Month: February 2020

MDS Global appoints Bowen as new CEO, as Bunney steps down

BSS-as-a-Service provider, MDS Global Ltd announced that Steve Bowen has been appointed as its chief executive officer. Bowen will succeed Gary Bunney, who has decided the time is now right to hand over the reins for the next stage in MDS Global’s development.

Bowen brings to MDS Global more than 25 years of executive leadership experience and a demonstrated track record of leading technology companies through growth. Prior to MDS Global, Bowen worked primarily in the consulting and outsourcing industries. At Accenture, he spent 10 years working in the technology thought-leadership and retail spaces, while at Xchanging, a Business Process Outsourcing company, he held a number of executive roles.

Bowen’s role at MDS Global will be to lead the acceleration of innovation supporting Enterprise, MVNO and Internet of Things (IoT) service providers and specifically addressing the advancements in real-time processing, AI, cloud and network virtualisation.

MDS Global, recently acquired by Volaris, will leverage the Canadian owner’s portfolio of companies to grow its international presence, both organically and through mergers & acquisitions (M&As), using the network to deliver industry solutions based on best-of-breed technology, products and services.

Gary Bunney

“I am honoured to lead this extraordinary company as MDS Global’s chief executive officer,” said Bowen. “The company is on a positive growth trajectory and very well-positioned to continue building on its strong momentum. I look forward to working closely with our exceptional senior leadership team. MDS Global has talented people and we will capture the next wave of growth by remaining focused on serving our clients, delivering innovation in our solutions and providing the best career experiences for our people.”

Outgoing CEO, Gary Bunney, said, “It’s been a privilege to have led MDS Global throughout a strong period of growth in which we internationalised the business and grew our customer base. I am pleased that I leave the company in good shape, with a strong balance sheet and with an accomplished management team that can now further expand the business and continue to grow its value over the coming years.”

The transition period to Bowen completes this month with Steve becoming CEO with immediate effect. In addition to his technology and leadership expertise, he has a passion for good food and drink, is a qualified chef, having gained a diploma at Leith’s School of Food and Wine, and currently owns restaurants in Bristol and Cardiff.

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Intelligent edge platform and R&D shared to improve advanced driver assistance

Two organisations are sharing a platform as well as research & development (R&D) in a bid to improve the reliability and performance of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Altran, a global provider of engineering and R&D services, and 5TONIC, an open research and innovation laboratory of which Altran is a member, announced they are collaborating on 5G mobile projects.

With its main lab located at the IMDEA Networks Institute in Madrid, 5TONIC helps organisations innovate by developing and delivering market-ready 5G solutions, technology applications and business ventures. Altran’s open-source edge computing platform, Ensconce, was recently integrated with 5TONIC as part of the lab’s 5G network. The platform lays the foundation for immersive and time-sensitive applications that are emerging across industries.

“Working with members of 5TONIC and the automotive ecosystem, Altran’s research and innovation in the future of mobility aims to bring safety-critical 5G capabilities to autonomous driving,” said Walid Negm, group chief innovation officer at Altran. “Specifically, ADAS features that make today’s cars safer can achieve new levels of performance and reliability when connected to an edge computing infrastructure through high-speed data rates and ultra-reliable low latency.”

“As the task of driving shifts further away from human drivers, we need computing platforms that are robust and reliable for a wide range of driving situations, and we can’t depend on the vehicle as the data centre,” added Negm. “Autonomous cars will need terabytes of onboard memory, hundreds of gigabytes of bandwidth and petabytes per year of storage. With 5G capability and edge infrastructure, vehicles’ complex driving decisions can be augmented by a distributed autonomous system that assists in environmental perception and localisation, planning and replanning, motion control and multi-vehicle cooperation to achieve higher trust levels.”

Countries increasingly are adopting ADAS technology to improve safety and reduce driver stress. ADAS features ‒ such as adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection systems and surround view systems ‒ are executed in a vehicle’s electronic control unit (ECU), which monitors surroundings and activates safety features, such as automatic braking and lane-changing warnings. But ADAS features still leave consumers nervous, studies show. Altran is leveraging the 5TONIC community and lab to advance the reliability and performance of ADAS, thereby increasing consumer trust in the technology.

