The manufacturing industry is set to be shaken by what some industry pundits call a ‘fourth industrial revolution’, following the steam engine, the conveyor belt, and early IT and automation technology. Like the three revolutions that proceeded it, the fourth revolution, triggered by the Internet of Things, promises to transform the way manufacturers operate and bring new levels of efficiency to industry.

Gartner defines the Internet of Things as the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and interact with their internal states or the external environment. The analyst group forecasts that there will be 30 billion such devices permanently connected to the internet by 2020 and more than 200 billion intermittently connected devices by the same time.

The Internet of Things sees the manufacturing industry move towards internet-based systems and open protocols to reduce wastage and improve efficiencies. Using Ethernet and the internet protocol, manufacturers are increasingly able to access and share data from all production systems in a common manner.