Engineering the future of aviation and aerospace with the Internet of Things

by Chris O'Connor, general manager, Internet of Things, IBM

To many of us, The Internet of Things represents huge, worldwide growth in devices that are building an increasingly connected and intelligent future. To nearly as many, how this transformation will happen is a mystery. We know we’ll see new devices in the factories that produce our goods and advancements in machines such as airplanes and automobiles. And we understand these advances will affect the way we live.

So how do you get results? For enterprises to gain value from the Internet of Things they have to recognize and have a plan for what it will actually transform in their business.

Consider the aviation and aerospace industry. For manufacturers of airline components to make an impact, they need to look beyond their components. Their role is to perform, but they also need to provide something transformative if they hope to stay ahead of competitors. That transformative approach means they first need to think about what the business outcome should be, and then work backwards by creating parts that instrument with sensors. They also need to gather the sensor information and understand how to use it to cause airplane manufacturers to desire their parts instead of parts manufactured by their competitors.

At every step of this development lifecycle, IBM is engaging and working with manufacturers to accelerate their engineering processes with advanced software and methodologies that enable innovation to be engineered into every product. IBM software enables devices to endure, predict outages well before they occur and operate safely and securely. It also helps innovative manufacturers create comprehensive business value by bringing the engineering and operations lifecycles together in a way that allows businesses to rethink their offerings and services.

Tremendous change is upon us. Seize the opportunities and enjoy the Internet of Things experience, and discover more about what IBM is doing to enable opportunities for innovation in the aviation and aerospace industries.

Chris O’Connor is the General Manager, Internet of Things for IBM. Chris's current responsibilities are focused on growth of this area for clients and IBM. Prior to this role, Chris was responsible for the product strategy and engineering of the IBM Tivoli Software Division in IBM and similarly for the Industry Solutions Software division around Smart Commerce and Smart Cities. His roles have involved successive responsibilities around arranging patterns of software for industry as well as IT data center value. Chris is an active member of the IBM Growth and Transformation Team and has served on the IBM Technology Team. This role reports directly to IBM's CEO and senior leaders. He has been active in the IT Industry for the past 25 years both within IBM and at other industry software providers.

http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/blog/author/chris-oconnor

Internet of Things image courtesy Shutterstock.