The world is more connected than ever before – and that connectivity continues to grow in our personal lives and in our business lives. Distributors are already installing internet-enabled vending machines that send automated usage reports, but that merely scratches the surface of the role connected devices will play in the industrial space, according to Eric Williams, vice president of internet of things for Avnet Inc., Phoenix, AZ, in IoT Poised to Alter Supply Chain.
The internet of things – the label applied to the network of connected devices – is already impacting how business is done. For example, dairy farmers can attach sensors to the tails of pregnant cows that will send a text message alerting someone when the cow goes into labor.
While that likely won't impact your business, it's a great example of how ideas that once seemed like science fiction have rapidly become reality. And the pace of adoption across sectors and applications is growing quickly. Cisco’s Visual Networking Index forecasts the number of new connected devices will triple by 2020.
And as connectivity grows, manufacturers and customers will be looking for ways to use sensors and reports to help streamline the supply chain. You, as the distributor, can either be a part of it or be pushed out of the way.
The good news is that IoT is actually a perfect tool for achieving what so many distributors say they want: to become more embedded with their customers. And it offers a way to do it with very little capital investment from the distributor.
Many manufacturers are already embedding sensors within their products. And they're already developing ways for those sensors to transmit the immense amounts of data they collect to email or dashboards, which are also already being developed by manufacturers and technology companies.
But manufacturers still don't necessarily want to take on the role that distributors play – namely servicing and selling downstream.
"Ideally (distributors will) get the alert and they’ll be able to respond more efficiently than we could. And that cuts costs out of the supply chain, which is what we all want," says Chester Collier, senior vice president and general manager for Bio-Circle North America, a division of Walter Surface Technologies.
Read more about how the internet of things may change the role of the distributor in IoT Poised to Alter Supply Chain.
