Welcome to M2M  

M2M, your next business enabler!

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) is simply connecting things in industry. They are including controllers, sensors, instruments, equipments, real machines and robots. We can call them in a collective term as devices in industry. They are expected to communicate with humans in various ways, where the M2M can be interpreted as a Man-to-Machine communication as well.

M2M is not a new concept to industry at all as many industry players have implemented since the PSTN modem introduced in many industry applications. In the name of automation, some of devices started to connect each others to exchange simple data in earlier days. Another effort to group these devices together under the same protocol was categorized as an industrial network. It was initially developed to allow a group communication among the similar products from the same supplier.

Industrial Networks have evolved for many decades from point-to-point connection to a group communication like a FLAN (Field Local Area Network). The network ran under a proprietary protocol most of the time until we got to a wide adoption of standard Ethernet technology to reach IP (Internet Protocol) back bone. Industrial Networks now go beyond IP network to integrate wireless and mobile networks. Soon they will merge under the next generation mobile network in which IPv6 can provide a core identification service for all devices. Many device communication issues are going to be settled once this new network platform is introduced in the market. It can provide a seamless connectivity for all devices in industry.

M2M started to study how to connect devices in the beginning but in new M2M we need to connect the groups of those devices because of strong Infocomm infrastructure built in last two decades. They are blocks of processes, factories, warehouses, utility sites, buildings, supply chains and residential blocks. All these efforts may be fruitless unless all associated parties are work together in a more collaborative manner because M2M is beyond just products and technologies.

The growing interest on M2M among industry professionals in recent years is due to tremendous developments in digital technologies and strong IT and communications infrastructure whereas it is better known as InfoComm in short. The proposed M2M development model can serve as an engine to drive the new M2M by providing industry with a systematic method how to develop more businesses and value-added services for customers.

I²T is proposed as a required platform for industry to adopt as a development model in ever-changing business environment where all your business processes are to be automated over a network. Hence what I look at the four success elements in business is quite critical as they are serving as fundamental factors to manage your business. The four elements are the following as what we may already aware of:

You may be successful in your business or in your project with the four elements or maybe they are more than enough to survive in certain cases. But the moment you bring the I²T concept in the business, you may increase your success rate much higher than you expect. It is the highlight of the proposal that try to look industry in a more horizontal way, or as what I call ‘Horizontal Knowledge’ in short. It enables you to see the market in a totally different way. It provides a different angle from where you are in now. The target is to create more business opportunities by knowing more I²T.

I²T, an Engine driving for more value-added M2M applications M2M is the term used to indicate a collection of industrial applications. It’s not advised to approach M2M as a new technology as the concept has existed in industry in such a long time. Either you already have used or implemented by one way or another in business or applications. Many M2M applications have been available from the beginning of computer networking era. M2M did not draw the public attention because of the lack of enabling tools and high implementation costs. IT and communications infrastructure were not fully developed to meet M2M requirements at that time in the seventies and eighties. Typical M2M applications in those days specially focused on data gathering and monitoring over point-to-point connection over PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network).

The growing attention among industry professionals on M2M in recent years is due to tremendous developments in digital technologies and strong IT and communications infrastructure in many countries whereas it is known as InfoComm in Singapore. One of the many common features of M2M applications is to use of InfoComm technologies but they are not the M2M pre-requirements since M2M can be achieved without advanced digital technologies.

The proposed I²T model is serving as an engine for M2M applications and providing industry with the systematic approach to bring more business and more value-added M2M.applications. The I²T model is still under development and waiting for contributions from industry leaders.

by OJ Chung, Vice-Chairman of M2M Consortium Singapore