The ADAS market was estimated at US$30 billion last year and is projected to reach $135 billion (€124 Billion) by 2027, according to MarketsandMarkets, a B2B research firm.

Members of 5TONIC collaborate to showcase industry use cases in demonstrations and real-world deployments. They can also preview 5G capabilities to better identify and understand the potential uses that will drive future 5G development. Member companies currently include Telefonica, Ericsson, Intel, UC3M, IMDEA Networks, Commscope and InterDigital.

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Assist Care Group slashes over 90% of tech support costs with the SOTI ONE Platform

A supplier of care services in Southern England, Assist Care Group has reportedly achieved significant efficiencies and cost-savings in its business operations using the SOTI ONE Platform. In a highly regulated industry where patient safety remains a top priority, the mobility and IoT management platform is said to be enabling staff to be more agile and secure when documenting care visits and logging or updating critical patient information.

Moving away from manual processes

In 2016, Assist Care Group converted all of its manual documentation to digital processes, as its paper-based records were often outdated and critical information could not be communicated to staff when it mattered most. With staff using their mobile devices to document care visits, Assist Care Group desperately needed a robust and intuitive solution to streamline staff communication. The organisation was also cognisant about device security and understood the importance of keeping patient data secure.

Reducing downtime, improving efficiency and productivity

Assist Care Group was introduced to the Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solution SOTI MobiControl, by the Frontier Group to manage its mobile devices and reduce downtime. SOTI MobiControl offered a comprehensive list of features in one package, such as Kiosk Mode functionality. This unique solution empowers Assist Care Group to lockdown devices to only the apps that are necessary for staff to perform their roles, improving both efficiency and productivity.

In 2018, Assist Care Group upgraded 140 devices in the field and in its offices, which all run Android OS. Using SOTI’s remote control feature, Assist Care Group staff in the field can overcome technical and user issues with speed and ease, reducing downtime in situations where the health and safety of patients is critical.

Another SOTI MobiControl feature that Assist Care Group uses to improve its staff efficiency and critical response time, is the location tracking tool which the team uses to locate staff who are nearest to an emergency and direct them to exactly where the emergency is.

Tech support costs cut by over 90%

By leveraging SOTI MobiControl, Assist Care Group has improved the efficiency of the company’s administrator team, who no longer needs to re-allocate care to patients, saving £15,000 a year. SOTI MobiControl frees up highly skilled team members to focus on more important tasks that are essential for daily operations, while consistently delivering top quality care to patients.

“SOTI MobiControl has brought us peace of mind,” said Tim Wilson, managing director of Assist Care Group. “SOTI delivers an integrated platform that manages our organisation’s entire mobile fleet. We highly depend on this solution as it provides a great amount of control and built-in data safeguards on all our devices. SOTI MobiControl has saved us considerable time and effort by allowing our IT team to better manage our company’s mobility initiatives and delivers incredible ROI.”

SOTI MobiControl provides Assist Care Group with complete visibility of its mobile operations while remotely supporting staff in the field so they are no longer required to spend hours on the phone or be forced to leave the field in order to fix their device.

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As industrial IoT grows visualisation becomes vital for success

There are almost as many devices connected to the internet as there are people in the world to use them. By most measures, approximately half of these devices are in industrial environments, collectively making up the industrial internet of things (IIoT).

Here, George Walker, managing director of industrial data specialist Novotek UK and Ireland, explains how manufacturers can use connected devices strategically.

A recent report by IoT Analytics suggested that, by the middle of 2018, there were an estimated seven billion IoT devices in the world. While this figure doesn’t specify how many of these devices are industrial, a GSMA Intelligence report claimed that more than half of the total connected device market will be industrial by 2025, with 13.8 billion IIoT devices expected to be in play.

With so many devices in use, it’s not surprising that companies can generate overwhelming amounts of operational and environmental data, from electrical usage and ambient temperature to device vibration and even time-since-maintenance. This data brings with it the potential for substantial process improvement, cost savings and margin enhancement, but only if the data is in a usable form.

