Imprinting a corporate and team building culture on the values of innovation, competence, and customer focus is of fundamental importance to be able to feel part of a team that works in synergy and shares the same values. But what do Zerynth’s collaborators think? And above all, what does it mean for them to be a part of Team Zerynth?

What it means to be part of Zerynth

With the help of People2Results, the Zerynth Team was asked to answer some simple questions that would help everyone understand the meaning of being part of Zerynth and help consolidate the corporate culture.

The goal was to understand how Zerynth employees experience their work and to identify the most important characteristics that reflect our company. All Zerynth teams were asked to answer simple questions ( open and closed) in the form of an anonymous questionnaire. In fact, no questions about gender, age, or target groups were introduced to ensure that responses were unbiased and honest.

Describe Zerynth in three words 

Answering the question: “How would you describe Zerynth in three words?”Team Zerynth responded with adjectives, such as “ambitious”, “dynamic”, “brilliant”, “stimulating”, and nouns like “opportunity”, “growth”, “evolution”, “seriousness”, and “innovation” to voice concerns about the future.

The team described Zerynth as an innovative and continuously improvement-oriented company (44%), determined, effective, and results-oriented (25%), and as a brilliant and competent work team (25%) consisting of experimenters who fight together to win.

Product potential and strategies are some strengths on which the team relies. This attitude led to some interesting answers that emerged such as: “We are what is lacking in Italy (and perhaps in the world) for IoT”.

Figure 1. As a company, our team describes us like this

Competence and customer focus

Upon analyzing the questionnaire, some of the factors that motivated the staff the most, as well as what most characterizes Zerynth, were mainly their concern for a stimulating and pleasant work environment, growth opportunities, and a work-life balance.

Certainly, other very positive factors were the content of the work and the great variety of objectives given to collaborators, as well as relationships with colleagues. Giving thanks to team building opportunities, this was made increasingly solid.

On the basis of team building, there is a good alignment between what the Zerynth staff thinks and the way they perceive the culture of values. In particular, the values of focus on the customer and company competence are strongly embellished.

Figure 2. Competence and focus on the customer

Concreteness and innovation

A strong alignment with respect to the achievement of objectives surrounded the answers for concreteness. Regarding innovation, on the one hand, one part of the team sees innovation as a goal, and on the other hand, some recognize innovation as a means, a tool, for achieving business goals.

Figure 3. Concreteness and innovation

Wheels of a single machine that move in the same direction

Other values that emerged from the questionnaire include: being flexible to change, accepting new challenges and always seeking to improve, and changing direction when the company strategy takes a different direction.

Strong trust in colleagues, inclusion, and respect for others are values we are very proud of as a company and are supported by an ongoing commitment to creating team building opportunities that make the whole team feel part of one team.

Zerynth sees itself as a family where “we are all the wheels of a perfect car, moving in the same direction toward success through rational driver decisions.”

We attach great importance not only to the relational aspect but also to the team’s freedom to express their needs and opinions. That is why it is essential to introduce and promote team building courses in companies.

The survey shows that Zerynth’s teams not only value continuous professional growth stimulated by a creative, positive and challenging environment, but also view collaboration and relationships with colleagues based on mutual respect and trust positively.

At Zerynth everyone feels part of the family, and we  encourage and support each individual’s development  with the common goal of growth.

Right now, we’re right in the middle of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. But, what does mean for companies and industries?

From the steam engine to the first IoT device (which was in fact a toaster) we have come a long way. We will explain this in all in-depth, but first let’s take a look at the three previous industrial revolutions, and how they changed our society.

The First Industrial Revolution

If you look from the outside, it seems that the first industrial revolution was propelled by the introduction of the steam engine and new base materials like steel and iron. But if you look from the inside, if you think about the people who brought this about, this revolution came from a desire to advance human society.

The Enlightenment, a philosophical movement that was predominant in Europe during the 18th century, advocated scientific progress.

The steam engine or the automatic machine looms would not have seen such wide use if it had not been for a new dominant way of thinking where technological progress was seen as imperative. This trend continued on to the Second Industrial Revolution.

The Second Industrial Revolution

While the First revolution focused on coal, mass production, and the textile industry, the Second Industrial Revolution was dominated by the extensive building of railroads, the invention of the telephone, the increasing use of electricity, the use of radio waves, and innovations in papermaking. 

