[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DISRUPTER SERIES: THE INTERNET OF THINGS, MANUFACTURING AND INNOVATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DIGITAL COMMERCE AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 18, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-91
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
29-593 WASHINGTON : 2018
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
Chairman
JOE BARTON, Texas FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
FRED UPTON, Michigan BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ANNA G. ESHOO, California
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas ELIoT L. ENGEL, New York
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee GENE GREEN, Texas
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey DORIS O. MATSUI, California
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky KATHY CASTOR, Florida
PETE OLSON, Texas JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia JERRY McNERNEY, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois PETER WELCH, Vermont
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida PAUL TONKO, New York
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
BILLY LONG, Missouri DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
BILL FLORES, Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III,
SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana Massachusetts
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma TONY CARDENAS, California
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina RAUL RUIZ, California
CHRIS COLLINS, New York SCOTT H. PETERS, California
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
TIM WALBERG, Michigan
MIMI WALTERS, California
RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
Chairman
JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
Ranking Member
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
Vice Chairman YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
FRED UPTON, Michigan TONY CARDENAS, California
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey DORIS O. MATSUI, California
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky PETER WELCH, Vermont
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virgina JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III,
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois Massachusetts
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida GENE GREEN, Texas
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma officio)
MIMI WALTERS, California
RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Hon. Robert E. Latta, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Ohio, opening statement............................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Illinois opening statement............................ 3
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, prepared statement........................ 5
Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Oregon, prepared statement..................................... 68
Witnesses
Rodney Masney, Vice President, Technology Service Delivery,
Information Technology, Owens-Illinois......................... 7
Prepared statement...........................................
Thomas D. Bianculli, Chief Technology Officer, Zebra Technologies
Corporation.................................................... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 18
Thomas R. Kurfess, Professor and Chair in Fluid Power and Motion
Control, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering,
Georgia Institute of Technology................................ 27
Prepared statement........................................... 30
Sanjay Poonen, Chief Operating Officer, VMWare................... 36
Prepared statement........................................... 38
Submitted material
Statement of the Electronic Privacy Information Center........... 70
DISRUPTER SERIES: THE INTERNET OF THINGS, MANUFACTURING AND INNOVATION
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2018
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer
Protection,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in
room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert Latta
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Latta, Kinzinger, Burgess,
Upton, Lance, Guthrie, Bilirakis, Bucshon, Walters, Costello,
Duncan, Schakowsky, Clarke, Cardenas, Dingell, Matsui, Welch,
Kennedy, Green, and Pallone (ex officio).
Staff present: Karen Christian, General Counsel; Margaret
Tucker Fogarty, Staff Assistant; Adam Fromm, Director of
Outreach and Coalitions; Ali Fulling, Legislative Clerk,
Oversight & Investigations, Digital Commerce and Consumer
Protection; Elena Hernandez, Press Secretary; Bijan Koohmaraie,
Counsel, Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection; Katie
McKeogh, Press Assistant; Alex Miller, Video Production Aide
and Press Assistant; Madeline Vey, Policy Coordinator, Digital
Commerce and Consumer Protection; Hamlin Wade, Special Advisor,
External Affairs; Everett Winnick, Director of Information
Technology; Greg Zerzan, Counsel, Digital Commerce and Consumer
Protection; Michelle Ash, Minority Chief Counsel, Digital
Commerce and Consumer Protection; Evan Gilbert, Minority Press
Assistant; Lisa Goldman, Minority Counsel; Caroline Paris-Behr,
Minority Policy Analyst; Michelle Rusk, Minority FTC Detailee;
and C.J. Young, Minority Press Secretary.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT E. LATTA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Mr. Latta. Well, good morning.
I'd like to call the Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and
Consumer Protection to order. The chair now recognizes himself
for 5 minutes for an opening statement.
And, again, good morning and welcome to the first Disrupter
Series hearing in 2018. Today, we are continuing the
subcommittee's efforts to examine new and innovative
technologies while learning directly from companies about what
opportunities they see 5 to 10 years in the future.
I'd like to thank all of our witnesses for being with us
today and highlight that Owens-Illinois is headquartered in my
district in Perrysburg, Ohio and I've been--we have held two
roundtables on IoT and cybersecurity issues with local
businesses at your headquarters and I appreciate that.
Last summer, this subcommittee hosted a showcase with IoT
companies for many of our member districts. We also held a
hearing about how the IoT and interconnected network of
physical objects embedded with sensors and communication
devices that exchange information can improve productivity,
increase response times, drive down costs, and benefit
consumers. Today, we will discuss how IoT is making American
manufacturing more competitive and how innovation is improving
the lives of Americans. We will also learn about barriers to
the continued expansion of IoT and what policy makers should
keep in mind as the use of IoT expands.
The ability of devices to communicate with other devices is
revolutionizing industrial practices both in the United States
and abroad. Already there are examples of smart components
sending data about their performance and condition to workers
who can monitor the equipment and if necessary replace it
before it breaks down. Municipal water systems embedded with
sensors can relay information about blockages or leaks that
would help ensure that the water keeps flowing. Another example
is how electricity providers can monitor electrical grids
embedded with sensors and relays that can identify outages or
surges, locate alternative pathways, and ensure that electrons
keep flowing.
Looking forward, the potential to further improve
manufacturing processes through the combination of new
technologies stretches the imagination. Utilizing IoT and other
emerging technologies like augmented reality, workers will be
able to virtually make adjustments to industrial systems to
understand how to improve efficiency and then implement
necessary changes without interrupting the manufacturing
processes. IoT-connected factories will be able to monitor
their need for raw materials and then order those materials
from IoT-connected warehouses. IoT-connected transportation
service providers will then deliver necessary products without
the intervention of the human. These and other opportunities
allow IoT-connected manufacturing centers the ability to devise
their own ways to run more smoothly.
Expansion-smart industrial processes will continue to
create historic changes in how American companies build and
deliver products. More efficient factories means that consumers
will have more choices for the goods they purchase while being
able to retain them at a lower cost. At the same time, like all
new technologies, IoT will create disruption in the
manufacturing economy. This disruption will create the need for
new ways of educating and preparing our workforce both now and
in the future.
In addition, cybersecurity issues remain an ever present
concern for an internet-connected service and the IoT is no
different. Constant vigilance and improved coordination will be
required to ensure that bad actors don't take advantage of the
weaknesses in IT security policies.
Today, we look forward to our witnesses describing how IoT
is being leveraged in their facilities to improve manufacturing
processes, how to address concerns around cybersecurity, how
this technology is likely to develop in the future, and what
policymakers can do to help promote continued innovation in
American manufacturing.
And with that, I will yield back the balance of my time and
now recognize the gentlelady from Illinois, the ranking member
of the subcommittee, for 5 minutes for an opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Latta follows:]
Opening statement of Hon. Robert E. Latta
Good Morning, and welcome to the first Disrupter Series
hearing in 2018. Today, we are continuing this Subcommittee's
efforts to examine new and innovative technologies, while
learning directly from companies about what opportunities they
see 5 to 10 years in the future.
Last summer, this subcommittee hosted a showcase with IoT
companies from many of our Members' districts. We also held a
hearing about how the IoT, an interconnected network of
physical objects embedded with sensors and communications
devices that exchange information, can improve productivity,
increase response times, drive down costs, and benefit
consumers. Today, we will discuss how the IoT has made American
manufacturing more competitive and how innovation is improving
the lives of Americans. We will also hear about barriers to
continued expansion of the IoT, and what policymakers should
keep in mind as use of the IoT expands.
The ability of devices to communicate with other devices is
revolutionizing industrial practices both in the U.S. and
abroad. Already there are examples of smart components sending
data about their performance and condition to workers, who can
monitor the equipment and if necessary, replace it before it
breaks down. Oil and gas pipelines, embedded with sensors, can
relay information about bottlenecks or low pressure that will
help ensure energy keeps flowing. Inventory and product is
monitored in real time, finding more efficient routes and
ensuring goods are delivered when and where they are needed.
Looking forward, the potential to further improve
manufacturing processes through the combination of new
technologies stretches the imagination. Utilizing the IoT and
other emerging technologies like augmented reality, workers
will be able to virtually make adjustments to industrial
systems to understand how to improve efficiency, and then
implement necessary changes, without interrupting the
manufacturing process. IoT connected factories will be able to
monitor their need for raw materials, and then order those
materials from IoT connected warehouses, which will communicate
with IoT connected transportation service providers to deliver
necessary products without the intervention of a human. IoT
connected manufacturing centers will be able to devise their
own ways to run more smoothly.
The expansion of smart industrial processes will continue
to create historic changes in how American companies build and
deliver products. More efficient factories mean that consumers
will have more choices for the goods they purchase, while being
able to obtain them at lower cost. At the same time, like all
new technologies the IoT will create disruption in the
manufacturing economy. This disruption will create the need for
new ways of educating and preparing our workforce, both now and
for the future.
In addition, cybersecurity issues will remain an ever
present concern for any internet connected service, and the IoT
is no different. Constant vigilance and improved coordination
will be required to ensure that bad actors don't take advantage
of weaknesses in IT security policies.
Today we look forward to our witnesses describing how the
IoT is being leveraged at their companies to improve
manufacturing processes, how to address concerns around
cybersecurity, how this technology is likely to develop in the
future, and what policymakers can do help promote continued
innovation in American manufacturing.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Internet of Things, of course, has tremendous potential
to change manufacturing in the United States. Smart
manufacturing can help businesses save resources, improve
performance, and expand consumer choice. For example, a senior
can remove the need for a human worker to physically check a
machine. I didn't mean a senior. I meant a sensor. A sensor can
remove the need for a human worker to physical check a machine,
assuming everything works correctly. That sensor makes the
worker's job easier and reduces the opportunity for human
error.
