Coffee with Mr. IoT: A Connected Technologies Series

Manufacturing large aircraft structures such as a 737 fuselage can require tracking and installing tens of thousands of parts. That’s why Spirit Aerosystems, the world’s largest first-tier aerostructures manufacturer, has piloted (no pun intended) new technologies like IoT to improve factory operations. Pierre Harter, Director of Advanced Manufacturing Strategy, chats with Mr. IoT about the impact and how they measure success, lessons learned, and the importance of focusing on change management to ensure successful adoption by the “real customers”—the factory floor workers.

A common manufacturing challenge is getting the right materials to the right location at the right time. In this episode, Subrata Roy, managing director, Deloitte Consulting LLP, and AWS IoT leader, shares how cloud-based IoT solutions like Smart Factory Fabric are helping businesses better track assets, monitor machines, and gain insights from all the data being collected. Just as important as the technology is an emphasis on user-centered design and change management to facilitate adoption.

According to the World Economic Forum, it will take 202 years to close the global gender pay gap. Shelley Zalis, CEO of The Female Quotient, has made it a mission to speed up that timeline. While at AWS ReInvent, she and Mr. IoT discuss her approach with “equality hacks,” tackling unconscious bias in the workplace, bringing emotion to the boardroom, and what inspired her to start the #SeeHer movement.

At AWS ReInvent 2019, Joanna Pena-Bickley, Head of Research & Design for Alexa devices at Amazon, joins us to discuss harnessing the “magic” in technology and the role of design in making technology more accessible and relatable for all humans. They chat about inspiring work in the “sexy” industrial IoT space, the increasing adoption of machine learning and AI, as well as aspirations to democratize and demystify technology through inclusive design.

At the 4th annual Singularity University Global Summit, Mr. IoT talks with Sean Hinton, founder and CEO of Skyhive Technologies, about utilizing deep learning technology focused on re-skilling companies and people – Human Capital. Sean and Robert chat about the power of AI to help individuals and enterprises address the ever-increasing need to retrain and reskill to stay relevant and successful. As Sean says: “With advancements in computing power and the reduction of costs to access that power…we can know people’s skills, and the competencies needed for each job, and apply this knowledge to the labor market.”

Many large enterprises struggle with harnessing the full value hidden in the massive amounts of data they collect, according to Prukalpa Sankar, co-founder of Atlan, a company that aims to “democratize data inside organizations by creating a home for data teams.” In his chat with Mr. IoT, Prukalpa discusses the need for diversified collaborative data teams to help extract, transform, validate, and load data into detailed reports and recommendations. Prukalpa and Robert discuss how to allow more democratic access to data and build trust between data teams and decision makers such as IT managers, OT managers, researchers, C-suite executives, designers, and others, and ultimately gather usable, timely insights from vast data lakes.

Mr. IoT attended the 4th annual Singularity University Global Summit in San Francisco where he spoke with Erica Volini, Global Leader for Human Capital, Deloitte LLP, about the “Workforce of the Future.” Erica redefines the workforce as a mix of full-time employees (hot bodies), gig workers (warm bodies), and automation (cold bodies), and talks about how companies can prepare for the shifts that technology is creating. Robert and Erica discuss the challenge of optimizing work to get maximum human output, productivity, and ROI by ensuring humans are doing what we do best – creating, innovating, connecting, and establishing relationships.