The Industrial IoT Blog
IIoT Insights by Henry Costa
Tag: IIoT
Industrial Internet of Things connects machines, sensors, and systems to collect, share, and use industrial data. It enables real-time visibility, optimization, and smarter operations.
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Real-Time Decisions: Lessons From Mining Operations
Read more: Real-Time Decisions: Lessons From Mining OperationsI never planned to work in mining. It just happened. Early in my career, a project came up at a metals and mining operation in Brazil, and I said yes. That decision gave me some of the most intense, real…
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Industrial AI Explained. Why Data Is the Real Starting Point
Read more: Industrial AI Explained. Why Data Is the Real Starting PointThere’s a lot of noise around AI in manufacturing right now. Every vendor deck, every conference keynote, every LinkedIn post seems to promise that AI will transform your plant. And honestly, most of the time, I just smile and scroll…
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IIoT Total Cost of Ownership: Cloud, Licenses, and the Hidden Costs
Read more: IIoT Total Cost of Ownership: Cloud, Licenses, and the Hidden CostsLet’s talk about the real cost of Industrial IoT. Not the version you see in vendor slide decks, but what actually impacts your budget once you move beyond a pilot and start scaling. If you are working on IIoT initiatives,…
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Five Conversations That Changed How I Approach IIoT Projects
Read more: Five Conversations That Changed How I Approach IIoT ProjectsSome of the biggest changes in how I work didn’t come from reading a whitepaper or going to a conference. They came from conversations. Quick ones, sometimes. A comment over coffee, a pushback during a design review, a frustrated operator…
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AI Enabled by IIoT: Building the Factory of the Future
Read more: AI Enabled by IIoT: Building the Factory of the FutureMost conversations about AI in manufacturing skip the hardest part. They jump straight to dashboards, copilots, and predictions, but forget to ask one simple question. Where does the data come from? I’ve spent years connecting machines, historians, SCADA systems, and…
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The Trust Gap in Industrial AI
Read more: The Trust Gap in Industrial AIImagine this situation. A team spends months building an AI use case. The model looks strong in workshops and dashboards. The recommendation goes live on the plant floor. Then operators ignore it. Not because they are against technology. Not because…
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Digital Twins in IIoT. Where Physics-Based Models Fit
Read more: Digital Twins in IIoT. Where Physics-Based Models FitA lot of confusion around digital twins comes from one simple thing. People mix up the twin itself with the models inside it. They are not the same. A digital twin is a structure. A container that connects data, context,…
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Smart Manufacturing Starts with Dumb Questions
Read more: Smart Manufacturing Starts with Dumb QuestionsIf you want a smart factory, start by getting comfortable asking dumb questions. Not “dumb” like careless. Dumb like simple. The kind of question you might avoid because you think you should already know the answer. After years working across…
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MCP for IIoT. When “Chat With Factory Data” Became Engineering
Read more: MCP for IIoT. When “Chat With Factory Data” Became EngineeringFor a long time, “chat with your factory data” felt like a demo trick. You know the kind. Someone types “What’s my OEE today?” and a bot answers with a nice sentence. It looks impressive. Then someone asks a real…
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Ignition at ProveIt! Conference 2026. What Actually Scales
Read more: Ignition at ProveIt! Conference 2026. What Actually ScalesI watched an Ignition 8.3 presentation at the ProveIt! Conference in Dallas, and it was one of the cleaner “this is how you scale IIoT” demos I have seen in a while. Not because it had flashy dashboards. Not because…
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Why Your OEE Is Probably Wrong
Read more: Why Your OEE Is Probably WrongI’ve spent decades working with plant data, and if there’s one thing I wish more people understood, it’s this. Inconsistent machine data quietly ruins your OEE, often before you even know there’s a problem. I’ve seen this at small sites…
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Building Your IIoT Solution Portfolio: From Platform to Practice
Read more: Building Your IIoT Solution Portfolio: From Platform to PracticeIf you are building an IIoT portfolio as a consulting company, the challenge is very different from running IIoT inside a manufacturing enterprise. You are not optimizing a single environment. You are selling outcomes to many clients, across sites, industries,…