As the Internet of Things evolves, even more and more
processes can be automated and this raises some familiar issues
for subcommittee--privacy, cybersecurity, safety, and labor
market impacts. Advanced manufacturing requires a different set
of skills than the production line of previous generations and
workers must be trained for these jobs, and we need to be
responsive to the needs of workers who may be displaced by
changes in manufacturing.
We must also be mindful of accessibility. I think back to
the autonomous vehicle legislation that the House passed last
year that this committee worked on. Self-driving cars promise
to open up new opportunities to those with disabilities. That's
great. But some of those vehicles need to be accessible for
people in wheelchairs, for instance, so that we can fully
realize the potential to improve mobility. The same goes for
manufacturing workers. Depending on how the technology is
designed and integrated, bringing the Internet of Things into
manufacturing could either expand or limit job opportunities
for those, for example, with visual impairments or physical
disabilities. In addition, we must ensure that businesses can
get the full benefit of smart manufacturing. Often, a
prerequisite for businesses to integrate new technologies is
the broadband to support it.
Last year, Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee
unveiled a comprehensive infrastructure package--the LIFT
America Act, which included a $40 billion investment in secure
and reliable broadband. A serious infrastructure bill takes
real dollars and I hope that we can work together to advance
that type of job-creating legislation.
I would also note that some of the advances we see in the
manufacturing stem for research supported by the federal
government. For example, President Obama established a national
network for manufacturing innovation which included the Digital
Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute in Chicago, which
I have visited. The Trump budget eliminates funding for the
Manufacturing Institutes. The U.S. can only lead in research if
we invest in research.
We need a bipartisan deal to raise the budget caps on both
the defense and non-defense side so that important investments
in infrastructure and innovation can continue.
I thank you, and I yield back, unless there is anybody who
wants my remaining time. OK. I yield back.
Thank you.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentlelady yields back.
The chairman of the full committee has not arrived yet. But
is there anyone on the Republican side wishing to claim that
time?
Not hearing anyone, the chair now recognizes the ranking
member of the full committee, the gentleman from New Jersey,
for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Since 2015, this subcommittee has been examining the
opportunities and challenges of the Internet of Things, from
autonomous vehicles to wearable technology. But the Internet of
Things extends beyond consumer products. It can be found across
industries including in the energy, healthcare, and
transportation sectors, and today we will discuss how it can
help make manufacturing more efficient, more productive, and
more safe.
The Internet of Things is used in smart manufacturing to
make real-time control of production possible. Companies report
that using smart manufacturing technologies lowers their energy
use, reduces waste, improves product quality, and saves money,
and with more efficient manufacturing we see less pollution,
fewer health issues for our work force, and more opportunities
for good technology-based jobs.
As with all connected technologies, strong cybersecurity is
essential to successful smart manufacturing. While the Internet
of Things helps ensure that a manufacturer is monitoring,
measuring, and sensing control systems work together, one weak
point can affect the whole network. Imagine the potential
consequences if a malicious actor brought down automated
manufacturing at a pharmaceutical plant that makes vaccines or
if network disruptions affect the quality control monitoring
for seatbelts at an auto plant.
Experts have found that companies in the U.S. are not doing
enough to address these risks and that a strong comprehensive
framework for cybersecurity in manufacturing is urgently
needed. And also, unlike our smart phones, which seem to be
replaced every few years, large machinery is used for decades,
adding to the difficulty of ensuring they are consistently and
properly updated for security vulnerabilities. And I have said
at previous hearings on automation that we should not be scared
of these new technologies but we must realize their potential
effect on jobs. To stay competitive, we must ensure that
employers are prepared for the changing workplace and we need
to invest more in research and development so that the U.S.
continues to lead the world in innovation.
For years, we have listened to experienced witnesses in
industry, academia, and government tell us that federal
investment is vital if you want to keep making things in
America. Unfortunately, the Trump administration proposed a
budget last year that eliminates dozens of essential successful
programs that make manufacturing innovation possible and
provides support for U.S. factory workers. Moreover, industry
witnesses repeatedly tell us what they really need is
stability. Yet, Republicans have repeatedly failed to pass
final appropriation bills for the fiscal year that began on
October 1st and we are once again at a deadline tomorrow. It
appears that Republicans are going to try once again to kick
the can down the road. And with this delay, Republicans are
adding even more instability, ultimately hurting American
manufacturers and workers. I think those delays must end, but
we will see.
And I would like to yield the remainder of my time to the
gentlewoman from California.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you, Ranking Member Pallone.
The Internet of Things and the industrial Internet of
Things represents a shift in how companies and manufacturers
interact with data. Smart manufacturing enables real-time
monitoring and tracking of a company's assets through the
manufacturing process. New technologies and tools can be
critical to the means of facilitating the efficiencies promised
by Industry 4.0. Of course, connectivity is a cornerstone of
the next industrial revolution and wireless connectivity
depends on the availability of spectrum.
I believe that technologies like block chain could play an
interesting role in both spectrum sharing to potentially
maximize efficient use of spectrum bands and as a means of
tracking digital records in real time.
Thank you, and I look forward to the witnesses, and I yield
back.
Mr. Pallone. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back
the balance of this time. This concludes member opening
statements.
The chair reminds members that, pursuant to committee
rules, all members' opening statements will be made part of the
record.
Again, I want to thank all of our witnesses for being with
us today. We appreciate you taking time to testify before us
and it's very important to hear from you and your testimony.
Today's witnesses will have the opportunity to give 5-
minute opening statements followed by a round of questions from
the members.
Our witness panel for today's hearing will include Mr.
Rodney Masney, the Vice President of Technology and Service
Delivery Information of Technology at Owens-Illinois; Mr.
Thomas Bianculli, Chief Technology Officer at Zebra
Technologies Corporation; Dr. Thomas R. Kurfess, Professor and
HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion
Control at the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical
Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology; and Mr. Sanjay
Poonen, the Chief Operating Officer at VMWare.
So we really appreciate you all being with us today and,
Mr. Masney, you are recognized for your opening statement for 5
minutes.
Thanks again for being with us.
STATEMENTS OF RODNEY MASNEY, VICE PRESIDENT, TECHNOLOGY SERVICE
DELIVERY, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, OWENS-ILLINOIS; THOMAS D.
BIANCULLI, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, ZEBRA TECHNOLOGIES
CORPORATION; DR. THOMAS R. KURFESS, PROFESSOR AND CHAIR IN
FLUID POWER AND MOTION CONTROL, GEORGE W. WOODRUFF SCHOOL OF
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY; SANJAY
POONEN, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, VMWARE
STATEMENT OF MR. MASNEY
Mr. Masney. Good morning to the members of the committee
and to my colleagues who have travelled to Washington today to
discuss the importance of the Internet of Things.
Before I begin, I would like to thank Congressman Latta for
his continued leadership and engagement on the issue. I also
want to thank the committee for the opportunity to discuss IoT,
which is important to U.S. manufacturing and my company
specifically.
Owens-Illinois, headquartered in Perrysburg, Ohio, is the
world's largest manufacturer of glass containers, serving
globally recognized brands throughout the world. Our company
operates 79 manufacturing plants throughout the world, 17 of
which are located in the United States. Glass making has
historically been a trade where craftspersons and apprentices
would develop expertise in the art of glass making.
At the turn of the century, Michael Owens invented
automated glass manufacturing, which was a huge step change in
productivity and worker safety. While the glass making process
is highly automated today, the industry is poised for the next
step change, which will come from the factory becoming
increasingly connected with IoT technologies throughout the
end-to-end process. The information collected through IoT
technology will be used to transform the craft of glass making
to that of data-driven science which will enhance the
competitive position of glass in the global packaging industry.
Glass containers are the most sustainable option in the
competitive packaging landscape with a life cycle that goes
from cradle to cradle, reusable in many markets and infinitely
recyclable into either new glass containers or other products.
Glass is truly the sustainable packaging option. Owens-Illinois
is on an IoT journey, which will transform our manufacturing
process and add value to the products and services that we sell
our customers.
There are several IoT areas of focus for OI. Improve
manufacturing performance through higher yields, increase
quality, and reduce costs. IoT will deliver deeper insights
into our end-to-end manufacturing process. The data generated
from sensors in the plant will provide insights into
environmental conditions, process settings, and control
variances, enhancing our ability to increase first-time yields
and improve quality. This work will require skilled engineers,
information technology professionals, and data scientists. The
data required through IoT will be used to reduce reaction time
in the plants and allow us to adjust the process if controls
are slipping out of tolerance.
Addressing the variations in manufacturing process will be
realized in a more proactive manner. The IoT platform will
transform the glass manufacturing process from one of
reactivity to one that is proactive and highly automated. The
information generated by new sensor technology, data science,
and information automation will increase yields and improve
quality while achieving reduced costs and enhancing OI's
ability to compete in the U.S. and global markets.
Energy management and predictive maintenance are the second
area of IoT development OI is pursuing. It takes a great deal
of energy to melt and form glass and to operate a glass
container manufacturing facility. Developing sensor technology
can help glass containers maintain the status of the most
sustainable packaging solution and reduce energy used to
operate our furnaces. Advanced sensor technologies can also be
used to collect information while monitoring equipment
throughout the manufacturing facility and could be critical to
seeking new ways to maintain equipment.
IoT technologies and the concepts around IoT is enabling OI
to also create and develop new and differentiated products and
services for our customers with the goal to ensure the
integrity, safety, and authenticity of its contents.
I would like to highlight the several concerns regarding
successful deployment and sustainability of IoT. Because the
achievable deployment of IoT throughout an enterprise can be
quite daunting, a successful deployment of IoT requires
sensors, PLCs, IT systems, networking, massive amounts of
storage and software to achieve the desired business outcomes.
