Optimization phase is all about identifying new insights based on the existing data that can further help refine the manufacturing process. A large volume of data generated by the devices, together with events generated by the system and various insights from predictive and condition based maintenance opens up the door for identifying and realizing new requirements, which further enriches connected solution design to derive better outcomes.
Optimization can happen during every phase viz- monitoring, condition, and predictive-based maintenance. We called this out as a separate phase as this is an important activity to track on how applying IoT optimizes the current process and the connected products. For instance, using the outcome of predictive maintenance, one can understand failure patterns better and look at corrective ways to schedule services across the globe and order spare parts effectively and in turn optimize the supply chain process.
Going back to the elevator use case, if the elevator is fully occupied and it stops at multiple floors due to passengers wanting to enter, only to find that there is no room to enter. This can annoy passengers who are inside and outside of the elevator. These kinds of pattern (which are not failure conditions) can be detected as part of monitoring phase and therefore it can be optimized by creating a rule not to stop at floors when load is full other than the floors selected by the passengers inside the elevator and notifying passengers waiting for the elevator with the appropriate status. To inspect the user has already taken another elevator, sensors can be applied to track the movement and presence of persons on each floor and share the status at runtime, which is picked up by the incoming elevator and not to stop at the corresponding floor.
Take another example of various 100 storey buildings (in future tall skyscrapers would be quite common), how would a system optimize elevators to ensure maximum passenger satisfaction and least waiting time for passengers taking the elevators, fewer stops per trip and an organized traffic flow to prevent crowding of passengers. These are the cases where optimization and innovation can play an important part, and that would mean looking at the elevator IoT solution holistically and not just relying only on data provided by the elevators. It would mean determining connected dots like passenger movements, crowd density at each floor, or even devising smarter algorithms to utilize the data available and suggest optimized steps/routes to the elevator system.
As we move into the future of a connected world, we would see various such use cases which primarily focuses on customer satisfaction and employing new innovations to solve existing problem using the connected information.