Have you ever thought about how much the inclusion of automation in the workplace can generate savings and efficiency for your company?
Right now, the implementation of remote monitoring technologies and integration between machines in connected systems could mean a revolution that will soon be consolidated in the market.
In this article, we will show what Machine to Machine concept (M2M) is and how companies from different sectors are using connected devices to transform their business. Ready to be surprised?
What is the Machine to Machine concept?
Machine to Machine, or M2M, is a concept that has been revolutionizing both the industry and several other business sectors. Its basic concept is simple as the name suggests, but it has the versatility to be used in different ways to automate, optimize, and speed up processes involving data collection and processing.
But how exactly does it work? The idea behind M2M is to have a remote and independent sensor that monitors, analyzes, and collects information about a specific phenomenon - it could be, for example, the efficiency of a production stage or the storage conditions of an industrial input.
This data is then transmitted to a server, processed, and used by other software within the system to perform reactive or control actions.
In other words, on platforms supported by machine-to-machine, communication between stations is carried out directly by the modules involved, which collect, analyze, and adjust without the need for human interference.
It is a way to reduce failures in business management, streamline processes, reduce costs, and increase security in production or service control.
The difference between M2M and IoT
When talking about M2M, the concept sounds like the idea of the Internet of Things or IoT, but there are some fundamental differences that a manager who intends to invest in this type of technology needs to know to implement it correctly.
The biggest consensus in this sense is that the Internet of Things is an idea with a larger scope and that it encompasses, among other things, Machine to Machine. IoT is a technological trend in the use of smart devices that connect and interact to create an integrated monitoring network, where all data is crossed and is available to the technological manager.
M2M concerns a specific point of this idea when machines use the network to communicate remotely with this integrated structure, monitor, and control without necessarily human participation — whether the focus of this monitoring/control is the environment or the machine itself.
Examples of Machine to Machine applications far beyond industry
To make the concept of M2M clearer as remote and automated monitoring, we will cite practical examples of how this technology is being used in various business sectors, entertainment, competitions, services, and social advances:
Manufacturing
Even though Machine to Machine today extends to many corporate sectors, it is impossible to start without mentioning what this trend has done for industrial production.
Today it is very common for managers and directors to use collected production data to successfully manage an ERP, making adjustments and optimizations in the production chain so that the company can always produce more without having to invest more.
M2M is an extra step in the use of industrial technology. The sensors and machines used in production are connected directly with the ERP and use machine learning to determine, without human intervention, more precise actions to change the chain to achieve production goals and save resources.
F1
Did you know that Formula 1 is a pioneer in the use of M2M? If you have had any contact with the competition, you may have heard about telemetry. The technology is a predecessor to machine-to-machine, using sensors in various components of the car to send data about performance and endurance to the team.
Today, M2M is so sophisticated that dozens of adjustments can be made to a car during a lap without requiring direct human action, optimizing performance to reduce time by microseconds.
In the future, this technology could be in our cars, allowing the driver, dealership, and even insurance companies to have useful information in real time about very specific points in automotive performance.
Smart cities
And these benefits don't stop at the car itself. Imagine a traffic light that can identify how many vehicles are traveling in each direction of the road and adapt the timing of the green and red signals according to the flow.
This type of management is within the concept of smart cities: the use of M2M so that artificial intelligence can control various aspects of a city's daily life (such as traffic lights, energy use, and water consumption) and save resources based on automated remote monitoring.
Telecom management
Communication is an increasingly important sector for humanity, both in industry, services, and commerce. In addition to being the vectors of integration across the entire planet, telecoms are already benefiting from Machine to Machine to improve their networks.
Monitoring devices, lines, and channels makes it possible to find service failures, identify which features are most popular, and then adjust the communication offer according to the greatest demand — an always updated and proactive version that gives an advantage above the competition.
Health
More than a marketing advantage, M2M can combine medicine, pharmaceuticals, and technology in the future to improve people's lives. Sensors capable of monitoring patients and the environment around them will be able to provide doctors with more important information in real-time and even react to a crisis automatically — with more precision, efficiency, and, above all, speed.
In other words, Machine to Machine is a trend not just for optimizing the factory floor or logistics processes. We need to think further: this type of technology will transform the way we live. For a business to survive in this new world, its concern with automation, monitoring, and strategic use of technology It has to start today.