How IIoT and sustainability are connected

What contribution does IIoT make?

Sustainability has become an important factor in everyday life and work. In business today, companies score competitive points not only through attractive products and first-class services, but also through values that serve the community and environmental protection. This includes sustainability in particular. This article describes how IIoT supports this.

Digitization through IIoT

The multiple benefits provided by the Industrial Internet of Things comes about through digitization. Digital transformation streamlines operations, makes them more efficient and, not infrequently, more gratifyingly sustainable. All departments of companies benefit from digital transformation, which is realized through cleverly developed hardware, but especially through software solutions with high practical relevance. Industrial companies, whose focus is naturally on production, use digitalization through IIoT especially around individual manufacturing.

A good example of this is already the entry-level model of an IIoT platform, toii®.Lights. Here, production data from analog machines is digitized via light signals. In this way, a production manager can find out about the status of his production even without printouts. A glance at the shop floor display or in the browser is all it takes.

Reducing the use of paper

This is one of the key objectives when it comes to establishing sustainability in companies with the help of IIoT or the associated digitization of production. And indeed, IIoT makes it irresistibly possible for paper-based processes to be replaced by digital solutions from the software sector. Also in this context, toii® an IIoT and MES platform that demonstrates exemplary capabilities. Closely interwoven with practical requirements, the "toii® Paperless App" from thyssenkrupp Materials IoT.

The Paperless App under the microscope

The app is a successful spin-off of the platform and makes mountains of paper on the shop floor gratifyingly superfluous. The whole thing is made possible by smart functionality: employees from your production have the option of using the app to check production at any time, detect errors immediately and deal adequately with the potential for action. This can be implemented quite flexibly with mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets. Saving paper covers a whole range of documents. Classics are, for example, the papers for order picking and intralogistics, but also the issuing of orders and delivery bills. Of course, the toii® app also saves on printer ink and toner, which are particularly environmentally relevant substances.

Added value in terms of sustainability

Paper reduction is considered an important aspect that IIoT solutions provide. But there are also other forms of sustainability that come from using the smart software solutions. Through the digital transformation, a consistent control of your production takes place. Sources of error are reliably detected as a result. This means that scrap is minimized - and with it the need for post-production, which again uses electricity and perhaps water. This saving is also a factor for extra sustainability, as it saves valuable resources.

This savings potential is also realized by digitizing the relevant data. This is because every employee with access authorization can now work with this data when they call it up in the system. The creation of many copies is just as dispensable as the constant electronic exchange of messages.

Individual IIoT solution is the be-all and end-all

To ensure that production processes, but also the linked logistics, work together optimally and ideally take into account the sustainable aspect, a customized solution is important. The toii® platform offers a well thought-out construction kit of highly functional and practicable solutions from which companies can also select and configure the optimum in terms of sustainability.