Seeking ways to make these investments more affordable can
be a way to help U.S. manufacturing accelerate its investments
in IoT technologies. Protecting against cybersecurity risks
will become more critical while manufacturers deploy IoT in
facilities. Manufacturing equipment devices, sensors, and
control systems that previously may have been standalone, maybe
exposed, not just within a plant location but also potentially
throughout an enterprise.
Cybersecurity-related disruptions could cause unplanned
down time or impair productivity. Cybersecurity attacks could
also put health and safety of employees at risk.
Data scientists are in short supply and high demand.
Transformation of the workforce becomes more critical.
Tomorrow's manufacturing workforce must be increasingly
knowledgeable about the use of information technology.
Engineering disciplines and information technology skills will
be needed to deliver and sustain these solutions.
The use of business intelligence analytics and the role of
data scientists will be critical to success of IoT.
In conclusion, as manufacturers continue on the IoT
journey, Congress may want to look into the following ways to
help foster growth of IoT technology and its use, assist
manufacturers and making IoT technologies more affordable by
encouraging research and investment in these capabilities or in
programs which encourage manufacturing companies to deploy IoT
or programs and resources that address cybersecurity in U.S.
businesses and encourage more research in the IoT data science
discipline and seek ways to encourage a supporting pipeline of
skilled workers through universities and manufacturing and
related technical schools.
Thank you for your time and attention.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Masney follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much.
And Mr. Bianculli, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Thank
you very much for being with us.
STATEMENT OF MR. BIANCULLI
Mr. Bianculli. Thank you, Chairman Latta, Ranking Member
Schakowsky, and members of the subcommittee for the opportunity
to testify before you today.
I am Thomas Bianculli, the Chief Technology Officer of
Zebra Technologies Corporation, and we are a global leader in
bringing Internet of Things solutions to business-to-business
and business-to-government markets.
With approximately $3.7 billion in revenue, nearly 7,000
employees, and doing business in more than 40 countries, Zebra
is a trusted partner to more than 95 percent of all Fortune 500
companies.
And while many Americans may not know us by name, I am sure
they come into contact with our solutions every day. For
example, the bar code labels that are printed and applied to
airline baggage tags or express delivery packages and
pharmaceutical prescription bottles are often generated by a
Zebra bar code label printer and tracked and managed by Zebra
bar code scanning technology and mobile computers.
Similarly, manufacturing, warehouse, and delivery workers
as well as countless healthcare workers across the globe employ
our mobile computing devices in their daily work to increase
efficiency, reduce errors, and drive a better customer
experience.
Overall, what we see in the marketplace every day tells us
that manufacturers and their supply chain partners are
increasingly recognizing the transformational role of
industrial IoT. Solutions in driving growth and improving
performance in several key areas of business activity including
increased total production and through put, improved ability to
adjust to fluctuating market demand, and increased ability to
produce a greater number of product variance, and increased
visibility into operations across a given business enterprise,
and a decreasing cost of production. All of these advances
reflect the fact that, at its heart, the IoT revolution is a
dramatic change in advancement in the way companies capture and
ultimately share data.
The ability to have data about inventory that's immediately
available to both plant floor managers and suppliers is
providing new levels of visibility that heightens operational
performance and from the greater visibility comes the great
advances we are seeing in manufacturing across a wide array of
industries.
In the opening comments from Chairman Latta, I heard
mention of augmented reality and wearable technology. I think
we should really keep that in mind as we see industrial
Internet of Things creating more and more data. There is the
opportunity to collect that data, analyze that data, and then
use that information to inform a worker. And as we are starting
to see that occur, we are seeing that mobile and computing
technologies migrate from an interface that is handheld to
interfaces that become heads up and are able to augment our
physical reality with digital information that helps U.S.
citizens and U.S. workers just get the job done. And I think
that's an incredible opportunity for competitive advantage for
us to help drive efficiency and to lead the world by way of
example in that regard.
Whirlpool Corporation wanted to optimize mobile device
management at its distribution centers as a way of enhancing
productivity. They were experiencing problems with misplaced
devices, battery life, the inability to update devices in a
systemic way, and a lack of data metrics around device
performance. It needed a centralized management system to track
device health, productivity, location, and ensure proper
deployment. To solve their problem, Zebra worked with Whirlpool
to employ an IoT-based solution which uses our mobile computers
connected to their vehicle-mount computers and our handheld
devices.
We connected all of their devices back to the cloud across
all of their facilities. We are able to manage to predictably
detect when batteries may need replacing, when the performance
and health of applications on the device, the resiliency and
security of the network, and by monitoring all that information
in near real time we can detect and proactively intercede if we
see that a device is going to have a problem, thereby driving
up the overall worker efficiency and uptime of their
operations.
Congress can play an important role in helping to ensure
that all companies across America can successfully employ
industrial IoT-based solutions. Specifically, we urge you and
your colleagues to support infrastructure legislation that
promotes the deployment of mobile broadband networks as well as
directs the NTIA and FCC to allocate more commercial licensed
and unlicensed spectrum in a technology-neutral way.
Additionally, we urge Congress to advance policies that will
help assure coordination among government agencies so that
regulation of IoT does not needlessly impede innovation.
In sum, Mr. Chairman, we commend the subcommittee for
holding this hearing, for your ongoing efforts to ensure that
American industry has the ability to continue to roll out new
technologies that will improve the lives of both our workers
and our citizens.
IoT presents a transformative opportunity, some calling it
the fourth industrial revolution, the advent of cyber physical
systems that will create opportunity for jobs of all types and
sizes across the United States to work smarter, be more
productive, and help improve the overall American economy.
At Zebra, we are committed to bringing IoT solutions to
companies to help them achieve their goals. We look forward to
continuing to work with the subcommittee and I thank you for
the opportunity to share a Zebra story, and I am happy to
answer any questions you and your colleagues may have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bianculli follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much.
And Dr. Kurfess, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MR. KURFESS
Mr. Kurfess. Thank you, Chairman Latta, Vice Chairman
Kinzinger, Ranking Member Schakowsky, and other members of the
committee.
I do appreciate the opportunity to testify here before the
subcommittee. So I am Tom Kurfess. I am at Georgia Tech. The
difference between my colleagues here and myself is our product
or our students. For example, mechanical engineering produces
about 3% to 4% of all the mechanical engineers in the Nation
and these kids are extremely capable and really moving a lot of
the IoT forward.
I have spent a lot of time in manufacturing. I grew up
actually in a plant in Congresswoman Schakowsky's district. I
went to high school there and so forth--a small family plant.
So I've been in production for over 40 years. And if you look
at it, we talk about the fact that, yes, it's going to take a
lot of money to sensor up, as we would say it. But there are
already a lot of sensors out there and they're providing free
information to us and so forth.
So there are a lot of sensors. They're generating big data.
The companies know this and we are starting to track this. My
team works with two major U.S. OEMs in automative, a major OEM
in aerospace and several large-scale suppliers to figure out
what their digital manufacturing platforms need to look like.
And, basically, all the data are there for the taking and how
are we going to make use of them, right. And then the question
is what can we do with it.
Well, certainly, we can improve efficiency. I think we've
heard about that. We could lower our energy consumption. We can
lower our waste. This is very clear. It's been demonstrated
time and time again. I've spent a lot of time actually over at
the BMW plant in South Carolina--tremendous opportunities there
in terms of moving it forward. A safer work place--certainly,
the more sensors you have out there, you know what's going on.
You can make sure that your employees are safe and you can make
sure that those machines keep them safe and actually make their
jobs easier and more reliable. But perhaps a very important
point that we need to really understand is that this capability
allows us to respond rapidly to the changing markets and the
changing technologies that are out there, and those
technologies and markets are changing rapidly.
It took about 70 years for the telephone to become
ubiquitous. It took about 10 years for the mobile phone to
become ubiquitous. It took about a year for the smart phone to
become ubiquitous. This is how fast things are changing. So we
can have a safer place, a place that responds better, and what
industry doesn't want to respond better and faster?
What do we get out of the Internet of Things for
manufacturing? First of all, there are better paying jobs.
There's no doubt about it. But I will caution you, and I will
say this again, it requires a much lower-skilled workforce and
a better trained workforce. But it's not impossible to do. I
think we just saw over here, and I will wave mine around too,
people are used to the smart phone. This is not something that
they're afraid of. We can get them to use it and actually we
are using smart phones in production operations day in and day
out at a number of different corporations.
We get a stronger, more productive manufacturing base,
which is always good for the Nation's economy and national
security, and we basically excel in the strengths of the
culture of the United States of America.
We are innovative, right. We have some of the best ideas
and what this technology allow us to do, IoT for MFG, as we
call it, it allows us to get these ideas out there rapidly and
not just out there but to scale them in terms of the market.
And you know, if somebody else wants to copy us, come get us,
because by the time you copy us, we'll have our next
technologies out there and we can see how fast these things are
moving along.
So how do we get there? Basically, we have to look at
workforce development. I heard cybersecurity a number of times.
This is critical. People--and we've actually seen at companies
where they say, no, we are going to not do this because of
cybersecurity issues. They have now come to the realization
that we have to do this if you're going to compete, and we are
looking at cybersecurity. We have a lot of, for example,
national apps.
NIST is doing some great work in cybersecurity analysis and
so forth in conjunction with our universities and a variety of
companies. So it's there. We are thinking about it. We are
working on it and we are beating the bad guys in most cases. We
have to develop that infrastructure to make sure that that
broadband connectivity--I heard that, right--that is so
important.
Again, the low-cost labor areas, yes, you see their shiny
new factories but a lot of low-cost labor areas don't have that
type of connectivity. We can leverage that. We could make use
of that. That is where we can compete.
We also need to take a look at our universities. Right. How
do we leverage our universities? How do we leverage our
national labs--places like NIST and bring them together? I
heard the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation,
Manufacturing USA. This is where companies are coming together
to really move things forward for the United States of America
and this is where we can really leverage these things. So,
basically, this is going to allow us to rapidly address a
changing market, not just what people want but what the
technology is when it comes out there.
