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[av_heading heading=’FAITH, HOPE & CHARITY ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY IKE SEÑERES
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Automation and digital transformation
THE TRIPLE bottom line of people, planet and profits should be more than enough motivation for private companies and government agencies to improve their goods and services, and the latter should include public services.
It’s only proper that profits should be the last bottom line, but in reality, many good things that are done for the people and the planet would also result in profits.
Having said that, I could further say that automation could really be good for the people and the planet, but in addition to that, it is also good for the third bottom line of profits. It could just be a chicken and the egg situation, because it does not really matter if automation would result in digital transformation, or if the movement towards digital transformation would result in automation.
Although it is clearly Information and Communications Technology (ICT) that is the engine of automation, it could not be denied that it is literally energy that is the real power of automation, because ICT could not run without energy.
Although we could really look at it as a cause and effect relationship, what actually happens is that with more cost efficient energy, the operation of ICT infrastructure also becomes cost efficient. Conversely, the more cost efficient the ICT infrastructure becomes, the more demand there would be for energy, more so if the latter is cost efficient or affordable, as the case may be. Perhaps it is not yet happening as much as we want it to happen, but the planning of the ICT infrastructure should really be done in tandem with the power infrastructure.
In a manner of speaking, it could be said that the ultimate goal of automation in general is to be able to build and sustain smart cities now and in the future. No matter how we look at it, it is practically impossible for these smart cities to come about if there would be no clean energy that would power it.
At this point of time in human civilization, we could already conclude without any doubt that cities could not be smart if these are not also green, and vice versa, cities could not be totally green if these are not smart.
Clear as these two distinctions would appear to be, there are actually hybrid situations in between, because some technologies are intrinsically green, even if these are not running on green energy. In fairness to the two sides however, the two are actually complementary, because smart technology could be used to produce green energy, in the same way that green energy could power smart technology.
Although automation could be done separately in many places such as homes, offices, factories and farms, all of these smaller spaces should eventually end up in the digital transformation of smart cities in particular and the entire country in general. How I wish that Local Government Units (LGUs) would take the lead in the planning for the automation and the digital transformation of their respective areas of jurisdiction but if not, do not worry because market forces will eventually lead to that.
As it usually happens, however, well planned digital transformations would tend to be more orderly and organized, while on the other hand, unplanned digital transformations would tend to be chaotic.
It seems that there is presently confusion about what a smart city should be on one hand, and what a green city should be on the other hand. As I see it however, a city could not be fully smart if it is not fully automated. I already said that a city could not be smart if it is not green, but to that I will add that even the process or the infrastructure that runs the city to make it green could also be automated.
As it is already happening now in many cities of the world, there are systems in place that would not only reduce the production of carbon dioxide; these would also increase the production of oxygen. Putting it another way, these positive systems could reduce the carbon footprints of cities, thus making them smarter so to speak.
It is said that the Internet of Things (IOT) will be made up of billions of sensors that will be part of many types of devices. Since these sensors could monitor and run anything and everything that could make a city smarter, it could further be said that the more sensors there are, the smarter a city could be.
Although that might sound logical, this is not really a game of numbers because what really matters most is the quality of the designs and not the quantity of the devices. It is not only the quality of the designs that should be evaluated; it should also be the higher quality of life that is the result of automation and digital transformation. Eventually, the happiness index should be evaluated, because the higher the quality of life, the happier the people should be./PN
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