The Third Industrial Revolution

Even though 1914 will forever be remembered as the beginning of the First World War, it was the end of an era. This year marked the end of the Second Industrial Revolution and the end of the golden age of the British Industry. Other countries around the world were starting to set up their own successful manufacturing industries. In other words, the revolution had started to become truly global.

The main point of the Third Industrial Revolution is that it used information technology and electricity to automate production.

Industry 4.0 – machines communicating, learning, and controlling industrial production

Now we have reached the beginnings of our own age. The Fourth Industrial Revolution officially began in 2011, when the term “Industry 4.0” was coined. More precisely, it was coined by the BMBF in Germany (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) and later it was made public during the Hannover Messe Industrie Fair.

But what is Industry 4.0?

In all the ways that the Third Industrial Revolution had used automation of manufacturing processes, the Fourth brought this concept to a whole new level of Industry 4.0. Whereas computers were a part of the manufacturing process before, now they communicate with each other, and with people.

The goal is for the machines to become an autonomous part of the process, by maintaining themselves. The machine collects data with sensors, analyzes it, and then gives advice based on this data. The more data it acquires and analyzes, the smarter it becomes. The most obvious result is that factories around the world are getting more efficient and more productive, because of “smart” technology.

Simply put, Industry 4.0 is the fourth stage of technological development. Remotely connected machines and computer systems are communicating, learning, and controlling industrial production with a bare minimum of human input.

Small and medium businesses

Small and medium businesses are often the ones who struggle the most with implementing Industry 4.0. The most common issue is that they simply don’t know how to apply it to their unique use cases. Many companies are reluctant to change simply because it’s hard to see an immediate return on their investment.

Some say that they do not have the time, or the resources to look into digitization.

But like always, where there are opportunities, there are challenges.

If you’re the owner of a small or medium-sized business, and you feel that you should be using these new techniques, keeping up with the times, modernizing your production, and your processes, but you’re not certain how to do it, you should turn to the Zerynth Industrial Platform for answers.

How the Zerynth Platform is helping companies to cut costs of energy consumption

The Zerynth Platform has helped numerous companies to drive their industrial IoT transformation and deliver innovative products to the market.

IoT monitoring of production and energy consumption

With the Zerynth Platform, it doesn’t matter if your machines are decades old. Thanks to our innovative tools, retrofitting is easy and fast. For example, one of our recent customers, Armal, wanted to retrofit injection molding machines that produce plastic components, but all of them were old, having an average lifetime of 15-20 years.

So, we provided them with a cutting-edge Industry 4.0 system for real-time monitoring of power consumption of their industrial machines and their entire production cycle.

What were the results?

Armal realized a 40% power consumption reduction and return on their investment within just 4 months!

If you want to see other success stories, take a look at our case study page. And if you want to cut down energy consumption costs for your own machinery, contact our experts and schedule a demo.

The advancement of research in the field of IoT technologies allows one to obtain excellent benefits in Industry 4.0 applications, not only in terms of machine production performance but also with respect to environmental protection, thanks to greater attention to resources. This allows environmental sustainability but also a better return on investment.

We can speak of a real intertwining between technology, economy, and the environment that leads us towards sustainability 4.0.

Why adopt Industry 4.0 techniques in the environmental field?

With the ability to digitize industrial machinery, already present in the plants, and enable them to have new functionality, Industry 4.0 technologies offer interesting solutions to current problems. Extracting production data, in fact,  allows an effective way to monitor the entire process, control costs, and monitor available resources to optimize the final revenue.

Untold sophisticated algorithms are developed every day that adequately manage resources and parameters in the industry. IoT devices can enable applications for environmental monitoring, land management, and energy optimization. This provides companies with the right tools to adopt sustainable strategies with excellent benefits for total consumption.

Having effective and correctly managed plants in terms of energy and overall consumption allows for a healthier workplace for workers and better management of raw materials used.

In a period in which climate and environmental crises are among the problems that weigh heavily on world territory, it is essential not to underestimate the scarcity of resources present on earth and the urgent need to adopt sustainable practices.

As an example, think about the transition from traditional to digital agriculture ( smart agriculture) as a further confirmation of how technology allows any business to manage its activities more effectively by exploiting the potential of data extraction and data management. And it is precisely for this reason that the set of these Industry 4.0 techniques if referred to in the field of agriculture, takes the name of Agriculture 4.0.