Little benefit from some raw data

Raw data collected from these systems provides almost no benefit to plant managers making strategic decisions. If an electric motor transmits data saying that it is operating at 110 degrees Celsius, managers seldom have a clear frame of reference to identify if this is good or bad.

This is why plant managers invest in SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems to connect devices together and provide context to the data, which is where the idea of data visualisation comes in. Data visualisation allows plant managers and engineers to see a graphical representation of control signals, systems and performance data. This offers an easy to understand view of a plant’s operations, all from a single human-machine interface (HMI).

However, more datasets and systems mean more clutter from HMI screens. As such, it’s important that the HMI has an accessible user interface with a layout that balances ease-of-use with effectiveness.

George Walker

Few systems do this better than GE Digital’s iFix, a fourth-generation HMI/SCADA system that combines informative plant data visualisation with a clean layout and a context-rich design. This layout is responsive to the HMI it is being viewed on, ensuring an intuitive and effective user experience on different devices. By coupling the iFix software with Webspace from GE Digital, plant managers can make the SCADA visualisation securely accessible from web, tablet and mobile devices for field technicians and remote management.

With this, we get the strategic value of industrial data and visualisation. Plant managers can only make decisions as effective as their understanding of operations and events. By bringing data from connected devices into one central, easily understandable platform, plant managers can see trends, gain process insight and make more effective operational decisions.

Data visualisation

Visualisation also means that senior staff and C-suite executives can make as much use of the data as the field engineers can, using it to inform operational decisions.

Even as we head towards 2025 and a world where connected industrial equipment outnumbers engineers and technical staff, visualisation means we can remain effective and make informed strategic decisions that provide legitimate business value.

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Don’t believe the Industry 4.0 hype

Talk of Industry 4.0 has been useful in helping businesses understand the value of industrial automation and connectivity. But a lot of it is just hype, and many of the technologies are not being adopted as broadly or effectively as they could be.

Here, Sean Robinson, service leader at industrial IT and automation expert Novotek UK & Ireland, explains why it’s not only vital to work with a systems integrator to get the most from industrial connectivity, but to also take a grounded approach.

In the 32 years since Chuck D’s group, public enemy, rapped “Don’t Believe The Hype” in their same-titled single, it seems that we’ve become no less susceptible to hyperbole. After years of Industry 4.0 talk, it’s unbelievable to think that the idea of “Industry 5.0” is now being floated in some corners, that humans and machines will collaborate more fully to supply more bespoke products and services.

Industry 5.0 – Really?

To be fair, as with Industry 4.0, there is truth behind the “5.0” concept. Novotek’s customers in the food and beverage industries, in particular, are seeing the markets stagnate to some degree. This is pushing manufacturers towards smaller batch-sizes, more bespoke and customised products — otherwise known as discreet manufacturing — and greater collaboration between workers of varying skill sets and automation technologies, such as cobots.

However, whether we’re talking about Industry 4.0 or 5.0, it’s my view that businesses must see beyond the buzzwords. To illustrate my point, at Novotek we’ve been working with Manufacturing Execution Systems (MESs) since the term was first coined in the early 1990s. Yet, even today, the technologies are not being adopted as broadly or effectively as they could be. This similarly applies to the wider Industry 4.0 concept.

Take a grounded approach

It’s been suggested that businesses are not achieving lofty enough goals for Industry 4.0 to be considered a revolution. At Novotek, we recommend firstly taking a grounded approach. Secondly, being mindful of how all these systems are interconnected and connect back to your business.

A grounded approach means having specific goals that relate to your own company’s objectives. For example, instead of specifying a system to their current needs, businesses should be mindful that it must last over the next five, or even 10, years. This where the expertise of a systems integrator comes into play. We understand the pros and cons of systems available on the market.

Next, connecting these systems back to your business is dependent on how effectively you manage data. Historian software, like GE Digital’s Historian, can prove critical in this regard by gathering, archiving and compressing data together. Furthermore, the data can then be analysed and distributed — in real-time — among everybody within an organisation. That’s how big data can be matched to your goals.

Going back to the food and beverage sector, companies can achieve more through personalised data from customers, digital forecasting of changeable markets and real-time monitoring of processes and information.

While the hype of Industry 4.0 has helped light the spark that’s driving the [...]

