What will industrial production and automation systems look like 10, 20 and 50 years from now? What do I need to understand about the communications requirements of the factory of the future to guide my planning today? Part of the vision of the Smart Factory of the Future / Industrial Internet of Things is that all relevant data will be available in real-time, leading to faster and smarter decisions. This in turn will lead to the design of more flexible and efficient processes.

More and more today’s industrial technicians want to be able to monitor automation systems using mobile applications. But, when a large, noisy plant facility is involved, how is a network designed to deliver reliable wireless communications? Can today’s wireless technologies provide the performance needed?

As a network designer or engineer, you might avoid wireless solutions because you are worried that transmission interference will make network communications unreliable. Although you may have heard of recent technical improvements in industrial wireless technology, you may still be concerned about using it for mission-critical processes.

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Everyone seems to have a “smart” device these days. And companies have been busy coming up with new ways to take advantage of the resulting networked information. In the factory setting, the trend of connecting more and more devices to the network is called the Industrial Internet of Things, or the IIoT.