Agriculture 4.0, fewer resources wasted and more controlled production

The term Agriculture 4.0 implies all the interventions activated in agriculture that aim at the precise and timely analysis of data and information collected and transmitted through advanced tools and technologies.

The goal of these Industry 4.0 technologies is to offer reliable support to the farmer in all phases of his business, with the ultimate aim of increasing the final profit of the harvest, in terms of cost and quality.

Adopting Smart Agriculture solutions allows numerous benefits, such as:

• avoiding waste: by calculating the exact water needs for the crop allows you to have an estimate in advance of the required amount of water or fertilizer to be administered to the plant.
• controlling the production: the active monitoring of the crops’ state allows noticing, in time, the possible onset of plant diseases or identifying the presence of any parasites, and, therefore, allowing you to act accordingly and promptly.
• having greater control over production costs allows you to know, in advance, the expected consumption now and for future production.
• accurately plan the phases of cultivation, sowing, and harvesting, with respect to the analysis of previous crop data, allowing you to foresee times and costs in order to optimize resources.
• improving the traceability of the supply chain, having full control of the entire production process, and producing food of the highest quality and sustainability.

But what are the tools for Agriculture 4.0?

Here, are some of the most used techniques in the field of Agriculture 4.0 for monitoring and optimization of final crops.

Drones and sensors

These are small vehicles capable of monitoring crops in real-time simply by transmitting the images and useful information that they capture, from land mapping.  A case of Agriculture 4.0, which uses infrared sensors and sights, is capable of detecting problems that cannot be identified with the naked eye.

Internet of Things (IoT)

4.0 platforms are capable of connecting machinery by allowing the bidirectional exchange of data. This is useful, for example, in sharing information to improve crop development conditions, as in the case of the Zerynth IoT platform with the Nurset project.

Big Data

Big Data, in this context, is essential to obtain all the information and data generated by various technologies and use this for decision-making.

The heterogeneity of the data collected is one of the advantages of an adequate reprocessing of the responses to certain agri-food logistics management problems (and Agriculture 4.0 more generally).

Artificial intelligence

Sophisticated AI algorithms are now able to make decisions that directly affect machines in real-time if the algorithms are properly trained in certain contexts. Accumulating, processing, and interpreting a large amount of data is essential, for example, in the field of robotics, thus favoring the automation of certain activities.

Cloud

Having accessible services and shared resources available online is useful for guaranteeing access to technologies for an ever-increasing number of people. In this way, even smaller companies can benefit from data and information management in a simple and intuitive way.

It is easier with appropriate visualizations to understand the economic value of extracted production data and then use them appropriately (at the business management level). What data are really useful (technological management level) that can finally ensure data collection that is in line with the latest European privacy regulations (legal management level). And this is exactly what Zerynth does with the Cloud platform, now having the ability to make business decisions based on data, also in the field of Agriculture 4.0.

Are we talking about Eco-Innovation?

Industry 4.0 allows machines to be retrofitted for complete digitalization, using decision-making tools that are useful both at the logistics level and in operations of any farm that can make choices aimed at greater sustainability.

We, therefore, speak of eco-innovation as a careful reduction of emissions and waste products. Examples of eco-innovation include: using renewable energy sources, recovering energy from solid waste, using waste to recover materials, producing fertilizers from waste water, etc.

Even in the case of Agriculture 4.0, this is a direction undertaken by an increasing number of companies seeking to defeat the energy, economic and environmental crisis currently in the press.

How does Zerynth do it? Consumption monitoring, production optimization, and cost reduction are just some of the advantages why many customers have chosen our IoT platform for environmental sustainability.

One of the most widely accepted and used software engineering practices.to test the proper functioning of individual blocks of code is the unit test.

This is especially true for embedded IoT devices. The time necessary for development of solid unit tests is often not spent because the interface with the hardware side is more difficult to create compared to devices that are only software.

In the case of Zerynth, this is not true.  Zerynth has developed an automated test workbench that allows new versions to be released and tested quickly and reliably.

Unit tests

One of the most used and accepted software engineering practices is to write and use unit tests, or single subunits of code to ensure that each of them has the expected behavior in each of its possible use cases.

Generally, these are automated practices that allow with the only investment of time, for the drafting of the required tests. This greatly improves the quality of the code and can find any anomalous behavior during the tests, which speeds up release times in case the tests are used.