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5G Super uplink and Wi-Fi 6 supported by Huawei router

Huawei Consumer Business Group (BG) has unveiled its 5G CPE Pro 2, a new smart router within the Huawei 5G CPE Pro series. The Huawei 5G CPE Pro 2 supports a wide range of 5G frequency bands.

The Huawei 5G CPE Pro 2 packs 5G Super Uplink technology, as well as the latest Wi-Fi 6 standard, into a compact form and is 30% smaller than its predecessor. The device’s game-changing capabilities will undoubtedly have enormous implications for various fields, including home mobile broadband, HD live broadcasting, telemedicine, and video conferencing.

The router carries the 7nm Balong 5000 chipset for which are claimed dramatically enhanced capabilities, and it offers support for both 5G NSA and 5G SA networking. The Balong 5000 is the first chipset in its series to support 200 MHz bandwidth and carrier aggregation technology, doubling theoretical 5G peak download speed over that on the first-gen CPE Pro, to a staggering 3.6 Gbps.

In addition to inheriting the four 5G TDD frequency bands (n41/n77/n78/n79) that are already supported by the first-gen CPE Pro, the CPE Pro 2 has added support for seven more 5G FDD frequency bands (n1/n3/n5/n7/n28/n38/n40). This expanded range transcends the capabilities of other 5G devices, fully meeting the needs of global operators.

Up to this point, 5G coverage has been hindered by an inherent flaw. Though the TDD (time-division duplex) wireless bands provide for fast connections, their coverage area is rather small. Conversely, FDD (frequency division duplex) bands feature broad coverage, but low bandwidth and thus limited speeds.

As a remedy, Huawei has developed its “5G Super Uplink” technology. 5G Super Uplink fully leverages the advantages of TDD and FDD, which are complementary to each other in high and low frequencies, as well as time and frequency domains, boosting uplink speed and coverage to new and unforeseen heights. Hence, services that are highly dependent on uplink performance, such as HD live broadcasting, telemedicine, and video conferencing, are expected to receive a shot in the arm with the widespread rollout of 5G Super Uplink technology.

The Huawei 5G CPE Pro 2 is fully compliant with the latest Wi-Fi 6 standard, which is tailored to facilitate optimal 5G high-coverage. It is capable of connecting with up to 128 devices, and supports MU-MIMO technology and concurrent transmission with multiple devices, as well as exclusive dynamic narrow bandwidth technology, that can bolster a Wi-Fi 6-supported Huawei mobile phone with scorching data speeds and broadened Wi-Fi coverage.

The router, which is one third smaller than its predecessor, adopts new silent cooling fans that are capable of dynamically adjusting their operating speed to account for the current temperature. Running at just 30 dB, 10 dB lower than the normal ambient noise level, the fans are far quieter as well, while improving cooling efficacy by 50% and reducing the router’s surface temperature by 5°C. Reinforced by an effortlessly efficient heat dissipation system, the Huawei 5G CPE Pro 2 is equipped to handle the high loads associated with continual 5G operation.

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UNHCR looks for reliable water-monitoring using LoRaWAN gateways

Kerlink , a specialist in solutions dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT), reports the success of a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) pilot programme for reservoir monitoring in Uganda and Iraq. The pilot programme incorporates Kerlink’s LoRaWAN gateway technology. The effectiveness of the sensor-to-cloud monitoring programmes in remote locations is resulting in near-term expansion to eight additional installations in Africa and Asia, and officials see a multitude of potential applications for IoT-based wireless sensor networks going forward.

The UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, is charged with providing water to millions of people worldwide, often with daunting logistics. The Ugandan Arua Field effort, where the pilot monitoring programme was first implemented, provides daily water deliveries to as many as 470,000 refugees. The LoRaWAN-enabled sensors installed at reservoirs starting in January 2019 enabled managers to monitor water levels in real time, providing unprecedented visibility into usage and resource management. They also provided a reliable new source of coordinated payment information for some 630 rental tanker trucks that were hauling up to 6,387 cubic meters (about 1.5 million gallons) of water daily when the emergency response began in 2015.

