The Internet of Things (IoT) has lately become the category that encompasses anything and everything related to machine or product communication, collecting historical machine data and acting upon it for meaningful use such as predictive analytics. The boundaries of IoT continue to expand with new use cases emerging that make IoT implementations look like futuristic science fiction stories. It becomes overwhelming for end users to implement such a concept that is growing rapidly, leave aside the complexity to code and implement a solution that would work seamlessly with their current infrastructure of machines.
Majority of end users are looking to exploit the benefits of IoT by implementing small use cases that can generate new revenue streams or just save costs. It is an easier task to implement IoT projects as part of research and development initiatives for larger organization with large budgets, but small and medium end users’ needs are restricted by their budgets.
Over the years, Autodesk has remained true to its mission of democratizing high-end software such that smaller- and medium-sized design and manufacturing firms can afford it. By fully investing in cloud-based software, Autodesk has made its software more accessible and affordable. Autodesk Fusion Connect is the company’s IoT cloud service that has been built to support Autodesk’s strategies for democratizing software and the cloud. Autodesk acquired SeeControl, an enterprise IoT cloud service platform, in 2015 to lay the foundation for its IoT strategy. Autodesk brands Fusion Connect as a 100 percent no-code IoT cloud platform that can connect, analyze and manage remote products.
The no-code platform claim can be a bit deceiving, but Fusion Connect provides visual programming tools that can be edited to create solutions based on the needs of manufacturers. Fusion Connect starts by converting a physical product or business logic and its related events into a software-based model. This model is connected to various devices and sensors based on a manufacturer’s needs. The best way to describe building an IoT application with Fusion Connect would be a business analyst using a business modeling software such as Microsoft Visio or a spreadsheet in the cloud. The Central Logic Engine in Fusion Connects converts raw data into more meaningful information. It also comes with a large library of machine-to-machine protocols with application program interfaces (APIs) for many widely used cellular data carriers, enabling both wired and wireless connectivity.
To improve analytics, Autodesk recently partnered with Nutonian artificial intelligence, which will provide its modeling engine Eureqa within Fusion Connect. Embedding Eureqa into Fusion Connect certainly seems to target manufacturers that will help determine a baseline of machinery performance under normal conditions. This baseline will be used to generate alerts that are built on defined thresholds for predictive maintenance. It also uncovers hidden trends that can drive better product designs, and faster and more agile product development cycles. “As we continually enhance our cloud capabilities, the logical next step was broadening and deepening our IoT predictive and prescriptive solutions,” said Bryan Kester, director of IoT at Autodesk. Autodesk also continues to provide support for API connectors to business intelligence (BI), ERP, EAM and CRM systems, which makes it easy for any enterprise to consume sensor data into their transactions systems. Fusion Lifecycle customers can consume data such as service diagnostics in their applications. Autodesk also offers support for other product lifecycle management (PLM) tools as required.
Autodesk Fusion Connect offers a platform for end users to build their solutions for regular machine maintenance as well as predictive maintenance. The company also believes it will help product engineers with “closed loop design,” whereby sensor data drives better CAD and PLM activities in a single experience. With Fusion Connect, Autodesk is set to compete with PTC’s IoT solution set, but the two companies have taken very different approaches. Cloud-based applications certainly are affordable and easy to work with, but they come with their own security and bandwidth challenges for managing transactions with a large amount of sensor data between machines and the cloud. Autodesk currently claims that its customers manage up to 500,000 assets and 100,000 device messages per second using their solutions. This may be sufficient for the current needs of small and medium enterprises, but the amount of data generated by a single machine can be overwhelming to process and transfer in the cloud. Coupled with cloud security, this may hinder some customers from considering IoT in the cloud. Autodesk wants to remain true its mission of democratizing software and not making IoT as its core strategy. If you are an end user or a vendor that is considering opening new revenue stream with your customers, Autodesk Fusion Connect certainly is a good starting point at $1,000 a month for a basic starter package.
To learn more about Fusion Connect, visit the product website.