SensorUp
Simplifying Data Collection From Connected Devices

In 2011, Dr. Steve Liang set the foundation of SensorUp, an industry-leading cloud service platform, to help industries that rely on geospatial data derive real and lasting value from their IoT implementations. The idea of this company came to fruition when Dr. Liang collaborated with the Open Geospatial Consortium and developed an award-winning global data standard, the SensorThings application programming interface (API). The API provides a uniform way of exposing the full potential of IoT by sharing and repurposing data across disparate applications and systems.

Today, SensorUp enables a wide range of businesses to eliminate silos by helping them collect, clean, and aggregate their IoT data. As a result, clients can better understand their future and be more efficient. “Our platform provides 100 percent real-time visibility for asset-intensive industries to help them predict, optimize, and automate their operations,” says Geoff Mair, CEO, SensorUp.

In an interaction with CIO Applications magazine, Mair highlights how maintaining interoperability within the otherwise disparate IoT ecosystem can help organizations realize their digital transformation initiatives.

How is SensorUp helping its clients to alleviate their challenges?

CIOs and business executives want to take advantage of IoT, AI, and mobility to drive digital transformations. The ultimate goal of is to ensure operational efficiency, streamline organizational processes, and have better safety practices. But the lack of knowledge regarding how to leverage the massive amount of operational and IoT data stored in their siloed systems deters them from being efficient. More importantly, organizations cannot undertake a digital transformation as it requires access to the entirety of operational data to make informed decisions and automate the processes.

Our stream processing technology enables organizations to merge their data and aggregate it on a data exchange platform based on International Open Standards for IoT. On top of that we offer customers a digital twin and data visualization technology to track operations in real-time and analyze actionable insights to understand and resolve bottlenecks.

Additionally, we offer a workflow engine and mobile application to automate the steps involved in identifying and resolving problems in the field as per the business rules defined by the client.

It allows our customers to detect in-field issues, triage them in their control room, automatically assign a technician or field agent to resolve the matter, and track the process all the way through to resolution.

What differentiates SensorUp from its competitors?

Our software is grounded in geospatial science and our approach allows us to accurately merge time and location series data in real time and at scale. As a result, the solution allows clients to move their operations forward while overcoming complex IoT problems.

Unlike other market players, we make it easy for our customers to integrate their existing solutions into our platform to future-proof their businesses with a scalable, data and sensor-agnostic approach based on the SensorThings standard.

SensorUp is the digital nervous system that interconnects IoT data worldwide. It brings intelligent automation to users to encourage their productivity, safety, quality, and job satisfaction. We enable them to anticipate problems, automate processes, and keep their frontline workers efficient and informed. With our computer vision, we gather and combine data from people and equipment, providing clients better visibility into complex operations while saving their time, money, and manpower.

Please highlight a couple of success stories where SensorUp had helped its clients to achieve their objectives.

SensorUp has collaborated with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in enhancing its New Generation First Responders (NGFR) program. The primary objective of this program is to keep the first responders better connected, protected, and fully aware. Our platform enabled them to connect more than 20 different body-worn sensors across all first responders’ groups, allowing them to coordinate and respond to critical incidents more efficiently than ever before.

Recently, we’ve partnered with Canada’s largest rail service company, Cando Rail, to digitally transform their entire industrial operations. Their issue was regarding the lack of visibility the industrial shippers had into their supply chain. As such, they could not locate their goods in real-time. We brought together different data sources, including legacy rail system data, and put IoT sensors on each railcar to address the problem. The combination allowed us to accurately locate all railcars in Canada along with the information regarding what goods they are carrying, when they will arrive, whether they are running late, and the systems’ bottlenecks. In addition, SensorUp helped the client automate and provide a single view of the entire supply chain in real-time, enabling them to make better predictions and decisions and optimize and improve supply chain logistics.

How do you envision the next 12 to 18 months for your company?

We are enhancing our workflow, digital processes, and mobile ticketing system to facilitate our customers’ shift to industry 4.0. Our company is continually finding ways to aggregate data, making SensorUp valuable for our clients. For instance, we’ve recently developed a methane solution, which has already received several grants from various organizations. The solution allows the methane detection sensors to pull in data, analyze the process, and give customers actionable insights. It empowers users to make better decisions regarding which equipment they should repair or replace to prevent methane leaks effectively.

In terms of geographical expansion, we have already extended our footprint into the U.S. market, opening an office in Houston. Our company is looking forward to further growing and expanding its subscriber base through sales and partnerships.