The bottom line is IoT for manufacturing it's going to
grow. It's going to grow high in jobs. But that basically means
not just workforce development and workforce training, not
training the next generation workforce but training the current
generation workforce. It can be done. We can't compete on the
low-end jobs. We just can't, right. But we can compete on the
high-end jobs and people are not afraid of the technology. It
is amazing. We are doing Pokemon out in the factories right now
and they're tracking things, and they love it, OK, and their
reward might be to get off a couple of hours early on a Friday
afternoon. But it allows to grow the national economy, to grow
key sectors of the national economy--high-tech sectors--to
strengthen our national security, to make sure that we are able
to move forward in a rapid a nimble way.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kurfess follows:]
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Mr. Latta. Again, thank you for your testimony.
And Mr. Poonen, you are recognized for 5 minutes for your
opening statement. Am I pronouncing your name correctly, sir?
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MR. POONEN
Mr. Poonen. Dear Chairman Latta, Ranking Member Schakowsky,
members of the subcommittee, and my honored colleagues from
academia and the industry, it's an honor to be here to testify
in front of this committee.
And by way of instruction, my name is Sanjay Poonen. I am
Chief Operating Officer of VMWare. VMWare is one of the top
five software companies in the world, about a $54 billion
market cap company. We are headquartered in the Silicon Valley
in Palo Alto. We are also part of the Dell Technologies family.
It's very clear from a lot of what you have heard already
that the Internet of Things and IoT has a profound impact on
the consumer economy and also in the industrial age. I will
just give you two examples of how our lives have changed. One
is from my past job. I worked for a German software company,
SAP, and many of the meetings that I had would actually be at
1:00 p.m. in the afternoon, German time, which is 5:00 a.m.
Pacific time. So mean scheduled, I go down to my home office
and I find out that overnight some person had the great joy of
canceling the meeting. Now, listen, wouldn't it have been nice
if I could have known that before I went to bed and I could
have probably woken up an extra hour later? Well, it would be
nice if once the meeting is canceled it actually communicated
with my alarm clock that actually set my clock up an hour
later, which is very much possible today with IoT because often
the alarm clock and your calendar is on the same device.
Another example--when I leave to go to ski--not a lot of
snow this year in Tahoe but the years that we do have snow,
we'll have a debate with my wife as to whether we turn the
heating off. And I like to keep the energy down and keep the
house not necessarily heated all the time. She wants to keep
the house warm for our kids when we come back home. Well, now
with modern thermostats you can actually turn your thermostat
on or off from your phone when you get about an hour closer to
NIST and many others are doing this.
So this is the practical way in which our consumer lives
are being transformed for the better with IoT and this is now
starting to invade the American worker. And manufacturing
actually becomes enormously smart, as you heard, because of
this and it has profound impact, we believe, in lots of new
areas--artificial intelligence, big data machine learning that
can be very positive as opposed to as much as what's also been
talked about, the negative impacts. But it does have some
profound security challenges and that's been a key part to
VMWare's focus. VMWare's focus is to ensure that the cyber
attacks that we've seen, whether it's WannaCry, Petya, many of
these things that could get even more profoundly disruptive in
the context of IoT is something that we can attack and we can
protect ourselves from.
So we've actually been focused on aspects of cybersecurity
and cyber hygiene that allow companies to protect themselves in
this era of IoT.
We've got some very practical ways in which management
security would be baked into the infrastructure of both
technology and manufacturing.
We think that everybody today, whether you're in technology
or not in technology, need to be educated in some very
fundamental principles of security, like, for example, lease
privilege, micro segmentation, multi factor authentication and
identity management, encryption, patching. These are all very
fundamental concepts that board members today are being
educated on and certainly government and other professionals
need to.
As we think about the notion of hardware, that's also
getting more sophisticated. We heard about mobile devices and
rugged devices--one of my colleagues. Edge gateways now are
becoming ways by which this miniature data center could
actually become micro into something like a little nano data
center, protected and ready for the production line. These are
the ways in which we believe that the Internet of Things and
smart manufacturing can actually be secure.
In closing, the Internet of Things will have a significant
and positive impact, we believe, on both American innovation
and jobs. Billions of IoT devices will be in the free market
for consumers, will be available to manufacturing and can have
a very positive impact. But to make sure that this is actually
deployed in a safe fashion, security is key. If consumers are
to trust these devices and manufacturers were to trust these
devices, we've got to take security seriously and we believe
that this is something that both the coming together of
academia, of industry and the government makes this a priority.
We look forward to working and doing our part at VMWare to
make this happen. The other aspect of this that could be very
positive is the way and which the data can actually help a
whole new category of jobs, whether it's machine learning, big
data, artificial intelligence.
This is going to be the next color of jobs, and much the
same within the agrarian culture. A hundred years ago we
couldn't see the coming of computing and high tech the same way
the next 50 to 100 years are going to be very exciting in terms
of new jobs.
Chairman Latta, Ranking Member Schakowsky, I applaud the
leadership of this committee for holding this hearing today.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify and I look forward to
answering the committee's questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Poonen follows:]
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Mr. Latta. Well, again, thank you all for being with us
today. We really appreciate your testimony before the
subcommittee.
And now we'll move into our question and answer portion of
the hearing, and I will recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Masney, what are the major advantages for OI that come
from using IoT? And, again, I've been through the facility in
Perrysburg where you do a lot of the testing and seen a lot of
what you're implementing there. But if you could maybe just
walk us through what you're doing.
Mr. Masney. Certainly. Some of the advantages are increased
productivity in our manufacturing facilities. As I said in my
statement, glass is still somewhat art, and we need to
transform to data-driven science manufacturing process where we
can increase our yield.
Glass manufacturing yield is somewhere in the 90 to 91
percent yield rate. If we are able to do that, we are able to
unlock potential and capacity out of our factories and better
serve the markets and, ultimately, reduce our cost to our
customers.
Mr. Latta. What are some of the challenges that you're
facing out there today in the home manufacturing process then?
Mr. Masney. And having enough of knowledge base in a
workforce that has a demographic that is changing. The
degeneration of knowing what to do, when to do it, is changing
in our organization, and being able to empower people with
information so that they can react faster and more nimbly is
incredibly important. And cyber security--that is a concern
today because many of our machines and equipment stand alone.
So they're not exposed to cyber attack. And as we network them
and collect more and more information to better empower our
workforce it's going to be incredibly important that we protect
the floor, our people, and the company.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much.
Mr. Bianculli, can you give us an example of how a sensor
can be used to convert data from a format that allows companies
to improve manufacturing efficiency?
Mr. Bianculli. Sure. I think a couple of examples there--
one is just driving operational efficiency. I mentioned the
Whirlpool example earlier, where we just have a stream of data
coming from devices. Well, just like we've done that with
Whirlpool on device health, we are looking at doing that with
the entire manufacturing facility.
So imagine, if you will, a smart manufacturing environment.
We know where goods are. We know where the capital assets are
in that environment. We can know where people are located and
we can bring the intersection of all those things together in
an optimized way.
We think about our daily lives using a route navigation GPS
system in our vehicles. The incredible amount of advantage--the
ability to dynamically reroute based on whether in traffic in
real time and think about going from outside the four walls to
an inside the four walls factory environment and being able to
bring that same level of route optimization, work flow
efficiency, dynamic work flow optimization to the processes by
instrumenting the environment.
I think that as we look at data coming from these
environments we are moving toward a world where we no longer
operate on what we think is happening--where do I think my
people are, where do I think my assets are, where do I think
inventory is--we are operating in a world where we truly know
that in real time.
And so we are able to close this gap between what we think
is happening and what we would ideally like to be happening and
that is where the benefit is--the efficiency benefit. The
return on investment is being able to close that gap. And so
you can run your operations in a much more precision way and in
a way that's optimized from the get-go.
We are seeing the imperative to do that because of the on-
demand economy. The notion that products and services are being
delivered ever closer to the point of demand is a reality. We
order online and the expectation is that product or good or
service is delivered sometimes in an hour to our doorstep if
it's a package that we ordered online and we live in an urban
city, or in some cases I am standing at a street corner and I
request a ride and in moments I expect that to show up.
So the production and provisioning of products and services
ever closer to the point of demand dictates, mandates, it's an
imperative that we have IoT solutions that are able to create
real-time streams of data to enable that new reality to propel
us forward.
Thank you.
Mr. Latta. Thank you.
Mr. Poonen, I guess in my last 40 seconds--this is going to
be quick--this deals with how to manufacturers manage the
threat of cyber attack disrupting their operations?
Mr. Poonen. OK. Good.
Yes, I think one of the things that we have learned,
Chairman, sir, is that in this world of mobile, this device is
not sort of a remote control to your life.
We've learned a lot about security in the last 10 years
with the mobile device. These operating systems have adapted
themselves from the PC era to have even greater level of
security, whether it's Apple iPhones or Android devices. Some
of the security things that you saw in the early days of
Windows. And even the PC operating systems, latest version of
Windows 10 are better at being able to----
We respect that same innovation, and this country has got
some of the best research, whether it's from academia or other
places. We'll continually pour it into the operating systems
that run on these IoT devices. That's one, and we expect that
to just have a greater and greater level of enterprise
hardening.
Secondly, the devices and the systems that they talk to,
whether it's the data center or the cloud, will have the types
of things that I talked about--cyber security, security
infrastructure baked into it that have the types of things like
segmentation, multi factor authentication, encryption. And we
are learning from all of the attacks that have happened to make
those also systems hardened.
And then the third and final thing is just basic hygiene,
and sort of just like you have a good diet, you do your
exercise, you still have to have certain hygiene principles--
brushing your teeth, taking a shower, things of those kinds.
We've got to educate government, industry, academia,
college students, so that as they approach the workforce there
are simple things you probably want to do.
