Although the idea of networking machinery isn’t new, GE thinks that cheaper computing power and sensors are now poised to usher in a new era of big data for industry. Jeff Immelt, GE’s CEO, has called the idea arevolution, and the company’s top economist has suggested it could help increase worker productivity by as much as 1.5 percent a year.
With its push for the industrial Internet, GE may find it’s selling an idea that some manufacturers aren’t convinced is really new. Down the road from GE’s Schenectady plant, in Cohoes, New York, manufacturer Mohawk Fine Papers already monitors how much energy its machines use, pulling together the data in an analytics program it bought from a company called OSISoft. “A lot of the basics of what we’re talking about have been available to companies for years,” says Kim E. Osgood, Mohawk’s director of engineering and energy services.
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