The Industrial IoT Blog
IIoT Insights by Henry Costa
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Smart Manufacturing Nearshore: Lessons from Leading Cross-Border Delivery
Read more: Smart Manufacturing Nearshore: Lessons from Leading Cross-Border DeliveryLet’s talk about the nearshore model for Smart Manufacturing/IIoT consulting — what it really looks like in practice, what works well, where it struggles, and what I’ve learned after two decades building and leading teams across the U.S., Mexico, Brazil,…
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What a Steel Mill Taught Me About Real-Time Manufacturing Intelligence
Read more: What a Steel Mill Taught Me About Real-Time Manufacturing IntelligenceIf you want to understand what real-time intelligence really means in manufacturing, spend a day in a steel mill. I learned more about data, people, and decision-making in that noisy, hot, and relentless environment than in any classroom or conference…
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Current Trends in IIoT Applications – Insights from 2025
Read more: Current Trends in IIoT Applications – Insights from 2025Let’s talk about what’s actually changing on the factory floor with IIoT right now—not what slide decks and vendor pitches promise, but what’s really happening when teams connect machines, data, and people across different plants and industries. Some of these…
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This Is Why I’m Still Fascinated by IIoT
Read more: This Is Why I’m Still Fascinated by IIoTIf you ask me why IIoT still fascinates me after all these years, I could list technologies, architectures, or buzzwords. But honestly, it’s not about that. What keeps me hooked are the real, messy, and sometimes frustrating stories behind every…
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Moving SAP OEE to a Modern IIoT Platform
Read more: Moving SAP OEE to a Modern IIoT PlatformI’ve been working with automated OEE systems for several years. Starting from early SAP MII implementations, I’ve built and supported solutions that collect real-time data from PLCs, calculate availability, performance and quality, and provide operators with live dashboards. These systems…
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Industry 5.0: Human-Centric, Sustainable & Resilient IIoT
Read more: Industry 5.0: Human-Centric, Sustainable & Resilient IIoTIndustry 5.0 might sound like a buzzword, but underneath it’s about something real: putting people back at the center of manufacturing. It’s about making factories not just smarter, but also more human, sustainable, and resilient. I’ve spent the last 20…
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What Is IIoT? The Basics You Should Know
Read more: What Is IIoT? The Basics You Should KnowIf you work in manufacturing, you’ve probably heard people throw around “IIoT” (Industrial Internet of Things) like it’s the answer to every plant problem. Sometimes it sounds like magic. It’s not. But it is changing how we run factories, and…
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What to Keep in Mind When Designing a New IIoT Strategy
Read more: What to Keep in Mind When Designing a New IIoT StrategyIf there’s one thing I’ve learned from two decades in the trenches of manufacturing IT and IIoT, it’s that a good strategy isn’t about chasing the latest technology or ticking off a checklist. It’s about making real improvements—connecting machines, data,…
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The Five Things That Surprised Me About Industrial Data
Read more: The Five Things That Surprised Me About Industrial DataIf you’ve spent years in manufacturing IT, you know that industrial data isn’t just “data.” It’s messy, stubborn, and full of surprises. When I first started connecting machines and systems back in the SAP xMII days, I thought the challenge…
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Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and IIoT: Where They Meet on the Shop Floor
Read more: Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and IIoT: Where They Meet on the Shop FloorLet’s talk about AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) in the world of Industrial IoT. I’ve been hands-on with both — Google Glass, HoloLens, and their cousins — and I want to share what I’ve actually seen work, what’s…
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When Celonis Meets IIoT: Real-Time Process Mining on the Shop Floor
Read more: When Celonis Meets IIoT: Real-Time Process Mining on the Shop FloorI’ve been thinking about something lately. We spend a lot of time connecting machines and collecting data from the shop floor — tags, sensors, OPC UA servers, the whole IIoT stack. And then there’s this other world called process mining,…
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Birth Certificates for Machines: How Sparkplug NBIRTH Messages Work
Read more: Birth Certificates for Machines: How Sparkplug NBIRTH Messages WorkLet’s talk about something I see a lot in real-world industrial IoT projects, but that’s rarely explained in plain English: Sparkplug NBIRTH messages. If you’ve heard the phrase “birth certificate for machines,” that’s what we’re talking about. These NBIRTH messages…