The Industrial IoT Blog
IIoT Insights by Henry Costa
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Kafka or MQTT for Data Streaming from Edge to Cloud?
Read more: Kafka or MQTT for Data Streaming from Edge to Cloud?If you’ve ever had to pick between Kafka and MQTT for streaming data from the plant edge up to the cloud, you know it’s not a simple “one size fits all” answer. I’ve lived through this choice in real projects…
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The Project That Won Two Awards and Nearly Broke My Team
Read more: The Project That Won Two Awards and Nearly Broke My TeamIf you’ve ever been part of a major digital transformation in manufacturing, you know the feeling: the thrill of building something big, and the stress when the wheels start to come off. This is the story of the SAP MII…
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Building Your First IIoT Smart Manufacturing Practice: A Playbook from Zero to Scale
Read more: Building Your First IIoT Smart Manufacturing Practice: A Playbook from Zero to ScaleI built my first Smart Manufacturing practice in 2006. I had zero direct reports, no budget, and honestly, no real idea what I was doing. Twelve years later, that practice was generating millions in annual revenue across three continents. Then…
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What Vendor Documentation Won’t Tell You About IIoT Integration Complexity
Read more: What Vendor Documentation Won’t Tell You About IIoT Integration ComplexityIf you’ve ever flipped through vendor documentation or attended a software demo, you’d think IIoT is plug-and-play: connect a few devices, map some tags, and watch the dashboards light up. But after two decades living in the trenches — from…
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Is SAP DM a Replacement for SAP MII?
Read more: Is SAP DM a Replacement for SAP MII?Let’s cut to the chase: SAP Digital Manufacturing (DM, sometimes called DMC for “Cloud”) is not a direct, drop-in replacement for SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (MII). I’ve spent much of the last few years helping global manufacturers figure this…
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What I Learned Building a Smart Manufacturing Portfolio for Consulting
Read more: What I Learned Building a Smart Manufacturing Portfolio for ConsultingCreating a Smart Manufacturing or Digital Manufacturing portfolio for a consulting company is one of those things that sounds simple on paper but is anything but in real life. Over the past two decades, I’ve built and led practices from…
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When Kepware isn’t Enough: Rethinking the Edge Connectivity Stack
Read more: When Kepware isn’t Enough: Rethinking the Edge Connectivity StackFor a long time, Kepware has been the go-to tool for connecting machines and pulling data from PLCs, DCS, and all sorts of shop-floor equipment. I’ve used it at dozens of sites — from auto parts to steel mills, pharma,…
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My Manufacturing Projects in South America: Real Stories from the Shop Floor
Read more: My Manufacturing Projects in South America: Real Stories from the Shop FloorIf I look back at the last 20 years or so, a big chunk of my life has been spent in factories and plants across South America. I’ve worked everywhere from steel mills in Brazil to food plants in Peru…
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Why Replacing SAP MII is a Priority (and What We’re Learning Along the Way)
Read more: Why Replacing SAP MII is a Priority (and What We’re Learning Along the Way)Let’s talk about SAP MII — why so many of us in manufacturing are moving on, and what it’s really like to make that leap. SAP MII: The Backbone That’s Now Showing Its Age If you’ve spent time in manufacturing…
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Is Sparkplug B Essential for IIoT Data Streaming?
Read more: Is Sparkplug B Essential for IIoT Data Streaming?Let me start with the short answer: No, Sparkplug B is not a “must” in every IIoT data streaming project. But it’s also not a technology you can ignore if you care about scalable, plug-and-play data flow in modern industrial…
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How I Moved from Building Websites to Building Connected Factories
Read more: How I Moved from Building Websites to Building Connected FactoriesIf you’d told me back in the late ‘90s that I’d end up designing IIoT architectures for global manufacturing networks, I probably would have laughed and said, “First, let me get this JavaScript working.” My path from simple websites to…
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My Experience with Oil & Gas SAP MII Implementations
Read more: My Experience with Oil & Gas SAP MII ImplementationsIf you’ve worked in Oil & Gas for a while, you know it’s a world apart — process industry, strict safety rules, and a patchwork of legacy systems that don’t like to talk to each other. Over the last two…