impact of cyber-physical systems on business models, and the need for a system design approach to improve interfaces between humans and technology.

Do We Need Humans in Our Plants?
Ida Rust, an independent consultant with expertise in human factors and human-machine interfaces, discussed the paradox that while one might think that humans would have a decreasing role in IIoT-enabled intelligent manufacturing operations, human importance will actually increase.

Ms. Rust shared a personal experience in which, faced with rapidly deteriorating visibility and a failing ground landing system, an airline pilot made the split-second decision to pull up and abort the landing. The pilot ultimately landed the airplane safely at another airport.

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Keywords: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Industrie 4.0, Human factors, Business models, IoT-Architecture, Standards, Strategic Alignment, ARC Advisory Group.