First IoT finalists for iTnews Benchmark Awards 2020 revealed

After internet of things (IoT) projects dominated projects from several categories in the past few years, it's time to give them their own recognition.

The inaugural cohort of finalists for the IoT category showed off the diversity and flexibility of connected technologies, especially its ability deliver data-driven insights and automate tedious or time-consuming tasks.

These projects also highlight the success organisations from vastly different industries can achieve by judiciously adopting IoT technologies.

iTnews Benchmark Awards 2020 IoT Finalists

Deakin University: ‘Deakin Scout’

Deakin University’s Smart Campus strategy has reached another milestone with the launch of Deakin Scout, the front-end “digital skin” that covers the IoT-enabled campus.

By sensing all network traffic on-campus, Scout can recognise a user’s precise location and provide directions (including accessible routes) to their destination and personalised, contextualised information on nearby facilities, services and the environment.

Data collected through Scout supports the university’s infrastructure planning and resource allocation, a huge bonus as online learning reshapes the way students and staff engage with Deakin’s physical spaces.

WaterNSW: ‘DamGUARD’

Dam safety is a complex and costly exercise - but the consequences of getting it wrong are catastrophic.

WaterNSW, which has a monopoly on the state’s dam infrastructure, has turned to the internet of things to streamline its data collection, removing manual paper-based processes that were more prone to error.

It’s been able to unlock even more value from IoT data by bringing it together in a data lake, automating quality assurance, building dashboards and alerts for rapid assessment, and creating an analytical framework for more complex modelling capability.

The new capability has resulted in a significant reduction in safety monitoring expenditure while shortening the timeframe to analyse data from six weeks to minutes.

Western Earthmoving: ‘Journey to operations automation’

Sydney-based civil engineering business Western Earthmoving (WEM) has over 150 pieces of heavy earthmoving equipment - valued at over $30 million - which the company’s paper-based records system struggled to keep serviced.

As part of a Salesforce implementation across the wider business with Carnac Group, WEM retrofitted its older equipment with IoT sensors to log the hours engines are actually in use, preventing over- and under-servicing based on estimates from the last service date.

Tracking of assets also increases their resale value while generating data that has been used to grow the wider business and insulate it from changing market conditions.

Head here to check out the finalists from other categories in the Benchmark Awards. Case studies of each of the projects are on their way ahead of the awards gala at KPMG's Sydney offices on 5 March.