Manufacturing industry witnessing BYOD trends

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon reshaping information technology (IT) in business offices is now spreading to the manufacturing sector, with employee-owned smart phones and tablets playing an increasingly important role in manufacturing settings for 2014 and even beyond.

Rising numbers of manufacturing workers are utilizing their own smartphones and tablets to monitor and control industrial equipment, according to the analytic firm, IHS Technology. Such smartphones and tablets can allow users to manage equipment remotely, observing processes while employees are on the move or while they are working in another part of the factory.

"The use of BYOD devices in manufacturing is predicted to rise at a rapid rate in the coming years. But because the movement is being driven by individuals and not at the corporate level, gauging the number of BYOD devices being used or to forecast the growth of the market is difficult," said Mark Watson, associate director for industrial automation at IHS.

"Just the same, anecdotal research conducted by IHS indicates the BYOD trend is expanding in the manufacturing realm. The increasing networking of industrial automation equipment is enabling the rise of BYOD. A small percentage of such equipment employs standard wireless networking technologies, which lend themselves to use with consumer mobile devices," he said.

Despite its usefulness in manufacturing, BYOD presents a range of challenges.

"Unlike industrial PCs, consumer mobile devices are not designed to endure the stresses commonly encountered in manufacturing, such as vibration, heat and water," Watson observed. As a result, manufacturing companies in the future may provide workers with tablets and smartphones rated for such environments.

There also are safety and security considerations related to BYOD in manufacturing. If a production line goes down because of a problem with a consumer mobile device, there could be huge implications in lost productivity and time. With the great usefulness and increased utilization of BYOD in the manufacturing realm, companies will be compelled to deal with these issues in 2014 and for the years to come.