Graco industrial sprayer customers needed real-time data to maximize utilization of assets and crews, to deter unauthorized use of equipment, to keep equipment in top condition, and to provide more accurate job estimates and billing statements.

Today, interoperability is a challenge. Communicating between programmable logic controllers (PLCs) from different vendors and with other peripheral devices on the same system presents difficulties. Industrial IoT companies rely on remote devices to control, monitor and maintain the health of their systems. The RTU, or remote terminal unit, transmits telemetry data to the PLC via the DCS or SCADA system and uses messages from them to control connected objects. For example, oil and gas companies need to know the status of pressure and volume on their pipeline. They may need to open or close valves depending on the conditions, which operators would do by communicating with the RTUs.When updates to the hardware were required, these companies were faced with limited options. They could either buy more devices from the same vendor, which was restrictive. Or, they could purchase from another manufacturer and then invest more time and money to have their SCADA integrator reprogrammed.