The Argility Technology group – a leading innovator and implementer of customised enterprise software solutions for the retail and supply chain industries – is showcasing its SkyData innovation – a device agnostic IoT enablement cloud platform that is set to transform businesses through remote asset and resource monitoring and management.
SkyData is a flexible framework built using open source enterprise grade technologies. The platform empowers companies to connect devices and deploy applications that enable automated data collection and analysis, remote device management, contextual and real-time decision making. It permits businesses to monitor and manage any number of data points presented from various devices and may be used to scrutinise and administer anything from utilities – electricity, water and gas usage – to temperature and assets such as billboards and machinery.
Businesses are increasingly pressured to optimise returns on assets, increase productivity and improve operational efficiencies. According to Argility CTO, Eamon McCann, if these assets and vital resources are to be better managed it’s essential to develop real-time insights that facilitate the optimisation of performance.
“Given the stringent operating and regulatory conditions governing safety and environmental footprint to which companies today must adhere, the ability to monitor is actually not a luxury – it is a necessity,” he said.
Organisations need real-time visibility of their operations and asset performance to enable quick and informed decision making. McCann says SkyData improves routine maintenance operations, reduces costs and minimises potential safety or environmental hazards.
He emphasises the platform has a role to play in a myriad of use cases including monitoring and management of cold storage/chain. Environmental conditions such as air quality, temperature, humidity, moisture, carbon dioxide levels and dry contact may also be examined and controlled. And it can be used for the ring fencing of assets with GPS tracking as it is a powerful remote asset management enabler.
“Taking a high-level view of the platform capability, there are many uses for SkyData,” added McCann.
“Utilities management and the environmental applications are just two examples of the significant role it can play in a world where climate change, ageing infrastructure and generally diminishing resources need to be monitored and managed.”
Across the board, users can access the platform to acquire regularly updated information around performance.
“This in turn can be interpreted into typical usage patterns allowing for alerts and alarms for anomalies,” said McCann.
“For example, in water management expedited notifications of excess usage due to leaks can save an organisation significant time and money. Businesses with stringent manufacturing or storage compliance requirements will not only be able to track, monitor and manage their milieus, resources and assets but will also be able to easily produce audit trails of their quality processes for real-time insights.”
The extensible platform support capabilities such as email or sms notifications, data visualisation, dashboards and reporting, can be further enriched with predictive analytics and Machine Learning. It is based on the IoT MQTT standard with integration capabilities, which use REST API’s.
“SkyData can integrate into any business operational system, feed from and to multiple data sources and deliver data sets to any mobile device,” said McCann.
“It provides for web-based administration plus configuration and it includes mobile apps for both Android and iOS for remote access – anytime, anywhere. The bottom line is that this IoT platform is set to transform asset and resource monitoring management.”