The need for solid and error-free code is particularly important with embedded devices, as these, unlike software-only solutions that can be easily updated with new releases, can be difficult to update or even difficult to reach once they are installed. For this reason, it is imperative to develop suitable and specific test units for each embedded device

Unfortunately, this is rare, because testing an embedded device requires more time and resources than a simple software or a web-app program. In particular, embedded unit tests may require the construction of a test setup, specific to each unit, and may need to be adapted to different types of devices.

It goes without saying that having to test hundreds of functions on an entire array of different devices, building a suitable setup and making sure that this does not present systematic or systemic errors, is not a simple undertaking. This all requires considerable time investment and resources, which is why so many embedded developers choose not to develop and maintain a physical test workbench.

Nevertheless, the Zerynth IoT platform has been developed in such a way that all the resources invested in developing embedded unit tests are essential to ensure that our users have a refined and reliable product. For this reason, the test pipeline requires that all code units with new features to be implemented are first tested with all the boards mounted on the workbench (db zm1, 4zerobox etc) and then released, if they pass the test, further to each of our devices. .

The Zerynth test pipeline

The release of low-level code and libraries in Zerynth follows this process:

• code development;
• writing of the relative unit test;
• launching the automatic chain of unit tests;
  • debug in case anomalous behaviors emerge;
  • Repeat from point 3);
• release a new version of the SDK

Figure 1 Zerynth test pipeline

The Zerynth workbench supports various types of tests.

Rapid unit tests. These tests are launched before each release. They check the behavior of each unit of code, report anomalous behavior which will then be corrected before the release. These tests are automatically launched on every supported card by testing every available library, and they are updated periodically to ensure full test coverage. Once launched, the tests run autonomously, until the final output results are reached. This type of unit test includes all those that  cover the drivers of the various peripherals (ADC, I2C, SPI, USART …) and sensors.

Stability unit test. These tests operate continuously and attempt to verify the stability of the codebase over time. The stability tests publish their status in the cloud to allow us to track any errors that would be difficult to identify on unit tests with a limited duration. These include, for example, data log tests on flash memory which verifies cases of possible memory corruption that can occur after many read and write cycles. Another case study concerns connectivity stability tests and sending data to the cloud that is carried out in conjunction with a network jammer to simulate critical network conditions.

FOTA. Finally, reliability tests of the FOTA are carried out before each release, to ensure that, for each device, the firmware can always be updated at each release.

Figure 2. Rapid benchmark and stability tests

Figure 3. Benchmark stability test

The investment in the development of unit tests, despite the difficulties of dealing with embedded systems, bears fruit, thus allowing Zerynth to test the code in a complete, rapid and continuous manner in order to release new and solid embedded features quickly.

A practical example of a unit test

Figure 4. Example of Unit Test for gpio

In conclusion, Figure 4 shows us a simple example of a unit test to test the correct functioning of interrupt callbacks designed for the ZM1-DB and 4ZeroBox-Mobile boards.

The test uses the first pin on the board to trigger a callback initiated on a second pin. This callback sends an output to the workbench, which compares the output with the expected one to determine the test result.

In particular:

• Lines 10-13: initialization of the output pin
• Line 16: callback definition
• Lines 20-21: initial initialization of the input pin to which we associate the callback
• Lines 22-24: The output pin is moved to trigger the test callback.

To find out all the features supported and tested on our IoT devices, link to the documentation.

The importance of the environment and its sustainability has become a central theme in many Industry 4.0 scenarios and beyond, driving new technologies and new design choices to reduce, eliminate or improve impacts on global resources.

Agriculture is certainly one of the sectors most affected by innovation and is evolving toward smarter approaches for resource optimization, crop accuracy, and product quality when combined with IoT technologies.

Being able to save resources, especially natural ones, is becoming one of the main innovative objectives in all sectors, and, with the help of IoT technologies, it is possible to achieve excellent results and benefits in these contexts.

In agriculture, for example, saving resources means minimizing waste by maximizing the “harvest”, not only in terms of energy consumed but also by improving the quality of products.

Nurset: Smart Agriculture with Zerynth’s IoT platform

In this context, Zerynth’s IoT platform has made a strong contribution to analyzing the health of plants and monitoring irrigation systems, as a result of the Nurset project developed for Pierucci Agriculture.