You may not want to send your password, for example, in
clear text on a text message. These are the types of things
that--and you may want to change your password--these are the
types of things that I think are very easy for us to continue
to educate that make us all a much more secure society and a
secure infrastructure for IoT.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much.
And the chair recognizes the gentlelady from Illinois, the
ranking member of the subcommittee, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
First, Owens-Illinois--are you still in Illinois at all?
Mr. Masney. Yes, we are. We are in Streeter, Illinois.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. Glad to hear that, being from the
Chicago area.
I think I, years ago, saw the plant. Were you over in
Granite City, down in southern Illinois?
No. OK. Let me ask Dr. Kurfess some questions.
How do workers in manufacturing stand to benefit from the
adoption of these technologies? Can the IoT be used to, for
example, positive things--prevent workplace injuries, limit
workers' exposure to hazardous materials, et cetera? And what
are some of the pluses of IoT for workers?
Mr. Kurfess. Sure. It's a great question.
There are a variety of things that could be going on, for
example, worker going through the factory. If you have been,
for example, to an automotive factory you see the robots going
on. They're moving, they're working. These are carrying
sometimes in the thousands of pounds. So they're very powerful
robots. And you'd never let a human get close to them. But now
you have the robot area. You have the human area, and the
reality is now with IoT of things, and again, one has to be
careful about this issue of privacy and so forth. But I am even
walking down with my phone. I know where people are. So if
somebody walks into an incorrect area, we can shut it down and
make sure the roadblock doesn't hurt them. But even better, we
can start to localize it better--a much tighter resolution such
that the robots can be working with the people.
Robots are great. But they're never going to replace people
completely. They're great at lifting really heavy things but
try and pick up an egg with one and so forth. We have great
research on that. But again, working together is really where
you leverage it and, by the way, it also allows us to get rid
of a lot of the really nasty jobs. You're taking away the
terrible jobs, checking cooling tanks and lubrication tanks and
machines. That's all automated. In fact, this morning I was
down in your cafeteria and I saw your coffee containers--the
coffee urns. They have the same technology that we are using
now in there. It's about 50 cents and so the only difference is
ours are online and so they're reporting the information. But
we are talking with companies like Chik-fil-A and McDonald's
about how to do that for improving their efficiency.
So these are the types of things we see out there.
Ms. Schakowsky. Well, I am also very interested in keeping
manufacturing jobs in the United States and bring them back,
and you wrote in your testimony that America's infrastructure
gives us an advantage there. I would like to hear more about
that.
Mr. Kurfess. Sure. Well, if you look at everything from our
roads to broadband and so forth, and again, these are things
that people really use all the time. Whether it's broadband or
you're wired into your factory or broadband, over here, that
capability and that growing of that capability allows us to
take the big data generated by all of these different sensors,
and in some instances, again, it's not just well, I've have a
bunch of sensors, but in some instances I've got this phone
with this really nice camera and we have our workforce taking a
picture.
So now we are combining the workforce who says oh, this is
good, this is bad, taking the picture. That integrates the
information together. But you have got to get that out
streaming all of the data and it is a lot of data. And then, of
course, the other infrastructure of these, the educational
infrastructure. If you think about the technology from even 5
or 10 years ago, it's old. So we've got to keep that work force
spun up. Lifelong learning and that infrastructure needs to be
put into place so that today's worker is still viable in 5 or
10 years.
Ms. Schakowsky. Well, I was going to ask about that
because, the role of government and, certainly, public
education is a part of that, but there's also federally funded
research, et cetera.
So government does have a role to play then, doesn't it?
Mr. Kurfess. Oh, definitely. And all the way--again, you
know, from the K through 12 that we hear about education and so
forth to our Bachelors students or Masters and Ph.D.s, if you
take a look at National Science Foundation, I was sponsored at
MIT, right, as a National Science Foundation on a project
there. A good chunk of our graduates, Masters and Ph.D.s in
engineering, technology, and in science are supported by the
National Science Foundation.
Again, that's something that you don't really see but
they're supported as research assistants and this is a very
important thing to move forward, the entire infrastructure for
the Nation.
Ms. Schakowsky. I appreciate that.
So I am concerned because spending plans that we've seen
from Republicans make drastic cuts to many of these things and
to programs that directly support manufacturing and innovation,
including President Obama's Manufacturing USA initiative.
So these cuts, I am assuming, then could be a barrier to
progress?
Mr. Kurfess. Yes. I think that what you have to look at is
in the short term it's fairly easy to make a cut like this and
so forth. But really, the Federal Government--we don't have
AT&T Bell Labs anymore. We don't have really long-range
thinking companies. They're focusing on the here now, and I
don't blame them. The Federal Government has to step in there
and really do some of the longer range thinking. I guarantee
you, China's doing it. Germany's doing it. You name it, other
countries are doing it. We need to do it.
So in 5 years, in 10 years, we are positioned to continue
to move forward. This is really, again, what we really need to
be looking at a little bit longer term and that's what these
R&D capabilities are all about that we are talking about.
Ms. Schakowsky. I appreciate that, and I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Kurfess. Thank you.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentlelady yields back.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, the
vice chair of the subcommittee, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And just to go off with what you were saying, sir, I agree
with you. I think there's a role for the government in terms of
long-term strategic planning that sometimes gets lost in the
kind of momentary debates which is, as we look at world that
changes, whether it's with IoT, whether as we look at
autonomous vehicles, which this committee deals with and all
that kind of stuff, we have to have people that are thinking
long range and beginning to prepare our workforce for what that
future looks like. It doesn't mean the heavy hand of government
but it also means let's consolidate some of these programs we
have and try to incorporate a vision which some of our
competitors, unfortunately, do all too well.
I want to thank the chairman for yielding and I want to
thank you all for being here. I am excited. I have two
companies represented here that have a strong presence in
Illinois--Zebra and Owens-Illinois.
Zebra is based in Lincolnshire, Illinois, which, now that
the economy is expanding maybe you can build one in my district
too because there's no presence there yet. But we'll take it in
Illinois.
And Owens-Illinois, of course, does have a strong presence
in Illinois. Somehow they're headquartered in Mr. Latta's state
but we can talk about that, too.
And as Mr. Masney said, there's an OI facility right in
Streeter, Illinois, and in my district. So proud to have you
there. You provide good-paying jobs. I was able to visit a few
years ago and have been very impressed by what I've seen.
I would like to ask the panel, talking about the
development of IoT, does that mean that American workers will
require new training and what are companies doing to obtain a
skilled workforce?
I would like one or two of your to answer that with your
perspectives.
Mr. Bianculli. Sure. So yes, absolutely, happy to have our
presence in Lincolnshire and we should talk later.
Mr. Kinzinger. Yes.
Mr. Bianculli. So yes, with regard to that, worker
training--I think the future we are talking about here isn't
going to arrive evenly.
We are going to see certain areas. We are already seeing
IoT drive location technology being used to control drones in
site facilities to be able to--in manufacturing plants,
actually, to be able to detect inventory in a more automated
fashion.
The ability to have robots deployed in a distribution or
fulfilment center--but what's happening in those environments
today is--let me take the robot example where goods now are
bringing--taken to the picker. If you have a human, at the end
of the day, doing that picking for those online orders to
fulfil those orders, and the goods are being brought to them
instead of them walking to the goods.
And what does that mean? There's no job taken away. There's
just several less miles a day that that worker is going to
walk. That means there are many more picks per hour that worker
can do.
And so we are in a world now and will be for some time
where humans and machines and automation, whether it be
physical automation or it be artificial intelligence augmenting
the worker, basically, a digital assistant----
Mr. Kinzinger. And I just want to add onto that.
If you look at the example, for instance, around Europe,
the Germans are very good at manufacturing. They have a very
low unemployment rate. But they are also embracing this kind of
future technology.
So we don't have to be scared of the future because it's
coming. We just have to figure out how to lead and innovate in
that process.
I will go on. Mr. Poonen, when you talk about the Internet
of Things, does that create new concerns when it comes to
intellectual property?
For instance, does the data collected in IoT manufacturing
reveal anything proprietary that companies might want to
protect?
Mr. Poonen. Yes, sir.
I think that one of the things you have to first remember
is that the first wave of IoTs being able to take away mundane
tasks and make them something that could actually be done more
autonomously, I will give a very simple example.
You don't want to watch me parallel park a car. I am
terrible at it. That's a perfect job for a machine to do better
than a human because it's a combination of cameras and
geometry, and it'll probably parallel park better than you.
But my value add long term isn't parallel parking. So what
we want to be able to do as the next wave of economy shows up
is to ensure that you have got the appropriate privacy and
security baked into many of the machines. And there's a whole
dedicated work of security being focused on the devices and
what's on there and we have to make sure that there's standards
also because the same type of privacy that applies to peoples'
homes, people are worried as to whether or Alexa or Siri is
always listening to you. Those are the types of things that
standards need to be applied both from the government and
industry working together, and I believe that this is
absolutely solvable in the same say that the industry and
government work together on standards like common criteria.
This will be applied to the new world of IoT in the coming
years, we believe.
Mr. Kinzinger. And Mr. Masney, what's the trend when it
comes to the cost of deploying IoT? Can you envision a day when
the entire manufacturing process, from the procurement of raw
materials to the delivery of the finished project, is 100
percent automated without human intervention?
Mr. Masney. No, I can't envision a day like that. It still
takes human beings on the manufacturing floor to make things
happen and make sure things are moving forward.
I will share with you, in Streeter, Illinois it is one of
our facilities where we are delivering what we call the factory
of the future for the organization and invite you to come see
that at some time that make sense.
But, certainly, we are still going to need the capability
to have people on the floor that can run machines, be ever
present, make sure things are running safely, that productivity
continues to move forward.
Our innovations are around more flexibility and making sure
that we can be more responsive to our customer base. And IoT is
another area where we think we can do that as well.
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you all for being here, and I yield
back.
