How can a distributor help you prepare for the IIoT?

15 November 2018

The complexity behind modern manufacturing is progressing at a fast rate and has become almost impossible to manage using just a human workforce. Instead, people are shifting towards more automated, artificially intelligent based solutions – known as the Internet of Things (IoT) or the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). However, knowledge of the rules/regulations surrounding IoT systems is still vague. Connectivity spoke to RS Components about how they’re educating customers on this topic.

In this Q&A, Richard Jeffers, Technical Director – Northern Europe, Mike Brojak, Vice President 10X Innovation, Global Sourcing and Joseph Da Silva, Chief Information Security Officer, Electrocomponents at RS Components offer their opinions on the topic of artificial intelligence and the IIoT and how the buzzwords are affecting the company.

Cyber-security is currently one of the biggest barriers to adopting IIoT solutions. What is the role of a distributor in helping customers onto the IIoT wagon and becoming cyber-aware?

Joseph: A big part of this is improving awareness and helping companies understand what the risks are and how they can be minimised. There needs to be sensible, pragmatic conversations about risks and benefits so that companies are neither terrified nor blindly over-zealous when it comes to IIoT. This needs to include clarity about what to look for, what remains your responsibility and what is down to your providers, suppliers or partners. Driving a car is inherently risky; you wouldn’t do it without understanding how to do it and what you need to look out for. Similarly, if you’re looking to introduce connectivity to your equipment, you need to take a similar approach.

Another key element is explaining to companies what the limitations are of individual device types – many low powered devices can’t handle encryption, for example. Distributors can also lobby governments to enforce standards, ideally through some sort of accreditation scheme like the CE or Kitemark schemes.

Richard: The traditional market has very much been in the reactive maintenance space. If we do nothing and our customers move to the predictive stage then we’ll become irrelevant. We need to get away from just selling products and move towards solution based selling. It’s important that we understand the emerging trends and continue to offer relevant services and products for a future world.

How is RS proactively educating its customers about IIoT and the security risks around it?

Richard: It is clear people want to understand about the opportunities within IIoT but it’s difficult to pick your way through the hype. RS are in a good position to give educational support and advice to customers. We’ve already run an Industry 4.0 customer seminar, with two more in the diary, where Joseph outlines the key points of cyber security and how to reduce the risks of compromise. These aren’t of a commercial nature, it’s simply about educating our customers.

Mike: We will be launching our IoT Cloud offering to the market towards the end of 2018 and we expect our online community to engage with the key topics surrounding IoT and data. We consider both cyber security and AI critical to mass adoption of IoT, and expect to make these subjects central to online and offline conversations with our customers.

Whose job is it to ensure there are effective cyber-security policies in place? The end-user, the software provider, the system integrator?

Richard: I think everyone has a role to play. However, the risk sits with the end user so their motivation is the highest. You want to ensure the product you supply has appropriate security features and you’ve configured it in way that means those features work. If we’re offering a service to our customers we need to make sure we’ve done what we need to do in terms of security and educated our users in terms of what they need to do.

We actually have a plan in progress whereby our security team are going to actively try and hack into a system we’ve installed at our distribution warehouse in order to identify weaknesses. The knowledge we gain from this we can pass onto our customers and suppliers.

Joseph: It depends on what the context is and the product being referred to. I agree with Richard that everyone has a part to play, but depending on the product and specific use case, the balance will be different as to who needs to do what.

Mike: I believe that no matter what the technology solution, security needs to be taken more seriously than ever before. It’s got to be designed in to any new concept and not done as an after-thought.

How has RS adapted to meet this growing need for AI systems?

Mike: We recognise the increasing awareness of the value of data among our customers. We see AI as a tool allowing the extraction of valuable data by devices and sensors, essentially automating business processes and speeding up decision making. As a priority, we want to enable B2B customers to collect data by connecting IoT devices and sensors easily. AI can only be effective once enough data is collected for analysis. We are looking to start enabling our B2B customers with IoT cloud environments that will allow them to prototype and develop IoT solutions in-house.

Richard: We’re working towards a particular vision; some company’s claim they can deliver AI solutions, like predicative maintenance, but it has to be with one particular brand. RS are saying, it doesn’t matter what you’ve got in your factory, we can harvest and collect data, place it in the cloud and analyse it to perform maintenance. It’s still early days but we are trialing a similar system in one of our own warehouses.

As Mike mentioned, we are looking to build a series of IoT clouds through a partner organisation. We’ve launched one with Design Spark and I’m working on a project to build an industrial cloud environment.

Who is liable if AI falls into the wrong hands?

Richard: This is a tricky area as AI is more likely to be a cloud based solution than a hardware element. When working with a cloud partner you’d expect to see the cloud partner supply appropriate levels of security. If we’re offering solutions like cloud analytics etc. then we should hold some responsibility as we want customers to feel secure and safe.

Mike: IoT essentially comprises three types of devices: control, sensors and actuators. Control and actuators when hacked could present a serious risk to operation. Sensors when hacked could have no direct impact on operation but could allow hackers to eavesdrop on data and steal intelligence. An interesting consideration is the physical security of IoT hardware – preventing hackers physically connecting to devices. This is very different to protecting against unauthorised access from remote location alone.

My understanding of this question is in relation to hacking and someone taking control. This is information security, and in this respect, AI is not different to a database, for example. The more business critical the AI capability is, the more security needs to be designed into a solution.

RS offers many devices which allow an easy machine to machine (M2M) and internet communication. It has introduced a series of smart add-on hardware specifically developed to simplify the connection of the existing legacy systems to the Internet of Things.

For more information, visit https://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=industrial-iot