Nanchao IoT, the continuous exploration of the Industrial Internet of Things
Focusing on the Industrial IoT Track, why is it a ‘dark horse’?
Different from a single algorithm such as face recognition, autonomous driving vehicles need to face complicated road conditions and put forward extremely strict requirements for high-speed signal transmission, large amount of data processing and long-term data traceability. In addition, how to realize data interaction, how to carry out data transformation, and how to meet the growing needs of downstream consumers are all urgent problems to be solved.
So, what are the difficulties in using the industrial Internet of Things platform to realize the digital management of equipment? Today, together with Zhang Suna, Vice President of Marketing of Shanghai ChaoT Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as RUFF South ChaoT), we are going to review RUFF South ChaoT’s exploration and practice on the road of Industrial Internet of Things.
From “plugging away” to a focus on track running
In 2015, RUFF South Chain IoT was officially established in Zhangjiang, focusing on the development of underlying technology and the integration of industrial solutions for the Internet of Things. “We spent the first two years in development, building Ruff OS, the operating system we had for the Internet of Things.”
Not thinking about commercialization, not thinking about making money, fledgling RUFF South ChaoThing began a professional “bury your head in the sand”. It is this “deep heart” of research and dedication, in 2017, RUFF South ChaoIoT received 21 million A round of financing, and this financing further promoted its commercialization in the industrial Internet field.
Nanchao IoT related products
At the testing stage, the hardware gateway and software system of the Internet of Things developed by RUFF South ChaoIoT have been gradually introduced to the market and continuously verified by customers.
Due to the forward-looking IOT operating system Ruff OS, there are also many highlight moments:
– Successfully selected as a member of Microsoft Accelerator for the first semester; – Become a partner with Baidu Tiangong; – Launched RUFF Plant Insight, focusing on the digital transformation of the factory, to help the manufacturing industry improve productivity; – Served more than dozens of paying customers in the first three months of commercialization, covering industries including photovoltaic, power, energy management, wood-based panel, auto parts and other fields; – Won the honors of 2018 Shanghai High-tech Enterprise and “2019 Insight Zhangjiang Enterprise List” New Power Enterprise -AI Digital Information, etc.
In the process of commercialization of the Internet of Things, the communication gap between product development and end customers remains a big challenge for RUFF South Internet of Things.
“At the time, Ruff OS was not essentially a commercial to B or C product. It was an underlying platform for the Internet of Things, like we see with Android today, which was more for D developers. “It’s very difficult for us to serve B-side customers with Ruff OS when the whole Internet of Things hasn’t fully taken off or been standardized.” “Ms. Zhang said.
The products and services provided by RUFF South Chain of Things
Since it is impossible to achieve a commercial closed loop through the IOT operating system, RUFF South IOT chose to adjust its positioning — to productize RUFF OS and embed RUFF OS in its self-developed gateway products, so that the gateway has more capabilities of software defined hardware; At the same time, on the commercial side, it has gradually transformed itself into an “enabler”.
“We provide professional Internet of Things underlying technology and product services, which are then packaged into a more general solution by an industry system integrator and delivered to his end customers. Because the system integrators understand the needs of customers in traditional industries and understand the technical solutions, we can maintain a single dimension in communication, which greatly reduces our communication costs across the entire business channel.”
At the beginning of 2020, RUFF South will “subtraction” the original industrial IoT products and services, focusing on “device connectivity” and “device data management” two aspects. The so-called “professional expertise”, in a more subdivided field, RUFF South Tide IoT has more energy to play to their strengths and strength.
It is better to teach a man to fish than to teach him to fish
As an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) technology service provider, RUFF South has been exploring and practicing for the past few years, trying to find a commercialization path that can be replicated, standardized, and at the same time provide business value and efficiency improvement for customers.
Therefore, in the past few years, RUFF South ChaoIoT not only has mature hardware and software products and services in the field of industrial Internet of Things, but also has relatively mature product solutions in the fields of intelligent construction site, intelligent energy, intelligent environmental survey and geological disaster monitoring, and has generated considerable cash flow.
In its main track — Industrial Internet of Things, RUFF South has witnessed multiple growth of gateway hardware products through the accumulation and precipitation in the past five years. By the first quarter of this year, RUFF South has achieved a total contract amount of 20 million and the shipment of 20,000 units.
Zhang also shared the story behind the development of the gateway with us about the breakthrough from zero to one:
During the initial commercialization phase, RUFF South IOT is focusing on the digital transformation of its plants. Since its customers are continuous or discrete manufacturing plants, this means that the type of equipment and the number of interfaces is impossible to predict in advance. “There may be a factory with only a few PLC devices (industrial automation), and a factory with dozens of different types of equipment, but the same is that they all need unified networking and digitization.” Due to the limited access capacity of the gateway on the market, the gateway that basically meets the requirements is cost-effective and too low, RUFF South Chain of Things decided to design their own.