Mr. Latta. The gentleman yields back, and the chair now
recognizes the gentlelady from California for 5 minutes.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank the witness panel. This is absolutely fascinating to know
what's going on now and what the possibilities are too in the
future.
Digitally connected supply chains have the potential to be
an important component of the industrial Internet of Things.
Just in time, manufacturing promises to drive down the need for
storing excess inventory and allow suppliers to anticipate and
deliver the materials manufacturers will need more quickly.
Decentralized ledger technologies like block train can make
supply chain transactions faster and cheaper by securely
connecting manufacturers and suppliers in real time.
I would like to hear from Mr. Poonen and Mr. Kurfess what
are your thoughts on technology such as block chain and others
and its ability to play a role in IoT manufacturing and
security.
Mr. Kurfess. Sure. So it's a great set of questions and the
reality is the distributed capability, whether it's block
chain, or any of these other distributed capabilities.
These are going to be critical in terms of moving things
forward. If I've got a supplier, only one supplier that
supplies me with parts, and if I say tomorrow, oh, I was at
Toyota--how is it going there, this was in Kentucky, and they
said, well, great, we've got very, every 6 hours we can get
parts from Denso and so forth--we are very lean. We have very
small inventory. You go to Denso--how is that working for you?
Well, we've got two or three months of supply back there
because we don't know what they're going to ask us.
Now, they're starting to figure out how they're going to
ask together. But imagine if instead of one big company, Denso,
we had a bunch of smaller companies that could supply this.
So, yes, if I need 500 parts, as opposed to having one
company say can you make 500 parts, I could go to a hundred
companies, local companies, mom and pop shops, and say, I need
five parts, or how many can you supply--five, ten.
And all of a sudden you can bring that together. You not
only can get those parts there--and by the way, you could use
something like an Uber to make a delivery, right. Again, back
to the infrastructure, it's there to pull it off.
But now you also have a very resilient supply chain. If one
goes down, you don't have to worry about it.
Turning that around as well on the educational side, you
can take at what are these guys doing and, you know, where do
they need more training and let's get them that training.
We could even percolate that down into our colleges and
into our high school levels so we can deliver the education to
the workforce and we can even start to send the right students
in the right direction to really engage them.
So lots of stuff. Distributed all the way from supply chain
of parts but supply chain of our workforce as well. Thank you.
Ms. Matsui. That's great. Thank you.
Mr. Poonen.
Mr. Poonen. Yes. I think, Congresswoman, this is a very
important topic. There's a lot of speculation and euphoria
right now about Bitcoin and block chain.
I think the bigger story is the fact that this notion of a
subledger, which is really what block chain about----
Ms. Matsui. Yes.
Mr. Poonen [continuing]. Really transforms the way in which
you do commerce at a much more miniature level and if you think
about IoT it's sort of a miniaturization of this type of
device.
Now, combine that with commerce now becoming even more
miniature, it has profound implications that could be
enormously positive, and that's really, we think, the big
story.
If there are ways by which manufacturing could get smarter
and even potentially more secure, and the commerce that
happens--electronic data interchange--all of this would become
a lot more efficient and potentially also secure because it's
now distributed as opposed to one choke point--distributed
actions have lots of inherent ways in which you can actually
make the system a lot more secure.
At the same time, it does require us to take security and
privacy even more importantly because of this distributed
nature, and that's something we are beginning to do early
research on, not just from industry perspective but also in
academia.
But I am confident that the positive aspects, if you take
away the speculative aspects of block chain, the positive
aspects will have a profound implication that's actually--and
we need to, as a country, be at the forefront of the research.
If we don't do it, some of the other countries in the world
will.
Ms. Matsui. Oh, good. Well, I thank you very much.
That was very interesting. Let me go on to something
quickly. The Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation
Institute in California has been working to accelerate smart
manufacturing throughout the country.
Broad collaboration on integrated tools and systems that
are driving smart manufacturing will help reduce the cost of
deploying these technologies. These partnerships and
collaborations can also facilitate the interoperability of
devices and standards.
Mr. Kurfess, how can government and industry partnerships
help develop tools and practices that will drive smart
manufacturing adoption?
Mr. Kurfess. That's a great question.
I think we've already heard about things like----
Ms. Matsui. Yes. Go ahead.
Mr. Kurfess. Oh, I am sorry. Have heard about things like
standards and so forth. But, really, to help move this forward.
The difficulty is, again, you get back to the distribution.
Different people want different standards and different
capabilities and so forth.
When you start to bring these entities together so, the
smart manufacturing team that's, I think, centered in the Los
Angeles area, and it's not only the big companies but it's also
the so-called small- and medium-sized enterprises--the SMEs--
that they're bringing together. So they're really bringing
everybody together to say yes, how does this move forward--how
do we do this.
And what a lot of companies are getting is, yes, I need to
release this, because to become more productive, more capable,
right, I need to participate in this standard.
It's like when I turn my laptop on, the wifi, I know I am
going to be online. That's a standard and that's really where
we need to be going with manufacturing.
And by the way, we see our competition overseas doing it in
a big way. So, we have to be cognizant of that.
Thank you.
Ms. Matsui. Well, thank you. This is all very interesting.
I know I ran out of time but thank you.
Yield back.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentlelady yields back.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky for 5
minutes.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you very much. I appreciate this. My
background, before I got here, was in manufacturing, and it
wasn't very long ago that somebody from Ford Motor Company
would make an order from a supplier--my family was a supplier--
you would have a production meeting where they'd say, ``We need
a thousand of these parts.''
A guy would walk out to the plant to look around and with
the clipboard--or lady--and say, ``OK, we got this much here,
this much there. Let's go to the shipping dock. See how much we
have there,'' because you couldn't always depend on the counts.
So then they would call the buyer at our place and say, ``I
need X amount.'' So they would walk out on the floor and say,
``How many do I have?'' and with the clipboard and it would--
this whole string of things.
And if you go to an assembly plant and invite anybody from
Bowling Green, Kentucky to go the Corvette plant and see one of
America's great cars made, well, what you look for is how
phenomenal all of this stuff just comes together and how much
effort and time and planning.
So if you do it now, you get a production manager who says,
``I need a thousand parts,'' somebody uploads it on the
internet, the supplier comes in the morning, downloads it,
everything is barcoded--I assume Zebra--but everything is
barcoded so you can depend on the counts, and all of a sudden
it makes a work order. When you ship it you barcode it. When it
goes out it creates a purchase order so you get paid for it and
that's distributed through the internet or through the
transfers--not necessarily through checks like you used to have
to open checks and move forward. And that's happened in the
last--since I've been in manufacturing. It wasn't that long ago
I started. And it's just a phenomenal look forward.
But I was looking at Mr. Poonen's testimony and looking at
Dr. Kurfess' here, my son went to Georgia Tech so we appreciate
having you here today.
But I was looking at this security and cybersecurity,
because we think about data security and whether your credit
card was secure. You had all these retailers come in and talk
about--really, if you put everything online and everything is
Internet of Things in your manufacturing facility, is there a
cyber attack, could that shut down an assembly plant.
So in your testimony you talked about the importance of
systems like Internet of Things, gateways, and why--you talk
about securing the production lines, and not necessarily, I
don't think, it's just from attack you were talking about. But
just if you could throw that in as well and the importance of
cyber hygiene and can you describe how this would provide a
reasonable level of security?
Mr. Poonen. Happy to, and I think the focus on security is
a very good one, and I think just the same way that if you
thought about various different eras of computing, sir--
mainframe, the client server, to mobile cloud--this notion of
security has become a more and more profound because if there's
one thing that's true, even though security is getting a lot of
spending in software the bad guys, there's more attacks than
there's actually investment even in security companies.
So we have got to take this seriously, and the good news is
that countries like the United States and Israel have been on
the forefront of security spending. We want to take that
seriously.
So the way in which we think about IoT is as these devices
get miniature, first off, you want to make sure the operating
system that's on those devices are as secure as possible and I
think we've learned a lot as the new operating systems that are
post-PC have gotten more mature and with every generation
they're getting better and better. IOS is a good example of
that and the iPhone being more secure than the first examples
of the PC and those will play down to the miniature devices.
Secondly, you want to have control points that dislocate
just these devices into what's called a gateway. So gateway is
just a consolidated form of many of these so that you have one
place rather than multiple places where much of it gets
consolidated. Dell manufactures some of those gateways. You got
to make sure those are secure.
And then as they talk to other systems, for example, a data
center or a cloud, that connection needs to be secure, and
there's techniques like micro segmentation, ways in which you
authenticate into those systems using multi-factor
authentication. These are all technical terms but for the folks
who are savvy in security we are educating more and more of
them.
And then, finally, for the common person, as I described
earlier, you want to be able to educate them on some very basic
principles of cyber hygiene, especially as it relates to their
access of systems.
Having a two-factor authentication is something that
everybody should know about. It's not just your user name but
some other factor. Maybe it's your birth date. Maybe it's your
mother's maiden name. And setting up your system so that you
have that and are refreshing. That allows fewer possibilities
that your consumer accounts will get hacked the same way that
the enterprise is dealing with it.
These are just a few of the many principles of cyber
security written in the white paper about this and it's a topic
that all of us in the industry--there shouldn't be competing
agendas here. We need to work together to make sure the
security of the IoT systems.
Mr. Guthrie. A quick question. I appreciate Mr. Masney. He
was talking about glass and going from 91 to 93 percent. I am
aluminum foundry die casting and as you said it's sometimes
more of an art than science, and I remember saying that in a
meeting and a guy goes, ``Well, all scientists were art at one
time and how do you perfect it?''
So I only have a few seconds. When these first come out a
whole industry is created and everybody is buying these. All of
a sudden you get saturation and sustainable and improvement.
But there's a whole world of people in Silicon Valley, all over
America, to go in and redo these plants, redo these facilities.
