The term “Internet of Things” dates from the late 1990s. Though at that time, it was an abstract concept. Forward-looking thinkers foresaw that as technology evolved, everyday devices and products that we use would eventually “talk” to each other and to network servers, in the interest of improving their performance. The “Internet of Things” can be seen as connected to “smart” devices — televisions, refrigerators, wristwatches and more.

The term “Industrial Internet of Things” distinguishes manufacturing devices from consumer devices, yet the underlying concept is the same. IIoT devices are wirelessly connected to internal networks as well as to the global Internet. These devices represent a new phase in automation – collecting an unprecedented amount of data from all aspects of a process and sharing it with a central server. This data enables analysis and action that has been heretofore unseen, resulting in increased efficiency and productivi