Specifically, the Nurset project considered potted crops and standard irrigation systems (drip or rain) controlled by opening or closing solenoid valves. Its development, and the entire ecosystem, can be extended and adapted to other types of crops or alternative irrigation methods.

What are the quantities to be monitored and with which sensors?

Very often, it is possible to deduce the health of a plant from its appearance (color of leaves, the strength of branches, etc.) that derive directly from its “diet” or from the soil conditions in which it is growing.

Translating this into terms compatible with the IoT world, plant health is directly proportional to the following quantities that can be taken from the ground:

• Temperature

• Humidity

• Electrical conductivity (proportional to the percentage of fertilizer)

Sensors capable of measuring these quantities, within the confines of the Nurset project, “intelligent” sensors that can measure the 3 data points and make them available via the Modbus RTU industrial protocol on RS485 serial interface were selected.

By exploiting the 2 differential channels of the RS485 serial interface, data collection is robust against disturbances related to analog noise deriving from the cable length. – The installation point of the hardware setup, in fact, can be tens of meters from the plant being observed.

Figure 1. Compact stainless steel sensor mountable on the ground surface

With regards to monitoring the irrigation system, however, there are critical points concerning the consumption of resources (water and fertilizer), the pipe state, and electric use for the pumping system.

In verifying the correct use and operation of the irrigation system, special sensors were installed in order to:

• Measure water consumption → a water meter was installed in the system with a special reed switch for counting the liters taken from the main pipe and used to supply water for the entire nursery

• Check fertilizer consumption → a level sensor was inserted in the fertilizer tank with a special alarm setting to monitor the quantity still available and respective consumption during fertigation phases.

• Monitor how good the condition of the pipeline is → a sensor was inserted in the main pipeline to measure the pressure inside and notify of any anomalies that could lead to breakage in the pipeline. If the system allows, by installing a second pressure sensor so that both are downstream and upstream from a filter, it will also be possible to check the status of the filter and notify if there is any need for cleaning.

• Monitor electric consumption → by means of a current clamp meter placed on one of the main power supply phases of the system, it is possible to check the energy consumption and notify whether there are any current peaks that correspond to anomalies in the pumping motors.

Sensor placement strategy for sample analysis

Each nursery is organized in portions of areas called “holds” in which the potted plants are placed in staggered rows. The number of plants in each hold depends on their size and consequently on the pot size – this ranges from a few dozen for large pot plants (for example those with a diameter of 37 cm or greater) to hundreds for small pot plants (diameters of 18 cm or less).

Figure 2. Standard nursery seen from above organized in holds

It is evident that inside a hold, regardless of the size of the plants inside, the number of pots to be monitored is too great to consider inserting a sensor in each pot; consequently, the acquisition strategy will be to develop a statistical analysis with a sampling of sample plants that represent the best estimate for the conditions of the entire hold.

In this way, plant health considerations of the sample plants can be extended with negligible error even to plants that aren’t monitored directly.

While interviewing various nursery companies in the Pistoia area, it was determined that, inside an average hold, the external perimeter (about 2 rows of plants) contains plants of lower quality than the plants at the center of the hold. Plants at the external perimeter are in fact more subject to atmospheric agents such as wind, which could break some branches or sun which could dry the soil in the pot faster than those that are more shaded in the middle of the hold.

Based on these considerations, there are two main scenarios that can be derived for the selection of plants to be monitored within a hold:

• Sample selection of 3 “central” plants → here it is possible to monitor the plants in the best area; the choice of 3 plants derives from the need to have an average over several samples. In fact, single plants could be sick or not compliant with standards and timely monitoring could lead to incorrect information on monitoring the entire hold. Contrary to this solution is that there will be no data relating to the external area with lower quality plants.
• Sample selection of 2 “central” plants and 2 plants on the external perimeter → here it is possible to monitor the entire hold uniformly (also including the worst area).  Contrary to this is that there is greater complexity in terms of wiring and materials used.

Figure 3. Monitoring strategies for estimating the state of plants

The system, as can be seen from the diagram in Figure 3, is installed in such a way as to be as least invasive as possible both in terms of impeding the growth of plants (creation of shaded areas or darkening) and in terms of impeding normal operations in the interior of the nursery (agronomic practices) with the additional possibility of being powered by solar panels and batteries.

Figure 4. Nurset system powered by solar panel and battery.