Therefore, the relevant R&D personnel started to invest in the research and development from the middle of 2016. By the end of 2018, they basically completed all the function iteration, configuration tool design and remote Explore management of the gateway, so that customers could complete the configuration of the gateway, data collection and reporting, and the secondary development of Internet of Things software applications by themselves under the technical guidance.
Gateway configuration can be implemented by the customer through the device management platform
At the beginning of 2019, the gateway began to be officially mass-produced, focusing on industrial manufacturing, new energy, environmental disaster monitoring, transportation and other application scenarios. But in the actual customer deployment process, Ruff South Internet of Things gradually found that different customers almost have the same need — “customers want to be able to do gateway access and data management independently.”
However, in terms of details, there are still some non-standardized requirements in each field, that is, it is impossible to directly obtain a standardized product or solution from the market for mass production. In response, RUFF South began to step on the path of “customized” solutions.
Zhang Suna took Schneider Electric, a company based in Zhangjiang, as an example: “Schneider Electric has been cooperating with us for three consecutive years and is a very typical customer of ours. Schneider Electric comes from a traditional industry background, and in their search for more advanced and innovative products and solutions, they need technology providers like us to solve some of the upgrading problems in their products to improve their operational efficiency.”
In the very “minority” aerial work vehicle project, the necessity of customization is more prominent. “There are almost no industrial solutions on the market for high-altitude vehicles. At that time, customers’ pain point was that many of their cars were rented out, and they often encountered problems such as illegal driving, not paying user fees on time, and car wear and tear.”
To address these needs, RUFF South has created two customized solutions: a GPS-satellite-based gateway box that can be mounted on a high-altitude vehicle to collect real-time vehicle travel status data; The second is the real-time monitoring software system, when found that the other side appears illegal operation, can be timely for the remote reverse system stop.
Architectural diagram of the high altitude vehicle monitoring system of South Tide IoT
“In terms of covering scenarios, the gateway can also customize some functions on the software side according to customer requirements. While providing hardware procurement to our customers, we will also deliver the gateway’s independent management platform to our customers. Customers only need to use the device management platform of Southchao IoT to monitor their products in real time whether they are running properly.” Behind this is the concrete practice of RUFF South Tide IoT that “teaching people to fish is better than teaching them to fish”.
It is worth mentioning that in the early stage of some customer incubation, RUFF South Chain of Things has also done a lot of “user education” work, teaching the other side’s engineers how to complete the gateway access and data management step by step for free. At the same time, RUFF South is also iterating on its configuration tools, remote eXplore and other tools to meet customers’ do-it-yourself, save money and effort goals.
Enter the market with hardware and retain customers with software
In the pursuit of “small but specialized” road, RUFF South Chain of Things has always been focused on and constantly magnifying their unique advantages:
First of all, the accumulation of technology is undoubtedly a powerful “stepping stone” for RUFF South Tide to enter this track. RUFF South ChaoIoT’s earliest team, covering almost all aspects of the software and hardware technical personnel, formed a strong echelon. These technicians are still in RUFF South Tide IoT.
Secondly, RUFF South Chain of Things in the industry solution landing this piece, more experience. In the early stage of exploration, RUFF South ChaoT, as an Internet of Things system integrator, has been exposed to a number of industries including agriculture, energy, transportation, environmental monitoring, geological disaster monitoring and so on. While providing customers with products and solutions, RUFF South ChaoT has also accumulated a lot of experience.
Nanchao Internet of Things is the core technology
“In addition, the track that RUFF South is targeting is a more segmented and focused area, so that our technical strength and advantages can be more targeted to play.” “Zhang Suna said.
Based on this advantage, “enter the market with hardware, retain customers with software” is the next development plan of RUFF South Chain of Things. In Zhang Suna’s opinion, hardware products have extremely high technical attributes, its demand exists objectively, and new demand is constantly generated when more devices are connected.
“Many requirements are gradually generated in actual use and change. We will give some software systems to customers to try out as a value-added service, so as to deeply bind with customers. In the process of binding, the client’s business will be updated, and our cooperation will create more possibilities.”
At present, RUFF South has clearly defined its product positioning: to provide system integrators with standardized gateway hardware and device data acquisition services; Provide hardware and software system solutions and customized services for terminal customers. Clear positioning not only strengthens its underlying technology delivery capability, but also enables continuous exploration and practice on the demand side, so as to iterate out products and services of the Internet of Things that are more in line with the market.
At present, the development of artificial intelligence Internet of Things has become the general trend. In this context, the first mover advantage of RUFF South Tide is also accumulating the strength of the next sprint.