FUTURE OF WORK: INTERNET- CONNECTED OVERALLS
GE stokes $ 225B ‘ smart’ industrial economy linking devices, workers
A man dressed as a utility worker approaches an electrical panel. As he moves to touch the metal box, a light blinks. Sensors sewn into his overalls have cut the flow of electricity to the box. He can now work without the risk of electrocution.
“This is just one way technology can help workers do their jobs better and more safely,” says Stephane Sireau of GE Digital, whose prototype suit was one of many demos at General Electric’s “Minds + Machines” conference, which wrapped up Wednesday.
“Our mission is to integrate the worker into a digital industrial context,” says Sireau, showing how the suit’s sensors also provide vital- signs data. That information, in turn, can help emergency responders and anticipate workers’ health problems.
You have probably heard of the Internet of Things, or IoT, which refers to the growing number of Web- connected gadgets being pitched to consumers, from thermostats to door locks.
But a less familiar acronym is IIoT, or the Industrial Internet of Things, which leverages Internet connectivity and cloud- based data crunching to, ideally, streamline the worker experience, drive efficiencies into manufacturing logistics and optimize energy resources.
Long known primarily for making bigticket hardware devices such as MRI machines and jet engines, General Electric is doubling down on software and IIoT.
GE’s chief digital officer, Bill Ruh, has said that the company’s digital business, including software and its open- source Predix operating system, which debuted in February, will account for $ 7 billion in revenue this year, up from $ 5 billion in 2015. The company expects to hit $ 15 billion in revenue by 2020, up from an earlier prediction of $ 10 billion.
By the end of this year, some 20,000 industrial app designers will be developing for Predix. By 2020, GE officials say, the IIoT economy will hit $ 225 billion as businesses look to technology to boost their bottom line.
Such sunny talk immediately raises two dark specters: potential job loss and catastrophic hacking incidents.
President- elect Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of job creation that took tech companies such as Apple to task for outsourcing its manufacturing.
Voters in counties where manufacturing dominates overwhelmingly supported him against rival Hillary Clinton. Some said technology did more harm than good, automating blue- collar jobs that humans once held.
And three weeks ago, a massive attack on unsecured IoT devices downed the websites of Amazon and Twitter on the East Coast. Both topics have GE execs brooding. “If you’re saying you want the job you have to last forever, that’s difficult,” says Colin Parris, GE’s vice president of software research. “But our feeling is that something like Predix can leverage technology to democratize the workplace.”
Parris gives the example of a factory worker who has an idea on how to solve a problem, but lacks computer- coding skills. “They could use a speech interface to dictate a request to a computer that could then take on the task of writing the code,” he says.