Data Science for Modern Manufacturing

Preface

When I was approached about the opportunity to write this report, I was told that O’Reilly was looking for someone with a technical background, experience in writing, and the ability to communicate in Mandarin Chinese to put something together that included the topics of Big Data, Manufacturing, Internet of Things, Made In China 2025, Industrie 4.0, and Industrial Internet. I told them, “No problem!” and then set off to do some research. What I found was that there is no shortage of information available—there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of articles and reports that on these topics—but there aren’t a lot of straightforward answers. I began to imagine how incredibly frustrating it would be if I were a decision maker for a manufacturing company and I knew that we needed to act fast to kick off an Industrial Internet project but couldn’t be certain about the quality of information out there.

Therefore, the purpose of this report is to deliver to you the fundamentals of the Industrial Internet—particularly if you’re in the business of “making stuff.” With cutting edge technology, it’s impossible to write a text that will be definitive, but I attempted to compile as much of the relevant information in one place to help you cut through some of the jargon and marketing hype. In this report, you will learn about what Industrial Internet is, what governments are doing to promote Industrial Internet, the technologies that are ...