Way back in 2012, the whole industrial world lost its collective mind about Big Data.
With a couple of well-placed sensors and a hard drive big enough, suddenly manufacturers could track every process imaginable—every spin of every spindle, every rotation of every rotor. Every single process every single machine was performing around the world could be logged, recorded, and monitored in real time.
It was a revelation; the possibilities seemed endless. We all dove in—manufacturers invested and IT implemented as we tech reporters rolled out endless click bait headlines touting this amazing new Big Data Revolution.
But that excitement was short-lived. Data, we all found, is stupid. It’s meaningless.
And I say “we” because this bubble affected every industry. Here, Big Data allows us to track every visitor to NewEquipment.com; we can follow every ebb and flow of traffic on every article. I can tell what’s popular, what is working, and what falls flat.
In the same way, you out there can tell at a glance what every piece of equipment is doing at this very moment. All of us can probably check our data on our smartphones at 3 am if we really want to.
But this information doesn’t help us do our jobs. It doesn’t tell me how to write better articles and it doesn’t tell you how to improve efficiency.
All Big Data does is tell us what is happening. And that’s important, don’t get me wrong. But if we’re going to make any progress, we need more than “what.” We need “why.”
This is why I am excited to feature GE’s Predix platform on this month’s cover, with John Hitch’s article, “GE’s ‘Brilliant’ Strategy Is Ready for Takeoff.”
GE, arguably, started us on this Big Data path with its 2012 report on the Industrial Internet. This work—legitimately ground-breaking at the time—gave us our first figures of the potential value of Big Data: a mind-melting estimate of $32.3 trillion. Who could resist?
New Equipment Digest is an IndustryWeek companion site within Penton's Manufacturing & Supply Chain Group.
