We recently attended LiveWorx 2018 where Sasken was a Showcase Sponsor. It was billed as the largest Digital Transformation event of the year with over 6000 attendees. There were 1000+ attendees from PTC’s alliance ecosystem. Sasken is a Certified ThingWorx Ecosystem Partner and demonstrated its expertise in the Digital space at the event. Here, I am listing down key takeaways from the event:

1. Strategic Ecosystem
   • PTC has built a solid Industrial IoT ecosystem. A week before the event, PTC announced a strategic partnership with Rockwell Automation with the latter buying a $1 billion stake in PTC. At the event, there was an interesting use case/demonstration where FactoryTalk and ThingWorx were integrated delivering interoperability.
   • PTC also has a strong alliance with Microsoft around the Azure stack. It was great to see these two large software companies working together.
   • Finally, PTC also showcased an alliance with Ansys for Engineering Simulation.

2. Augmented Reality
   • There was significant focus on augmented reality, with ~25% of the solutions and demos focused in this area. I was most impressed with the tool that allows superimposition of AR based controls on a physical device.
   • PTC also continues to make acquisitions, Waypoint being a case in point. It is an excellent tool for mapping a business process using augmented reality.
   • Overall, I think we are seeing rapid evolution of human machine interface from screen to touch to voice to augmented reality.
   • Having said that, four factors will drive the adoption of augmented reality going forward. These are:
     1. Enhanced immersive experience
     2. Increased comfort
     3. Reduced cost
     4. Safety

3. Adoption of IoT going forward
   • Interoperability – With so many things out there, manufacturers of things will have to make their devices/sensors interoperate with various IoT platforms else there will be silos
   • There was an interesting chart at the event that brought out ‘spaghetti’ type of scenario from a shop floor system integration perspective, reminiscent of the ESB (Enterprise Services Bus) pitch for Enterprise Systems from the 1990’s
   • Smart Product Enablement (Sensorization or Instrumentation) is also key to greater adoption of IoT – All equipment manufacturers need to increase the level of SPE of their products
   • Security continues to be a big concern for adoption of IoT. Blockchain-based security solutions enabling secure interoperability of devices could be the way out.

Author: Raman Sapra, Executive Vice President and General Manager – Digital