Meytis helps clients with implementing internet of things

Metyis has over the past years helped dozens of clients across the world with designing and implementing internet of things solutions. A round-up of two recent cases the firm worked on.

According to research from Gartner, the global market for internet of things (IoT) solutions is expected to grow to around €1.5 trillion by 2025. The growth is driven by the wealth of benefits that the technology can bring to sectors, ecosystems and functions with organisations.

Key benefits of internet of things have recently been brought into practice by Metyis, which helped clients in the beverage and laundry sectors design and successfully deploy the technology.

Beer producer

Giving examples of the diverse and engaging solutions that IoT provides, the first of the two cases saw Metyis work with one of the world’s leading beer producers and distributors. The client was concerned that it had “no visibility” on beer consumption across market – the only information came from its billing system, which was by no means a guarantee of the reality of usage.

For example, the billing data did not account for wastage once beer was being sold by venues, meaning the brewery was unable to verify exactly how popular its beverages were. In addition, technicians and sales personnel could not understand what was happening in the pubs between periodic visits. It was unclear whether the beer they sold one week was at an optimum quality on any given day.

To help resolve this, Metyis was tasked with installing a new system onto the client’s beer kegs – with NFC antennas next to the kegs allowing for indications of what kind of beer was in each keg, and tracking its lifespan from being filled to being recycled. The hardware could then measure and process data relating to the consumption of the company’s beer in real time – wirelessly communicating to the beverage company’s cloud, and applications used by bar staff, managers and technicians.

The results from the transition saw a dramatic reduction of wastage, theft and malfunction. While bar staff are supplied with keg level readings – helping them to change barrels early to maintain optimum product condition – managers of the beer producer and distributor’s bars can also deploy data-driven decision making depending on how successfully a beer performs.

Laundry provider

The second case saw Metyis brought in by a provider of laundry services to the healthcare, hospitality and higher education sectors. The company was hoping to leverage data and maintenance IoT solutions, to help boost customer experience, enhance efficiency and keep costs down.

Approaching this, Metyis identified critical use cases, before working to implement a data and technology architecture – connecting machines and sensors – that could meet those needs. The core of the architecture was a gateway created on Zigbee – a network similar to Bluetooth or WiFi which creates a mesh network in which some end devices can route a connection, allowing for the expansion of network coverage.

This Zigbee-backed network is used by the client in a number of ways – for instance, sensors can provide information about the ambient environment to ensure laundering machines don’t overheat, or monitor if boilers heat water effectively.

In terms of impact, the project has triggered wide-ranging improvements. Predictive maintenance meant fewer failures – and less customer disruption – with engineers making fewer visits, while more often coming up with first-time fixes.

At the same time, when it comes to loaning machinery to clients – for example, various types of washing machine – the accuracy of the new data-driven forecasting system means the company can now better recommend which kind of machine is the best fit for a customer’s usage and environment.