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Waygum End-to-End Mobile Platform for Industrial IoT
SI Team
Monday, July 20, 2015
Powered by the internet, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is revolutionizing industrial floors in ways that were not possible before. Industries are now vying to connect their machines and tools through IIoT, to not only get instant notifications about the problems, but also to have the ability to remotely monitor and control these machines through smartphones. In fact, the industries have realized that a mobile first focus is the prime requirement for a successful IIoT project the very idea is using mobile apps to control and monitor huge machines that are hard-to-reach for humans. "We just turned this industry requirement into our business strategy," says Sundar Krish, Founder and CEO Waygum. Headquartered in Dublin, CA, Waygum offers a mobile layer on top of the industrial automation systems in juncture with IIoT that allows industries to proactively monitor equipments and services, view and analyze data, and manage inventory- all from a smartphone or a tablet.

Waygum, signifying "Speed" offers a Mobile App Platform that enables industries to build and run mobile apps in no-time. "Our platform offers a faster approach towards mobile-centric automation, and is more convenient for employees as they are already comfortable using mobile phones," says Krish. There are three main components of the Waygum platform: Browser-based visual app development, which allows both non-developers & developers to build prototypes and iterate; Mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) to build out the app backend infrastructure; and Mobile-to-machine, which is the aggregation of all machine integrations in one container.

The first module, Browser-based visual app development, creates an Integrated Development environment (IDE) that enables users to build mobile apps all by themselves. "Companies often have the industrial automation software in place and use desktop to control their machines through human machine interface. However the problem is that most functions of the software are tied to the desktop," says Krish. For instance, if a large industrial crane breaks down, the technician has to visit the site, but since the information about the problem is tied to a computer which is not on site, the process to fix the machine can be tedious.This can be solved by a mobile interface which not only simplifies the process but also helps employees stay mobile and on-site where the problem concurred. Through Waygum's visual app development, the users can develop an app that adds a mobile layer on top ofthe automation system and get the required data on their smartphones right-on-the site. Similarly, users can also exploit the remote access features of the machine automation to create an app that can remotely control the crane through mobile. "In either processes, all the user got to do is drag and drop the component of the automation software on to the Mobile App Platform to build the app," says Krish. "The visual app developments also offer users the ability to build a deep integration with the automation software in place. We have already performed integration with many popular industrial automation systems" he adds.

"Creating mobile app is only half the goal," says Krish. The app has to then interact with the machines and backend servers to collect and classify the mobile data for analysis. It also has to integrate with the existing IoT environment. This is where the second component of the Mobile App Platform, theMobile backend as a service (MBaaS) gets to play. Meanwhile, the third part, Mobile-to-machine, places all the mobile backend services the information about the app's integration with the automation software, and mobile to machine communications into a single container. Our third component is technically a part of the backend service, but I want to call it out separately, as it is very unique. This is the part where all the information about the mobile's communications with the machine automation systems and vice-versa are put together, states Krish.

Bringing competitive advantage to the industries
Waygum's Mobile App Platform holds many advantages for the industries. "It helps reduce the cost of field services by reducing the time to trace the problem and fix it- which saves money. Proactive monitoring of machines and tools and inventory management, are some of the other benefits," says Krish. "As the cost of software is much less compared to the cost for personnel who manage machine automations, customers get their money back in a week itself,"he adds.The mobile layer on top of the complex machine automation software helps elevate the user experience, which adds to convenience factor. "Also, our platform works across various vendors. It's not that the users should have one app for Siemens and the other for GE you just need to create one that works across different machine automation systems," he adds. Most of the other mobile platforms are general purpose, Waygum is the only end-to-end mobile platform focusing uniquely on this Industrial IoT vertical. "This is the reason why many IoT and machine automation providers are choosing our platform to add mobile layer for their products offering us the blue ocean strategy where we are the only ship going around in a large blue ocean" declares Krish.

Waygum is in the process of partnering with a large number of industry leaders in machine automation and IIoT to extend the capabilities of their Mobile App Platform.The company is also looking toward to create an ecosystem for industrial apps by opening up their platform to developers. "I want to see Waygum as a leader in delivering the last mile mobile layer for industrial applications. Mobile has changed pretty much every aspect of our lives these days, I want to bring in the same level of disruption using mobile, into this multi-trillion dollar industrial sector" concludes Krish.

Waygum has closed $2M Funding so far from Tyco's corporate ventures, Navitas Cap VC, HSB Corporate Ventures (Dec 2014 - Apr 2015)

Waygum was 2nd place Winner in the Cisco IoT Innovation Grand Challenge (Oct 2014). Waygum won the award that came with a prize money of $75k. Waygum competed with more than 850 companies to notch the 2nd place - http://bit.ly/iotwinner



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