Accelerate Embedded IoT Solutions With Ready-to-Use Software
February 28, 2025
Blog
Internet of Things (IoT) deployment can be challenging for today’s manufacturers and supply chain organizations. Connectivity is becoming increasingly crucial to remaining competitive, but many businesses lack the tools and talent to implement new technology safely and effectively. New software platforms, including one from congatec called aReady.IOT, may provide an answer.
What Ready-to-Use Software Means for the Future of the IoT
Software solutions like aReady.IOT and others like it provide preconfigured building blocks for end users to implement into custom IoT solutions. As such, they could drive significant improvements across the industrial IoT.
The most obvious implication is that businesses will be able to build IoT applications in less time. Such speed of implementation is crucial for driving connectivity in today’s industry.
In a world where 80% of manufacturers are subcontractors, supply chains are remarkably complex, and companies often rely on many external partners. IoT is an excellent way to foster transparency between these parties, but capitalizing on it can be slow. While hardware is readily available, building organization-specific management tools is complicated, especially with inconsistent standards and interfaces.
Read-to-use software offers built-in support for multiple device types and communications protocols. Preprogrammed modules also handle the development groundwork so supply chains can build IoT management software in far less time, enabling a faster return on investment (ROI).
As IoT software development becomes more accessible, Industry 4.0 initiatives as a whole will accelerate. Most companies understand the importance of digitization, but executing it is often challenging. Many lack expertise in this area, and such IT talent gaps will likely worsen in the future.
By simplifying application programming and deployment, ready-to-use software provides a way around this obstacle. It lowers the bar for successfully implementing advanced IoT controls, helping a wider range of manufacturers and logistics providers reap the benefits of Industry 4.0.
This effect could extend outside of IoT, too. Less time and money spent on IoT frees budget space for other tech investments, like artificial intelligence (AI). Over 50% of manufacturers today already use AI, but ROI concerns hold a third of them back from further spending. Efficiency in other areas could help assuage those worries.
Softening the need for digital skills and experience also has cybersecurity benefits. Rising digitization, while beneficial, has spurred a worrying trend. Manufacturing companies are often attacked because tech adoption has outpaced understanding of how to secure it.
Plug-and-play functionality can give IoT platforms built-in security controls like secure communications channels and over-the-air (OTA) updates. With such solutions, businesses’ lack of awareness about the need for these protections won’t jeopardize their cybersecurity. The solution developer has already accounted for it.
Simplifying configuration also makes security-affecting errors less likely. The time and money companies save can also go toward additional cybersecurity protections to ensure a safer Industry 4.0 rollout.
What Is aReady.IOT?
The aReady.IOT platform is a new example of this kind of software from congatec. According to the company, its streamlined development solution can help companies achieve significant cost savings without additional software tools or specialized hardware.
It’s part of congatec’s broader aReady initiative, which aims to simplify embedded computing for the enterprises hoping to capitalize on it. That includes aReady.COM, a computer-on-module system, and aReady.VT, a consolidated virtualization platform. Now that aReady.IOT has joined the lineup, industrial users can extend rapid development and deployment to their IoT projects.
The aReady.IOT platform comes with several software solutions users need to create and implement custom workflows and applications for their IoT devices. It does so through four preconfigured packages — COM Manager, Application Manager, Fleet Manager and Cloud Connector.
COM Manager offers remote management and dashboard tools for computer-on-modules, while Application Manager includes peripheral support, notifications and an automation framework. The Fleet Manager package enables OTA updates and simultaneous multi-device control, and Cloud Connector interfaces with cloud services.
New Platforms Expand the Industrial IoT’s Possibilities
Ready-to-deploy software building blocks are the next step forward for Industry 4.0. The capabilities of the IoT and related technologies are already clear. Now, they must become more accessible so a wider audience can benefit from them.
As more solutions like this emerge, industrial IoT adoption can reach the heights it needs for an industry-wide transformation. This shift will improve efficiency, safety, and cost-effectiveness across the supply chain.
Eleanor Hecks is a writer with 8+ years of experience contributing to publications like freeCodeCamp, Smashing Magazine, and Fast Company. You can find her work as Editor-in-Chief of Designerly Magazine, or keep up with her on LinkedIn.
Eleanor Hecks is a writer with 8+ years of experience contributing to publications like freeCodeCamp, Smashing Magazine, and Fast Company. You can find her work as Editor-in-Chief of Designerly Magazine, or keep up with her on LinkedIn.
