The Industrial IoT Blog
IIoT Insights by Henry Costa
Tag: Manufacturing
The process of producing goods by transforming raw materials into finished products. It combines people, machines, and systems to deliver quality, efficiency, and scale.
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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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AIoT-Driven Autonomous Systems in Manufacturing. What Actually Works
Read more: AIoT-Driven Autonomous Systems in Manufacturing. What Actually WorksAIoT. Artificial Intelligence combined with the Internet of Things. It is no longer just a buzzword. It is quietly changing how plants, labs, and production lines operate. I have spent more than two decades connecting machines, systems, and people across…
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Digital Transformation: The Human System Behind the Technology
Read more: Digital Transformation: The Human System Behind the TechnologyI have spent most of my career around what people usually call the “hard” side of manufacturing technology. Machines. Networks. Data pipelines. MES screens. OPC UA tags. MQTT topics. Historians. Systems that can be diagrammed, measured, and optimized. Yet the…
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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 a Credible IIoT Business Case
Read more: Building a Credible IIoT Business CaseIf you’ve ever tried to pitch an Industrial IoT project to your CFO and felt like you were speaking a different language, you’re not alone. This situation comes up repeatedly in manufacturing organizations. The discussion often happens in small conference…
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Top 10 Data Platforms to Watch in 2026
Read more: Top 10 Data Platforms to Watch in 2026If you work in manufacturing or industrial data, you already know how fast this space moves. Every year, there’s a new “must-have” platform, while the existing ones evolve, rebrand, or quietly add powerful new capabilities. After spending years working close…
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Why Industry 4.0 Needs Event-Driven Architecture
Read more: Why Industry 4.0 Needs Event-Driven ArchitectureIf you have spent any time in manufacturing IT or OT, you already know the Purdue Model. For decades, it has been the reference for how plants should be designed and secured. I started my own journey back in 2005,…
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IIoT Skills Gap: What Engineers Need to Learn to Stay Relevant
Read more: IIoT Skills Gap: What Engineers Need to Learn to Stay RelevantLet’s talk about the IIoT skills gap in 2025. It’s real. It’s growing. And it is now affecting production, quality, and delivery in very visible ways. If you work in manufacturing. As an engineer, a tech lead, or the person…
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IIoT at Scale: Containerization, Docker, and Kubernetes Explained
Read more: IIoT at Scale: Containerization, Docker, and Kubernetes ExplainedI’ve spent the better part of two decades watching manufacturing tech evolve from isolated systems to today’s cloud-connected, agile factories. Lately, the biggest leap I’ve seen is how containerization (with Docker and Kubernetes) is making it easier to scale IIoT…
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Sparkplug B vs Plain MQTT: Performance Lessons
Read more: Sparkplug B vs Plain MQTT: Performance LessonsIf you work in industrial manufacturing and you’re looking at MQTT, you’ve probably heard about Sparkplug B. You might be wondering: Is it really faster? Does it use less bandwidth? Is it worth the extra complexity? I’ll walk you through…