And I don't have much time left, but anybody want to talk
about just what transformation and what economy that could
create by people going through and refurbishing their plants?
Mr. Kurfess. I will just really quickly fire it off because
we see it across the board. We work with a lot of different
companies.
The opportunity is tremendous. Whether the small or the
medium or the large companies because, again, the kids now they
program these things, and so they're in there, hey, we can do
this. This is the barcode readers now and so forth. And so
they're really implementing it. And so it does allow you to do
these types of implementations.
But back to Mr. Poonen's point, we've got to make sure that
we are very secure about this. So, and again, in our classes
whether it's high school or junior college, whatever, we now
see that a lot of this type of thing, we are just doing good
hygiene. For example, do not plug this into, just any old
computer. I go to a machine shop. Million-dollar machine tool
recharging my phone, which could have a virus on it.
And so these are the types of things that we really have to
start teaching them and stuff. But the opportunity is
tremendous.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. Thank you for indulging us.
Mr. Bianculli. Representative Guthrie, one other point, if
I may.
There's a whole suite of capabilities I was starting to
bring to these enterprise devices. We actually called it
mobility DNA. But the idea is taking a standard operating
system that we might be using Android by way of example and
layering a whole host of enterprise-centric security on top.
So we are working closely actually with VMWare on this sort
of thing. So as these devices--these internet end points are
deployed in these manufacturing facilities, being able to make
it secure all the way up the device level, so we have a network
of secure devices instead of just trying to secure the network,
and that's an investment we are making to basically serve
enterprise in a more secure way than we might find in
traditional consumer devices.
That, and the last thing--another word silos. I think
there's tremendous opportunity to bring silos down across what
many of my colleagues here spoke about--from farm to fork, if
you will.
So for being able to share data from where that seed was
planted in the farm field and be able to carry that data all
the way through to optimize the harvest out to the
transportation carriers for just-in-time delivery and then
ultimately getting to a retail location where we can all enjoy
that in a much more efficient way and in a way that allows us
to, in a more cost effective way, reach more people.
So I think the data silo opportunity is tremendous as we
start to collect more and more data across all the different
elements of the supply chain.
Thank you.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you very much. I appreciate the
indulgence.
Mr. Latta. Thank you.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Kurfess, I wanted to focus on something that you had
provided in your written testimony, not just ask you but ask
the rest of the panel for their feedback as well.
There's no doubt IoT in manufacturing will help to grow our
manufacturing operations and will generate new and higher-
paying jobs. However, those jobs will be filled by individuals
that are highly trained. Furthermore, those individuals will
need to be continuously trained and that's what I want to focus
on.
In the latest and state-of-the-art technologies to keep
U.S. manufacturing operations at the forefront of this rapidly
advancing technology wave, thus, a culture of lifelong learning
must be instilled and supported in our workforce. If you look
at our high schools and STEM schools and trade schools for 18
to 19 year olds, I am struck by the opportunities that might be
available to incorporate more of this lifelong learning culture
into curriculum at an earlier age so that it is not incumbent
upon a company in order to do that. And when you look at
company of 20, 30 people, even startups of two or three
individuals, it's just simply not sustainable to offer that
type of learning and sort of up-to-date type education that's
required in order to keep a well-trained workforce.
I've already spoken too long. Share with me what you think
the right kind of learning platforms are in order for our
country to be a leader for the next 20 and 30 years so that
these are not jobs that are not remaining in the U.S.
Mr. Kurfess. Sure. So really quickly, the first thing is, I
can tell you, we have turbine blade production. We do a lot of
work in turbine blade production. So we have turbine blade
production machines. We are doing research and so forth. And
typically you need about 15, 20 years of experience before we
turn you loose on those in production operations.
We have developed gaming interfaces--high-performance
computing that can really--it just pounds that problem to dust
and there are gaming interfaces and we have high school kids
who are now programming these types of machines and so forth.
So it's a whole different way of learning and as I
mentioned before, we can even take a look at who is really
excelling. People think, oh, engineering--I've got to be a
super genius. Well, you have to be fairly good at math and so
forth. But if we can start to really identify those students
early on and start to work them forward--they don't necessarily
have to go into engineering. Maybe they're going to go into the
shops and so forth and get the right type of training.
But it's a two-way street. So the infrastructure is coming
into place. We have a number of these different--if again you
look at Manufacturing USA, these centers that are working with
the local and particularly the community colleges, the
Associates degrees and so forth, they are saying, yes, what is
the next generation that we need to be moving forward and let's
work that into the curriculum. And that's not only for the 2-
year degrees but for the continuous learning. And then we also
see a lot of the professional societies, that they have a lot
of curriculum development that's deployable whether it's on the
web or interactive and so forth.
So a lot of the technology is moving out. But I agree, you
have got to build it in. Universities, I think, have done a
good job with life long learning. We now have to start to
propagate that down into the K through 12. It's getting there,
but once it's there, I think the access for those students and
for that work force is available and it also does respond very
quickly to the needs of the workforce and the needs of the
market.
Mr. Costello. Right. Mr. Poonen.
Mr. Poonen. I would just briefly add, this topic is
personally very much a topic of passion for me, sir.
I came to this country as an immigrant. I am now a U.S.
citizen, partly because the United States has the best
universities. I studied my computer science at Dartmouth
College. I did my MBA at Harvard University at Harvard Business
School, and I hope that this continues to be the country with
the best education in the world.
The education has now changed. Today, my kids, who live in
Los Altos, California, are learning through Khan Academy.
YouTube has completely transformed education and it's not just
for kids. You can get a how-to or learn-to anywhere anyplace in
15-, 20-minute Ted Talk types of videos and we encourage our
workers to constantly be in that learning mode and the good
news is the internet makes that possible. And it's almost
upending the classroom where learning is happening at home in
the evenings and the classroom becomes a discussion form.
That's the new fashion of what we're doing.
I think the other part that is incumbent on all of us as
leaders is to mentor others. As much has been given to us,
we've got to give back to the next generation. I encourage all
of us--I know many of our colleagues here do the same--it's our
job to mentor the next generation. As we do that, both the
combination of STEM and mentoring will make the next generation
ready.
Mr. Costello. That's interesting. So it might be technology
that enables us to teach technology.
Mr. Poonen. Exactly, sir. That's what we hope.
Mr. Costello. Anyone else?
Mr. Masney. From a manufacturing company perspective, we
are investing in our local high schools and STEM programs to
help the younger generation get interested in science and
technology.
We are also working with local universities to make sure
there's an interest as well. So I personally believe helping
workers, obviously, continuous learning--lifelong learning--
there's also an aspect of company helping our employees be
lifetime employable through those kinds of ideas as well.
Mr. Costello. I appreciate your feedback. I yield back.
Mr. Latta. Gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Siri, hey Siri. I use that as an example in that these
devices are always listening, right. Whether you have an Echo
in your home or some similar device, whether manufacturing has
those devices that, as you say, are all interconnected, or
whether you as an individual have a smart TV and internet
rumors, true or not, that that TV is spying on you and sharing
that information.
As we move forward with technology and we have a
refrigerator that notices that my milk is low and asks me if I
want to order milk, and I do, sends a signal to the grocery
store--milk, bread, other things I may need delivered to my
home by an autonomous vehicle, right.
So I consider myself a conservative. There's nobody in this
room that would say I am not a conservative. But I would
actually take it another step further. I am a conservatarian in
that I have a libertarian streak in me that it's my information
and I own it. But in this scenario that I laid out, who
actually controls that data and who owns that data, and at some
point, it's the government getting that data and what do they
do with it.
Now, data sharing and by buying habits and what Amazon is
sending me through e-mails or pop-ups that, because they watch
my buying habits and they're recommending certain things, that
benefits me. I get all that.
But I can tell you the constituents in the 3rd District of
South Carolina are concerned about who has that information,
what they're doing with it and ultimately does it get in the
government's hands without any sort of 4th Amendment
protection, so to speak.
So I would just love to--I know, Mr. Poonen, you were
talking about some of that earlier. I would just like to
expound on that. Who owns that data and how can I assure my
constituents that that data is not going to be used wrongly.
And then I would also like to get back out on that tangent
because you have got proprietary information and corporations,
and we all know that China got the plans for the F-35. China
has gotten plans for a lot of the military components with the
best safeguards of cybersecurity in place by our government,
right, who has access to all of you all to create those
platforms for security.
So I would like to talk about not only individual privacy
and data ownership but also how do we keep China from--or a
Chinese company, and I am not just singling China out but from
going to BMW or Magna or some sort of manufacturer in the 3rd
District and getting proprietary information as well and
creating a competing product.
Mr. Poonen. Yes. Very briefly, and then allow time for my
other colleagues, too.
This is a very hard topic. I would be smug if I said we
have all the answers today. This is going to require continued
innovation and collaboration with the government.
I would say there's a family of problems that are related
to predictive maintenance of machines that are positive. For
example, if the refrigerator or the washing machine is decrepit
and you need someone to come and help you in that, that's a
family of problems--that people are probably less concerned.
The data on that machine probably needs to be encrypted.
But as soon as you have things that are voice recognition,
camera related, privacy concerns, and we encourage consumers,
certainly enterprises also, to be extremely cautious. You can
turn the camera off on your TV. You can certainly unplug Alexa
when you need to and get appropriate cautions on how you handle
these consumer devices.
Mr. Duncan. But that smart TV is monitoring all of your
viewing habits.
Mr. Poonen. Exactly. So this is going to be one of those
places where a combination of encryption, a combination of
technologies, and I am with you. Consumer privacy--the consumer
owns that data. The way in which they interact with
enterprises--most of our focus has been on the enterprise use
of this. But the consumer part of it is a huge problem that
needs to be solved together and there's no easy answer for much
of this because we are just beginning to scratch the surface of
many of the topics that are way out there.
Mr. Duncan. In the essence of time, we know China took the
plans for the F-35, so to speak, and government was involved.
