EY and GE Digital will team up develop and provide Industrial IoT (IIoT) services to help industrial companies achieve increased productivity from processes linked in the cloud.
Under the agreement, EY and GE Digital will develop and deliver industry-specific services based on GE's Predix cloud-based operating system. The services can help companies reduce operating expenses and increase revenue through improved machine uptime and streamlined industrial workflows.
EY, which has been working with GE for more than 10 years, will join GE's ecosystem of global alliance partners, which gives members access to digital tools and domain expertise from across the company.
EY will also provide its extensive experience in business transformation; IoT, data analytics and IT cybersecurity capabilities; and access to global resources across multiple industries.
Lionel Lamy, the co-lead for research firm IDC's European IoT Practice, noted that the alliance, combining GE Digital's Industrial IoT technologies with EY's IoT experience confirms the vital role of collaboration and strategic relationships.
“Bringing data analytics and cloud capabilities to co-create services to help companies use their data to realize significant gains in workflows and productivity will go a long way to address key business challenges.”
Potential applications for the IIoT platform include helping oil and gas industry producers develop maintenance schedules that improve oil rig uptime, reduce the number of times workers must travel to maintain rigs and identify the tools and parts they need to take with them.
In other industries, like hospitality, the IIoT can allow hotel systems to automatically block availability of a room because of issues such as the plumbing requiring maintenance.