| | JANUARY 201719CIOReviewIndustrial Scientific Blazes a Trail in IoTBy David DiLeo, CIO, Industrial Scientific CorporationCompany Transformation: IoT BeginningsIndustrial Scientific Corporation was founded in 1985 and quickly established itself as a world leader in gas detection through its world class sensing technology, dependable gas detection equipment, and exceptional customer service. For many years, this served Industrial Scientific and its customers quite well. However, at the dawn of the millennium, a new sense of innovation began to take shape within the walls of the company. This sense of innovation was rooted in recognizing the power of the Internet and what it might mean to the company, its future products and services, and its customers. This recognition marked the beginning of a journey that has since transformed Industrial Scientific from traditional manufacturer to forward-thinkingtechnology company. In 2003, the commitment to this journey was solidified with the launch of a new, and at the time, novel concept of "Gas Detection-as-a-Service."15 years ago, the idea of providing industrial safety customers with a fixed price gas detection equipment and service solutionwas a fresh concept. Historically, this type of equipment was purchased and serviced on an as-needed basis through equipment performance observations, manual inspections or time-based servicing. With "Gas Detection-as-Service," rather than purchase gas detection equipment out right and dealing with issues reactively, customers would lease the equipment over a four year term and in return, Industrial Scientific would proactively ensure that customers would always have a working life-saving gas detector in the hands of their workers. This concept tightly aligned with the company's mission of "eliminating death on the job by the end of this century." Ensuring that a workinggas detector is in the hand of someone in the moment that it is needed most certainly increases safety and drives that mission statement forward. At 100,000feet, this concept and offering appeared straightforward. However, as the Industrial Scientific teambegan to explore lower altitudes, the reality of what was needed to bring this concept to life came into view and was eye opening. To make thiswork, both from an operational and financial perspective, it became clear that aninternet-based connected device solution and platform was required.Remember, this was early 2000s.Dial-up internet access was still alive and well and nothing like this really existed on the market let alone within gas detection or safety. Would customers even understand the value proposition? Furthermore, this solution would need data. Lots of data. Timely data across various data pointswould be required to fulfill the promise of proactively increasing safety.CIO Perspective: Today & BeyondThe combination of this data across equipment, hazards, and people is absolutely invaluable in assessing and proactively managing overall safety and risk. The insights derived from these data points allow Industrial Scientific to proactively maintain and provide working equipment, identify emerging hazards, and change worker behavior that is deemed unsafe. This is a win for all who are engaged on the platform--the end user company, Industrial Scientific, and ultimately, the worker. The other benefit of having all of this data is compliance and reporting. CIO Insights
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