Data from the sensors designed by several companies travelled through an outdoor Kerlink Wirnet Station LoRaWAN gateway, which provided essential connectivity with cloud databases and applications. UNHCR managers integrated the data into a dashboard that provided new levels of visibility into operations of this global programme.

UNHCR Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) officer Ryan Schweitzer noted that the IoT made it both easy and cost-effective to roll out a static water-level monitoring system. The agency hopes to use it globally as a “basis-of-payment‟ system for water-trucking operations, which in Uganda are as high as $15 million (€13.8 million) per month. “The LoRaWAN IoT technology is mature, extremely cost effective and scalable. The static reservoir-monitoring technology works extremely well,” he said.

Schweitzer added that the approach has broad potential for all sectors of humanitarian services, including monitoring of groundwater, water-supply systems, water quality, waste collection, and air quality. He described it as a “possible game-changer for monitoring in refugee settings,” noting that the ability to document delivery of safe, potable water to refugees at all times is a “holy grail”-type of technology for UNHCR water and hygiene efforts.

Next steps include replication of the pilot systems at other locations in Uganda and Iraq, as well as Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Bangladesh.“This unique and vital use case underscores the humanitarian benefits that the IoT can support,” said Stephane Dejean, Kerlink’s chief marketing officer. “Because the UNHCR sensor-to-gateway-to-platform system provides critical life support for large numbers of people, there’s a very high need for trustworthiness and reliability.”

“At the same time, the projects’ remote location and minimal staffing also demanded a true carrier-grade solution with quick, easy integration and deployment, and secure and straightforward administration,” he said. “We’re gratified by our Wirnet Station’s performance under harsh conditions, and honoured to work with UNHCR – their work reflects our values and commitments towards society and the environment, and we look forward to [...]

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eSIM is all about business growth and digital experience

SPONSORED INTERVIEW

Yuval Mayron is general manager for Internet of Things (IoT) at Amdocs and has worked extensively to create the company’s comprehensive eSIM offerings. He explains to George Malim how exploiting the full benefits and opportunities of eSIM necessitates a holistic approach that brings together the technical solution, with the device makers, network operators, customer experience and support.

George Malim: How important is it that organisations take a comprehensive approach to migrating to eSIM rather than a limited and gradual point solution approach?

Yuval Mayron: This is one of the key topics I see when I talk to communications service providers (CSPs) who approach the eSIM challenge. Some see it as a small, tactical challenge that they need to solve. These CSPs typically choose very basic solutions such as a QR-code to enable eSIM. Other CSPs have already understood by now that eSIM is not a threat but an opportunity, a technology that is here to stay and will eventually replace the plastic SIM.

eSIM’s holistic approach actually dictates a series of considerations that need to be reconciled. Organisations need to better define and the articulate eSIM jobs-to-be-done, required capabilities and derived value in order to achieve this.

Plastic SIM was a great technology for many years. It provided an intuitive experience together with a lot of freedom to the end customer to perform basic actions, such as swap and troubleshooting.

The transition to digital SIM requires a different approach with careful, special consideration given to the end user experience. Users expect a simple, unified, friendly and instant experience to perform every action they wish to take with the digital SIM. These factors are key to successful transition to eSIM.

Many CSPs today are going through digital transformation projects around both B2C and B2B segments. This is an opportunity for them to take eSIM as a much broader context. eSIM should be an integral part of these transformations. Every consideration in the customer journey and support must also include the eSIM. CSPs that adopted the tactical, gradual approach with basic capabilities, rather than a strategic, comprehensive approach, will end up with a spaghetti of solutions and experiences together with high risk and cost. eSIM also changes the business participants in the connectivity subscription process. While the plastic SIM was 100% controlled and managed by the CSPs, with eSIM, device manufacturers have a major role in the subscription process and overall experience.

Different devices already have very different interfaces. A Microsoft laptop is very different from a Samsung Phone or a Philips health device. Every onboarding of a new device needs to take few elements into account like device protocol, activation process and E2E experience. It doesn’t stop there. You also need to consider the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) cloud for makers that provides the device and the cloud. More and more they effect the customer experience of eSIM. With Apple, for example, you need to notify Apple’s cloud to activate an eSIM. Of course other elements needs to be connected including [...]

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