How to use data extracted from monitoring

In addition to providing these services, Nurset plans to expand in the future to further protect the environment and resources. The first step is the automatic activation of the irrigation system based on plant health, which has already been implemented in two pilot projects.

By inputting data from sensors installed in the pots, correlating it with atmospheric data, and integrating it according to plant type and growing medium, upper and lower thresholds of field capacity can be determined, which in turn sets the relative humidity of the plants and guides the activation or deactivation of the irrigation solenoid valves.

Figure 5. Evolution of the Nurset system for automatic actuation on solenoid valves.

Once these new features are implemented,  smart agriculture systems like Nurset can be developed and integrated with a wide range of possibilities, following new irrigation technologies on the one hand and systems with digital integration with inverters and PLCs from an industrial perspective on the other. On the other hand, 4.0 can go deeper by analyzing plant health and the potential for diseases and/or parasites.

The Nurset case is just one example of many IoT technology applications rife in the field of Smart Agriculture and growing interest in the potential of Industry 4.0,  as well as environmental sustainability.

Is it possible to obtain optimally performing machinery without the existing ones? Without a doubt, when talking about maintenance 4.0 in this context management could solve some of its main problems for Italian companies. Between limited budgets and constant technological advances, it is difficult to react to market needs quickly and efficiently. 

Implementing maintenance actions, understood as a set of activities aimed at preserving a machine or plant over time, guarantee high levels of safety at work for the operators and excellent benefits in the quality of the final product.

From planned maintenance to predictive maintenance 4.0

Scheduled maintenance is now common practice in manufacturing and processing companies. Scheduling interventions have numerous advantages for controlling assets, in terms of facilitating internal factory organization, and the storage of spare machinery parts.

Knowing when the maintenance of a particular machine will be scheduled also allows you to not waste necessary resources, plan machine downtime and generally optimize production planning.

However, planned maintenance can (and must) be supplanted by predictive maintenance policies in order to meet the standards set by Industry 4.0.

As one sees in Figure 1, predictive maintenance, enabled by Industrial IoT technologies, allows you to reduce management costs, as well as to optimize machinery availability and performance in addition to product quality.

Figure 1. Example of a Maintenance strategy.

Further, when used correctly, Industrial IoT technologies allow real-time monitoring and greater usability of data needed to extract performance indicators, such as Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) or Total Effective Equipment Performance (TEEP). This information is vital for those who intend to take advantage of the opportunities for digital transformation and Industry 4.0.

With this in mind, maintenance is increasingly becoming an essential part of production strategies and the corporate ecosystem. In this instance, we are talking about “data-driven maintenance”.

Is interest in the sector growing?

According to IoT Analytics (Fig 2), there is exponentially growing interest in the predictive maintenance sector, and it is exponential with a forecast of the CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of around 39% overall in 2024 compared to 2018. The trend is companies feel the need to innovate, and to find new ways of using Industry 4.0 for the optimization of their production processes.

Figure 2. 2018-2024 annual growth forecast.

IoT technologies for plant maintenance

With IoT systems, the installation of smart sensors integrated into the machinery allows easy data extraction, collection, and transmitting useful information for an overview of the machines’ operating status, with specific graphic displays that can facilitate the entire working process.

For example, monitoring temperature, noise levels, speeds and amplitudes of vibrations, oil levels, or electrical parameters of the engine makes it possible to detect and historicize the information for strategies related to both production and maintenance aspects.

Furthermore, data analysis allows us to predict how a machine will work and how there may be significant variations where one can plan maintenance activities in a proactive and ideally predictive way.

Among the many advantages coming out of IoT technologies, being able to effectively manage an asset management system for maintenance 4.0 actions is certainly one of the most interesting features for companies investing in the Industry 4.0 sector.

Industrial IoT technologies, in fact, make it possible to create the digital twin of each asset, with which to insert the exact digital replica, creating an interactive and searchable model that contains all the information and data of the hardware and software sides.

Access from a single dashboard and integration with other IT systems via APIs or high-level protocols also simplifies data sharing between team members and between the different departments involved in managing production, maintenance, energy, and also R&D and Digital Innovation.

Predictive maintenance must be seen in a broader context of Industry 4.0. Maintenance 4.0 not only means automated data collection of downtime and alarms, but it is necessary to create synergy and integration with different data collection and analysis systems, in order to exploit and optimize their potential in a cohesive scheme.

