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The boom in technology has revolutionized the way industry manufacture or processes the products. Industrial Internet-of-things (IIoT) is a major contributor to this transformation. Kevin Ashton proposed the term IoT in 1999 concerning supply chain management (Ashton, 2009). IoT is defined as the “global network and service infrastructure of variable density and connectivity with self-configuring capabilities based on standard, interoperable protocols and formats consisting of heterogeneous things that have identities, physical and virtual attributes, and are seamlessly and securely integrated into the Internet” (Tarkoma and Katasonov, 2011). IoT is a very comprehensive technology which has inter-disciplinary applications cutting across several areas such as communications, computer science, sensor technology and communications. IIoT is a network of systems, physical objects, applications and platforms which has embedded technology to share intelligence and communicate within the organization, outside the organization and with people (Ahmed Banafa, 2017). IIoT enables the coordination and communication of data and data analytics between a large number of connected industrial systems and it acts as a catalyst to improve the industrial performance. IIoT is characterized by cloud computing, security, ubiquitous data, big data analytics, smart machines and seamless user experience. IIoT is used in different sectors - manufacturing, transportation and utilities. IIoT is mainly used for manufacturing operations, production, asset management and maintenance along with field service. Many manufacturers are employing automation systems such as Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), Manufacturing execution systems (MES), Distributed Control System (DCS), Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), in the manufacturing process to manage and control the motors, conveyors and robots (Markets & Markets report, 2017). IIoT is useful for manufacturing companies in a function- connected factory applications, vehicle and asset tracking, air quality management, access control (security), smart measurement of radiation gases and level of liquids and risk measurement (i-SCOOP report, 2017). The power of IIoT can be harnessed in the manufacturing firms by integrating the real-time sensor data with machine learning, Big Data and machine-to-machine communication. The key applications of IIoT are in real-time monitoring, remote diagnosis, predictive and proactive maintenance (Markets & Markets report, 2017). There is the vast and extensive use of IIoT to develop the efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing companies. The global IoT market is expected to grow from $157 billion to $457 billion by 2020 and compounded annual growth rate will be 28.5%. The manufacturing sector will globally spend around $ 40 billion by 2020 (Louis Columbus, 2017).
IoT technology is extensively studied in warehousing (Reaidyet al., 2015), logistics (Geerts and O’Leary, 2014; Sun, 2012) and manufacturing field (Tao et al., 2014; Bi et al., 2014; Atzori et al., 2010). The prior research discusses that IIoT is an emerging technology capable of supportingnext-generation manufacturing enterprises effectively (Bi et al., 2014). The Indian government initiative ‘Make in India’ supports the Indian manufacturing industry and GoIis extensively supporting smart manufacturing using IoT and it is proposed in the draft IoT policy of GoI (Draft Policy IoT, 2015).