'Intelligent enterprise' - the decade's most impactful trend
“The concept of the ‘intelligent enterprise’ is about making businesses as smart and connected as the world that surrounds us. A sensor may seem like a small device, but when married with the troves of data and the ability to understand – and act on – it brings a big wave of technological innovation, creativity and new levels of intelligence to our world. To make the intelligent enterprise a reality, companies from across industries must band together to come up with and agree upon standard practices and guidelines so all enterprises can connect and be more intelligent,” says Anders Gustafsson, CEO, Zebra Technologies.
2016 Innovation Symposium
Zebra, in partnership with the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH) assembled 40 top executives, industry experts and policymakers for the 2016 Innovation Symposium: The Intelligent Enterprise. Executives from organisations such as Google, GE Healthcare and IBM defined the intelligent enterprise and explored best practices and opportunities for organisations of varying sizes and industries related to the Internet of Things (IoT).
The TECH has released a whitepaper summarising the outcomes of the discussion along with some considerations that are paramount to the successful adoption and deployment of IoT solutions and how organisations can harness their full potential. Zebra’s EAI Consulting Practice brings methodologies, tools and vertical expertise to help define the right future state for operational efficiency and accelerate desired business outcomes.
Multi-industry intelligence
Organisations across industries are already making strides to make the intelligent enterprise a reality:
• The MIT Senseable City Lab focuses on the creative applications of sensors in urban environments to generate new data streams, promoting resilient, efficient, and intelligent cities. Sensors placed in the sewers in Cambridge, Massachusetts are gathering biochemical data related to viruses, bacteria, chemicals, what people are eating, what medications they are taking and more.
“Until recently, information technology had a fundamental limitation: it depended on human beings to give it its data. The 21st century is all about real-time, automatic data streaming and processing where decisions can happen automatically from machine learning systems. Organisations across industries are already using automated data capture and processing today to gain an advantage. This leaves organisations a choice: become an industry leader and embrace the future today by harnessing the full potential of IoT, or fall behind,” states Kevin Ashton, co-founder, Auto ID Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
• Transit X is a solar-powered personal mass transit system that can replace buses, trains and cars. Ultra-light podcars quietly glide above traffic under a thin rail carrying an individual or up to a family of five. Destinations are entered via a smart phone or kiosk, and a podcar is waiting at a small platform that is as convenient as a bus stop. Once seated, podcars accelerate to merge onto the system, travelling non-stop to the destination, with guaranteed arrival times.
• Google is exploring cloud technology and machine learning, including making Google Apps like Gmail, Docs, and Hangouts more intelligent. Google Search will include speech recognition, Gmail will get a smart reply feature, Google Photos will get a more sophisticated search function, and so much more.
• GE Healthcare’s Dose Management solutions are designed to automatically collect and analyse patient radiation exposure across multi-facility, multi-modality and multi-vendor imaging environments. It enables healthcare professionals to monitor the radiation exposure of patients, evaluate their practices and make improvements so the right dose is used to provide the best patient outcome.
Tim Kottak, CTO, GE Healthcare comments: "Change is happening at a rapid pace. Today’s hospitals are up against changes in regulation, cost pressures, competition and higher standards for patient safety. Because of this, GE has used data and machine learning to become a partner that provides not only medical equipment, but also solutions that improve outcomes. We believe IoT holds endless opportunities in healthcare, from predictive patient care to the way pharmaceuticals are made – and we’ve only just begun.”
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