If you are interested in learning more about the applications of Zerynth’s IoT platform or the field of predictive maintenance, you can read about the experience of Vitesco’s (Continental group) which, thanks to the Industrial IoT solutions of Zerynth, is able to predict the malfunction of pneumatic valves used in a production line, 24 hours before the actual breakdown.

Smart retail is here, and it all starts with smart shelves. The vision of smart shopping is fast becoming a reality, and the Zerynth IoT Platform is here to support it. 

This is why we have teamed up with TERTIUM Technology and designed a smart shelves solution for eyewear stands.

“Thanks to the collaboration with Zerynth, it was possible to connect our RFID cards to the IoT platform, enabling this product for Industry 4.0. The smart shelf is just an example of a solution that can be adapted to numerous application contexts, with the possibility of implementing various functions.” says Marco Consani, CEO of Tertium Technology.

The solution – ZM1 and the Zerynth Cloud

The solution involves the use of the ZM1 IoT Module installed on each eyewear display in pharmacies. Moreover, the ZM1 uses Zerynth Cloud, our cloud platform, to collect data from all shelves, save it and send it to the customer’s customized dashboard system.

As you might have guessed, this solution uses RFID tags. These tags allow the eyewear manufacturer to monitor sales of eyewear in stores, in real-time. Another benefit is that it’s easy to restock pharmacies automatically, without the need for manual control in the stores. When the system notices that certain products are out of stock, they are automatically ordered and restocked.

Next steps

Now that the first phase of this project is complete with the installation of 10 shelves, we are ready for the next step: to install the solution in 5,000 pharmacies throughout Italy. Perhaps next time you’re buying a pair of glasses it will be from a smart system powered by our Zerynth Platform.

Smart warehouse management

Additionally, the solution is not only designed for smart retail, but also for smart warehouse management. Since, with smart shelves like these, it will be easy to keep track of inventory, no matter what the quantity.

Read the full case study

If you would like to learn more about this amazing smart retail solution for Industry 4.0, and why TERTIUM Technology chose Zerynth, read the full case study.

The time that passes between the decision to make changes to software and then have that change in production is a vital metric for every project in industry 4.0 (and more than that).

On the one hand, slow patch update times can result in a costly lack of support for customers connected to the platform. On the other hand, a fast update time allows you to check if the released functionality benefits your customers. Likewise, you can also assess whether bugs have been fixed, which can be very helpful in optimizing the final performance of the platform.

Why monitor cycle releases?

IoT platforms are extremely sensitive to this type of issue: by their very nature, IoT devices are constantly connected and the platform needs to provide a service that is available 24 hours a day. For example, if an error occurs that prevents a device from connecting, it must be resolved as soon as possible to avoid the loss of data transmitted by the device.

For this reason, Zerynth Cloud was designed from the ground up as a robust continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD, CD/CD) pipeline that enables faster update times.

What is a CI / CD?

The methodology for using CI/CD is to automate and continuously monitor the entire lifecycle of a software or IoT project, from the build and test phase to the deployment and deployment phase.

It is possible to divide the pipeline into the two phases of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery which, together, make it possible to ensure that the update of the final IoT platform is robust and reliable.

Specifically, the Continuous Integration (C / I) pipeline ensures that whenever the source code of service changes, a series of automated tests are run to validate it, and once all tests pass, a binary version of the service is built and stored.

The Continuous Delivery (C / D) pipeline, on the other hand, makes it possible to release a version of the platform semi-automatically in a staging (or production) environment.

The CI / CD of Zerynth Cloud

The CI / CD for the release of Zerynth Cloud has been designed with the following requirements:

• Rapid. The time that passes from the modification of service until the release in production must be within tens of minutes.
• Automated. The pipeline steps are automated by minimizing developers’manual intervention.
• Reproducible and Simple. Performing an update must be reproducible and as simple as pressing a button (“Push-button” deployment). It does not have to require in-depth knowledge of the architecture, and all team members must be able to perform a release.
• Version rollback. It must be possible to revert to a previous working version if the latest version released failed.
• Frequent. The pipeline must allow frequent updating of new features or adjustments that may be dozens of releases per week.
  

Figure 1. Complete schematic of the Zerynth Cloud CI / CD pipeline.

Zerynth Cloud: Continuous Integration

C / I is done automatically when a developer uploads a new version of a service’s source code.

