Transcript 0:00 Talk to me. Information, news, and entertainment on demand. WUSradio.com. 0:11 [upbeat music] Welcome to The Peggy Smedley Show, the voice of IoT in our connected world, with your host, Peggy Smedley. [upbeat music] Hello, listeners, and welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show. 0:25 My final guest today is a show regular. 0:28 He is an assistant professor of agriculture and biosystems engineering, whose research and teaching interests focus on sensing and sense making for smart agriculture, natural and urban systems. 0:41 Please welcome Joshua Peschel, Assistant Professor of Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University. Josh, welcome to the show. Hey, Peggy. It's good to be with you today. 0:54 Hey, it is great to have you on as usual. So let's talk about this next level IoT. You know, we've talked about so many things on this show. 1:02 Um, I thought it would be good to just talk about, you know, predictive maintenance and just in general improving the supply chain and kind of what you think is kind of happening as we talk about servitization and your take on things. 1:17 You've done a lot in this space just in general. Sure. 1:21 So I, I guess the, the thing that I would lead with is that if we're looking at suppliers and really the entire supply chain, I think, I think they're about to get squeezed. 1:29 I bet they're-- I think they're gonna, uh, get the belt taken up a notch, so to speak. And, and there's, there's a couple reasons for that, and they all really fall under the context of improved operational efficiencies. 1:41 Now, I'll give you a couple and, and some examples that I've, I've had some experience with. 1:45 So, um, if you look at the tracking of companies of different assets and understanding their inventories now with IoT into the supply chain, you could look at something like grain being transported from location A to B, and not only knowing that this much was coming from there, but also knowing, uh, the temperature that it experienced, the moisture content that it experienced, maybe some damage from insects. 2:12 You can know that every second of the way. And having access to that information for you as somebody who's buying this product is something that you've not really been able to know at that level of resolution before now. 2:25 I think, um, in the keeping with sort of that transportation, uh, theme, I think we're also looking at new and different ways that, uh, fleets and vehicles are connected and what that might mean. 2:38 So I'll give you the example of taxi tracking in a large urban area, New York and Chicago. If you were able to know where all the taxis were at a given time, what routes they had taken, 2:51 maybe that might say something about, uh, illness spreading if you look at how many times those taxis or Ubers went to a hospital. 3:01 And then I think the last thing that probably falls under operational efficiency is, uh, service and maintenance. 3:09 So I have previously done some work in smart green infrastructure and understanding how well those streets serve as sponges to capture, uh, rainwater, um, which, you know, is a, is a product that we need to deal with. 3:24 Um, knowing, you know, what's where, where it's going at any given time, and being able to do prediction and forecasting, maybe how to service the street by the city. 3:35 I think all of those speak to that operational efficiency, whether it's products or transportation or municipalities or, or what have you. 3:43 And in, in, in all of that, how it relates to the supply chain is that those operational efficiencies are gonna cause the people upstream to be able to have to be a lot more efficient. 3:54 And we don't exactly know how that's gonna turn out, and there's a lot of questions that we can get into, uh, like transparency and privacy, but I, I think that's the big thing, is there's about to be a big squeeze on supply chain no matter which part of it you're in. 4:09 So interestingly enough, the... is that now when we talk about you're gonna have to be greater parts of being a part of your tribe. 4:16 You know, the tribe's gonna now become a greater part of that supply chain because I think what we're gonna see now is going now into blockchains. 4:25 You know, you're gonna have greater transparency because you're gonna have to share greater information than you've ever done before to be able to show things. 4:34 So you're gonna have to tell more information and say, "We're all in this together, and we're not in this together," or you're not gonna be a part of the supply chain that you just described, right? Absolutely. 4:45 I think that's one of the key things that it speaks to is, you know, historically, business has had certain kinds of vendor relations, and now with that transparency, you're gonna know if your partner is doing the job that you think that they were doing now that you have this increased resolution. 5:02 And that may or may not be good for the partner because what we don't know is, as we talk about these efficiencies coming online, is how it's going to actually affect the people involved. 5:14 Because not all things are widgets. A lot of products and commodities are human-centric processes. 5:21 And in the same way that, um, people who have social media have experienced unhappiness and depression, seeing, let's say, competing vendors operating now that everything's transparent, uh, how... 5:35 what impact is that going to have on smaller entities? What pressures are going to be felt by people to become more optimal when in fact actually that optimality might not be the best thing for that relationship? 5:47 Um, we don't really know how these people and these processes and these commodities are gonna change in time. We're, we're-- it's something that we're gonna have to find out. 5:58 So when we look at all of these things, will in time this improve our ability then to service as we squeeze the supply chain, or will it hinder the s-servicing that we're doing?I think it de-- I think the answer is it depends. 6:15 I think if it's a true manufacturing process or production process, let's say that we're making pasta, and we're a food production facility, and that, you know, that squeezing of that optimal process, let's say we've got some IoT set up in a pasta manufacturing facility, and we understand better when we should do downtime and maintenance, okay? 6:35 That, that is less human-centric, um, than say, you know, some kind of, you know, assembly line where humans are necessarily involved. 