When Brian Sides heard about the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), it really didn’t connect with him. That might seem strange for the director of technology at Okuma America, who also was one of the original architects of THINC-OSPcontrol, an open-architecture CNC.
IIoT didn’t resonate with Sides because he’d been familiar with machine-to-machine data monitoring already, but by a different name. “I started to realize the machining manufacturing environment was already doing this without the name,” explained Sides, who spoke in Orlando, Florida, at ARC Forum in February. “This is not two or three years down the road. It’s been five years in the making.”