The result saves a new version of the service and loads the respective Docker image for future updates.

The operational details performed in the “Commit” phase are illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Operations of the “Commit” phase of the C / I of Zerynth Cloud.

A pipeline is automatically instantiated to perform the following steps:

• Checkout: The service source code is downloaded.
• Unit Tests: A suite of unit tests is performed. If a test fails the pipeline is aborted.
• Build / push Docker images: A new docker image is built and saved in a docker registry. The build is done using buildkit allowing you to optimize and reduce Docker images constructions.
• Save Build Number – A new version of the service is saved as a new release.

The execution time of a single pipeline like this, for example, can take anywhere between 2 and 5 minutes depending on the service being run.

This is a very short time that is sustainable over time, especially how often it is necessary to quickly release a new version in order to satisfy the customer in developing his IoT platform.

Zerynth Cloud: Continuous Delivery

The Delivery pipeline, in the final analysis, is the next step to the C / I which, after saving a new update version, automatically releases the new version into the test environment (“Test Env”).

Updating the new version is characterized by four parameters:

• The release environment (which can be one of three: Test, Stage, or Production environments),
• the build number to be released (contained in the “Release Build Numbers” repository),
• the service configurations (contained in the “App Config” repository),
• Docker images (downloaded from the “Container Images registry”).

A suite of integration tests is performed to automatically evaluate the functional aspects of the platform (for example, it is verified that the scheduling of the jobs is working or that the data sent by the devices are correctly saved). These tests are performed in the background and, if they fail, the entire process is interrupted.

The next phase predicts that the new version is released into a stage environment (“Stage Env”). This environment is similar to the production one and allows you to control the operation of the IoT platform even for non-functional aspects of the architecture.

For example, load tests can be performed to evaluate the platform’s resilience in the presence of peak loads, or User Acceptance Tests (UAT) can be performed.

Finally, if the previous steps have been successful, the version is released into production. Unlike Continuous Deployment, this operation is manual because, prior to making a production release, a new version first is thoroughly tested on stage and aligns with the versions of the Zerynth SDK.

If a release has problems, it can be rolled back to a previous version, simply by indicating which one you want to release.

Final benefits for more efficient 4.0 processes

Certainly, the use of pipeline schemes chosen by the Zerynth IoT platform makes it possible to facilitate updating of new cloud version which avoids further slowdowns and increased costs caused by possible errors.

Being able to quickly identify a bug is essential to solving problems as quickly as possible, with excellent advantages in efficiency for the machine using 4.0 processes.

To summarize, the ability to automate updating processes lets you to always have frequent, controlled, and safe releases available.

If you are interested in learning more and understanding how the Zerynth Cloud platform works, consult our website and request a demo for more information.

On the industrial IoT map, Barcelona is the top location. The IoT Solutions World Congress 2022 is about to start in just a few days, and we will be there to show the global community why our platform is so efficient.

From the 10th until the 12th of May, we will be exhibiting at the world’s leading event in industrial IoT.

If you are in Barcelona during that time, don’t hesitate to come to our booth and meet us!

Industrial IoT monitoring – cutting edge demos

Whether it’s production monitoring, power consumption statistics, or failure alerts, we have it all covered at our booth. Make sure you stop over for a visit to see how easy it is to set up any industrial machinery with the help of the Zerynth Platform.

Have an IoT coffee with us

Have you ever had an IoT coffee? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  How about having one with us in sunny Barcelona?

Take a break from the hectic pace at the fair, have a chat with our IoT experts, and find out how simple it is to monitor coffee production with our industrial Platform.

Smart drill press demo

After your coffee, take a look at our drill press demo and learn how we can retrofit any industrial machine, big or small, non-invasively.

Where to find us

If you want to talk to our team, and see all the demos, stop by booth F667, right next to the entrance to Hall 6.

Schedule a meeting with our team

Would you like to learn how our platform can help you cut your energy costs? Or, monitor your entire production process? Does predicting failures interest you?

Schedule a meeting with our team!

Just keep in mind that you need to register to see the available time slots for the meetings.

If you need a free pass for the event, contact us, and we can send you everything.

We also have a surprise up our sleeves. Something never before seen in IoT. Let us give you a hint: it’s a combination of IoT technology and Italian elegance. Drop by the booth to see what it is.

We’ll see you there!