6:44 If you're trying to get time back on a, on a production process and the, the time that you get back effectively allows you to make more product, that's, that's one thing. 6:55 If, in fact, you're trying to manufacture something that involves human labor, there may be a squeak point at which it stops to become optimal. 7:06 And, you know, how that translates downstream for the person expecting the product, it's unclear. 7:14 Because if the person receiving the product doesn't really have an idea and understanding of what's going on upstream, then, then that could, that could cause some, some issues with some of those vendor relations. 7:27 Um, and, and that often happens about not really knowing, you know, where your pr-- you just... You get your cell phone, and you don't really know all the things that went into it. And if you're selling cell phones, 7:38 you really kind of just care about the cell phones. But you can kind of predict if you know that line's gonna go down, you say, "Hey, we can't... You know, we gotta do maintenance on that line. 7:46 We can shift to the next line." So in the manufacturing process, you could do that. 7:50 But I suppose, like, you know, if you're preparing something that's food related, you're actually preparing it in a restaurant, it might be a little bit more tricky, is what you're saying. Absolutely. 8:02 There's just people involved. 8:02 That's a really great example of tying it back to the, the food production process because any time where people are involved, it's not the same thing as just writing out some mathematical equation on a piece of paper. 8:13 And when we have assembly lines where it's all robots or it's presses or what have you, those things that... Those things we can control fairly well related to those mathematical equations. 8:24 When it comes to people, it's, it's a much more difficult process, and those mathematical equations don't always take into account all of the factors, um, associated with people, people in the loop. 8:37 And, and I think it'll be really be process and industry specific, and, and we've yet to see. 8:44 Well, Josh, I always love when you're, love when you're on the show, Assistant Professor of Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University. 8:51 Josh, where can our listeners go to learn more about what you guys are doing and some of the research? Sure. So my website, if they'd like to see more, is peschelgroup.org. 9:00 Or if you'd just like to come to our departmental website to see all the great things we're doing here at Iowa State, it's abe.iastate.edu. All right, Josh. Thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate it. 9:12 Thank you. All right, listeners, we're out of time, but you could check out our website at connectedworld.com or thepeggySmedleyShow.com. And as always, we... you can tweet at us at ConnectedWMag. 9:23 And remember, we are broadcast live every Tuesday at twelve PM Central. As you can see, we always have great guests like Josh, and we enjoy when he comes on once a month. 9:31 So as always, this is The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and relevant technology. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. Have a wonderful week. 9:47 [upbeat music] With great technology comes great responsibility. 10:05 Follow Internet of Things tech expert and futurist Peggy Smedley, repeatedly ranked as a top IoT and M2M influencer. 10:13 Go to Peggy_Smedley on Twitter for her take on the latest tech news and lively interviews with other industry insiders on her weekly radio show. Visit twitter.com and search for Peggy_Smedley to follow her today. 10:27 [upbeat music] Video consumption is on the rise. So to reach this audience, Constructek Magazine created Constructek TV. 10:39 Constructek TV helps construction professionals leverage emerging solutions to better their business. Tune in to constructek.tv to catch the latest show on the first and third Tuesday of each month. 10:50 Like, view, and subscribe to constructek.tv, bringing dynamic video to construction. [upbeat music] Signal to noise, an electronic term with new relevance on the internet. 11:05 Connected World Media cuts through the noise of data overload and finds you the signal of important information, information that will keep you current and aware of context in the Internet of Things. 11:16 Peggy Smedley shares her insights on The Peggy Smedley Show and in Connected World Magazine, all online at connectedworld.com. Stay current and competitive at connectedworld.com [upbeat music] 11:30 Are you a small business or nonprofit? Securing Our eCity Foundation offers free cybersecurity seminars so businesses of every size can become more cyber safe. 11:39 According to Forbes, just one cybercrime incident can cost a company over fifteen million dollars. Protect yourself, your employees, and your business before you fall victim to the nation's fastest-growing crime. 11:51 Go right now to securingourecity.org or call six one nine six three zero two four four four. [upbeat music] Looking to be a successful entrepreneur? 12:03 The virtual assistant industry continues to be a top choice for those looking to start their own business. The problem can be how to become a virtual assistant. 12:11 Many turn to the bible of the VA industry, the book Virtual Assistant: The Series, and it's the perfect guide for office managers, executive assistants, and other administrative professionals looking to make the transition from employee to successful business owner. 12:26 Go to vatheseries.com to get your copy today. Education. Industry experts back to the basics. Is your company using the Internet of Things to its fullest potential? 12:36 Enlist the Peggy Smedley Institute and its team of experts to create a customized plan for how to apply the IoT to your specific needs. 12:44 Learn everything you need to know to achieve tangible business outcomes in today's digital economy. 12:50 Contact us at six three zero nine three three zero eight four four, at six three zero nine three three zero eight four four, or visit learnatIoT.com.
