5.5 million things were connected today. Was your robot one of them?
Advanced services are in their infancy, but now the entry barriers and initial concerns are quickly disappearing – moving beyond the early adopters, rapidly
This can be compared with the development of the smartphone technology, initially taking its first humble steps in 2005, then reaching close to 100% market penetration by 2013.
With 6.4 billion connected “things” today, the number is expected to increase to over 20 billion by 2020. Every day some 5.5 million new things get connected. This will of course offer companies in the forefront like ABB, huge business opportunities to meet increasingly demanding expectations from our customers. This year, global Internet traffic will exceed the 1 zettabyte mark (1 trillion GB). Mobile data speed today, as generated from 4G technology is 150,000 kbps. By 2020 5G is expected to offer tremendous opportunities with 6,400,000 kbps. Simultaneously by 2020 the cost per MB mobile data is expected to reach an all-time low at 0.004 USD. And we are just talking four years ahead!
What does this huge increase in connectivity really mean for ABB and our customers? The good news is that ABB is already leveraging this paradigm shift in connectivity and leading the way to unlocking a higher level of reliability and performance for our customers eveywhere. ABB’s robot systems, exist in an ecosystem that we call the Internet of Things, Services and People – the IoTSP, where everything is interconnected via the Internet.
As Head of Customer Service at ABB Robotics, I am proud to say that we are in the driver’s seat in the already started technological revolution in automation manufacturing. I think our 5,000+ connected robots speak volumes for themselves, by communicating actionable data each day, from all over the world. For the benefit of our customers.
Always close to my heart, service is always about people helping people. Thanks to our long-term digitalization strategy we will be able to enhance our capability to support and create added value for our customers. In the smart factories of the future, people will control the operations and make decisions based on actionable data from factory equipment, material flow and customer orders placed online, as well as information regarding the availability of raw materials and even the price of energy.
This transition will improve productivity, make plants more environmentally friendly and reduce costs. Full connectivity to actionable data will be provided on all devices. Collaborative robots will work side by side with humans in complex and flexible operations, although simple and repetitive tasks will still be performed by caged robots.
ABB pioneered robot Remote Services in 2007 with optional hardware to dramatically speed issue resolution. Now we are unleashing Connected Services, leading up to 25% fewer incidents, and 60% faster response time and issue resolution. All ABB robots are ready to be connected, wirelessly or hard wired, unlocking a world of possibilities in predictive, proactive and immediate support. ABB’s Connected Services are easy to implement and carefree via our tailored service agreements, generating powerful benefits without added complexity. I feel very grateful to be part of ABB in these exciting times building the Factory of the Future, right here, right now, for customers everywhere.