How do private industry--how can they have some assurance that
their proprietary information is sheltered from their
competitors?
Mr. Poonen. We are seeing the shift from assuming that we
can prevent an enemy, if you will, from getting in to being
able to detect that as quickly as possible.
So if you think about what is your mitigation plan if you
assume a thesis of you'll prevent attack from occurring, you
have a very different outcome in that strategy and that plan
that if you assume that you will not be able to prevent an
attack and so now your strategy is going to be to detect that
as quickly as possible, to shut down that intrusion, and then
to take the corrective actions from that point forward but
detecting that as soon as possible.
So going from protecting to detecting and then taking a
counter measure as quickly as possible in every sense of that
word I think is a shift we are seeing right now. It's no
longer, as you pointed out, the best resources on the planet in
some instances cannot protect that attack from occurring. So
let's focus more on leveraging all the technologies spoken
about here--machine learning, artificial intelligence,
technologies like deep packet inspection, over packets on the
network, to be able to detect that if that is occurring.
With regard to in-home, I think similarly we are going to
see--technology has been used for a while in the network space
called deep packet inspection where why not have a single
source of truth of the information that's leaving my home.
So what products are sharing what information with whom,
and imagine if I had a dashboard that I could go to a portal on
a web page in my home and I could see, well, I shut that TV--I
don't want that camera on that TV sharing information. Is in
fact that data going out over my network or not, and those kind
of dashboards so that we can have--enjoy, all of us, the
convenience associated with sharing the information but have
the integrity and single source of truth to understand what
actually is being shared, and I agree with the number of
devices and the prolific nature of this that thinking that we
are going to be able to control that because we were told it
works a certain way is not going to be sufficient.
Mr. Duncan. I guess my constituents would say, is Big
Brother going to call me or send me a notice and say that your
thermostat was set on 72 when you left the house today and you
have over-utilized your allotment of electricity for the day.
Do you see what I am saying?
Mr. Poonen. I do.
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Duncan [continuing]. Be going and that's a true
concern.
Mr. Poonen. I think the best answer to that is to use all
the mechanisms I just mentioned and more to come to ensure that
that's your option--that you're informed enough to--it's your
choice to share that information for a benefit gained.
Mr. Duncan. I am way over time, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for
leniency.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas for 5
minutes.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank our witnesses
for being here.
Sorry we have other committees--the Energy Committee
upstairs and so I am jumping back and forth.
When I first saw the hearing, and that's why I appreciate
this subcommittee--the Internet of Things--I thought, what in
the devil is the Internet of Things? I cleaned up my speech
after the president didn't.
But what is it? And thank goodness I have young staff to
explain to me. I am glad you're having the hearing because it
makes some of us who don't typically live with these things
shed light on different aspects of the smart manufacturing and
the Internet of Things.
One of our witnesses mentioned manufacturing as one of the
sectors that is investing the most in IoT. I have a district
that's predominantly petrochemical refineries, chemical plants,
extraction, and I know they're looking for every way they can
using technology both to produce their product safely or
cleaner and doing more smart manufacturing can make operations
both environmental safer and more efficient. But Congress needs
to do more to prepare our workforce for those changing needs
and manufacturers.
Mr. Kurfess, you mentioned in your testimony importance of
instilling a culture of lifelong learning and of helping to
train our manufacturing workforce in the data science and IT
skills that workers need. Some people that need job training
the most are the unemployed and one of the biggest obstacles
they face getting into that technical training is the cost of
it.
Can you elaborate on possible ways Congress can help this
technical training be made more affordable as well as help
support a culture of lifelong learning broadly?
Mr. Kurfess. Sure. I would be very happy to do that,
Congressman.
I know that there are a lot of initiatives that are really
supporting the community colleges. These are the 2-year
colleges and so forth. They're very cost effective for the
training of the workforce and so forth and there's a lot of
leveraging that goes on there.
We heard about some of the online courses that are
available today, even via YouTube and so forth. And actually,
our--at least our younger generation they learn and they think
in a different way, right. So, when I was a student I might
have had one book to look at or maybe two books to look at. Now
they go out there and they get 10, 20, 30 different examples
and so forth.
So, really, not only just saying yes, we could make sure
that we can support the community colleges and some of the
professional societies that have these types of courses
offering technical training but also the ability to basically
say yes, let's make sure that we are starting to leverage some
of these new approaches to teaching and so forth and that we
understand that they're out there so that it comes out there
very quickly.
And by the way, these are also very important not just
because they're lower cost but they're very nimble. They can
respond quickly to new technology as it comes along.
So, if you have some YouTube videos out there--you can
learn anything from fixing a faucet all the way to, hey, let's
go do a calculus problem.
But as new technology comes along, it's amazing. You can go
to YouTube. You can go to some of these different courses, even
MOOCs, these massively online courses and so forth that some
institutions offer for free. And so how do we promote that,
once you have that, I think the next key thing is
certification. Yes, you are certified in that course. So that
when they go to your company--and by the way, it's interesting,
when people think manufacturing, make a car. Those
petrochemical plants are enormous manufacturers within the
United States.
And so how do we know when that company says yes, I want to
hire somebody that yes, this person has the right credentials.
It's great that they have a degree from, let's say, a Georgia
Tech, but what about just some of the smaller credentials that
are going along. So a lot of that credentialing and getting
back to some of the standards that we are looking at.
Mr. Green. Well, I appreciate that.
I actually have a community college in our area who
partners with the petrochemical industry--San Jacinto College
in east Harris County, Lee College in Baytown, because of the
dominance of that industry, and I've been out there and they're
doing--and a number of my other community colleges in our area
developing the same thing because you just don't go get your
Associate's or your Bachelor's or anything. You need to
continue to look at what's new, and I was there on campus one
time and a young man had about three different certifications,
and he was getting offers of over $150,000 at a Shell refinery
or a LyondellBasell refinery or chemical plants.
So it's a way that someone--but you have to continue to
keep up with your industry and that's what community colleges
can do.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the time.
Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much. The gentleman yields
back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Indiana for 5
minutes.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Poonen, I am going to primarily talk with you and some
of the other about security. Mostly, it seems to me, when we're
talking about security we are talking about software and
other--and access and things like that--passwords and all of
that.
But you probably saw in the news recently that in some
areas across the country there were some communities and police
departments that took down their security cameras because of
concerns of where that product was made, and it was made
overseas and so there was some question not about that it was
connected to the internet but the actual hardware itself and
whether that was compromised.
There's some things I know that we do at the Federal
Government level to ensure, for example, that chips that are
used in Defense Department products are not compromised, so to
speak, but worldwide and even in the U.S. some people estimate
as many as 10 to 15 percent of computer--the hardware, like the
silicon chips, are actually counterfeit.
That's an area I think we should also look at. What are we
doing there?
Mr. Poonen. I think it's absolutely wise, sir.
I think that when you think about security it absolutely is
in all of those layers. You need a multi-layered, whether it's
the hardware or the software, whether it was the service, was
the people.
And listen, capitalism works only if the entire world is a
level playing field and when some countries are not necessarily
playing by that I think it's absolutely the wise policy,
whether it's the FBI, whether it's the appropriate agencies, to
ensure that our products, whether they're bought for a foreign
party, don't have embedded components, hardware or others, that
could potentially compromise the security. So----
Mr. Bucshon. I can tell you probably know and I know this
myself, sometimes it takes an electron microscope and people
that understand it to detect these problems with chips and
stuff.
Mr. Poonen. Yes, absolutely.
Mr. Bucshon. It's pretty sophisticated.
Mr. Poonen. Yes, and there's absolutely evidence of that
happening. I am not a protectionist in terms of the way in
which we think about the economy. We do believe in free market.
But it has to be one with a level playing field.
So many of the governments that have been focused on this,
certainly in the United States and Israel, that have had this
have got a very good way of looking at the ways in which many
foreign governments are building technologies, and without
naming certain countries, we've got to continue that diligence,
because whether it's the camera technology, whether it's voice
recognition, the types of things that could leave us
vulnerable, we've got to make sure we've got the most
protection. We work very closely, both the industry and the
government, the agencies, to ensure that happens. That's
probably a topic we haven't talked about. I am very glad that
this committee is focusing a lot on security. Security is
probably one of the key topics in this entire topic of IoT that
needs even more and more focus.
Mr. Bucshon. Yes, because it is a global marketplace and I
am in favor of that. I am a free market person also. I think we
all are.
But we also, from our jobs' perspective as members of
congress we have considered national security-related risks and
the biggest port of entry that we have is our people using
connected devices, maybe even at their homes. For example, say
they work at the NSA and they deal with classified material
every day that we don't want people to know about. But when
they go home they have all their devices at home are all
connected and who knows who's listening.
And even though they're not supposed to--what if they're
just pontificating among even themselves about the day's
activities? It's hard to know.
So I have pretty significant concerns about on the hardware
side, because once we are able to mitigate other things, people
are smart. You're already too late when the hardware itself is
compromised. Does that make any sense?
Mr. Bianculli. Yes. I am just going to add it absolutely
does make sense, Congressman. If I could suggest, we could
break the problem down to two components. One is around the
counterfeit side of things. So these are counterfeit chips or,
that are made overseas, copying our technology, and as you
pointed out, you need somebody with sophisticated technology to
check that.
But what I would say is that actually IoT is a mechanism
for auditing that because if we're seeing this occur today, if
I'm a semiconductor manufacturer of those chips, I can have
each one of those chips report back when they connect as a--
just basically a heart--pulse to say that that device is
present, and if I see that coming from more devices than I have
shipped, I've got an indicator that there's an alternate end
around from a supply chain perspective. Someone else is
injecting, if you will, these chips into the supply chain that
aren't coming from my factory.
So it's sort of an IoT connected auditing mechanism. I
think that represents one level of--certainly compromises
economics but is a little bit lower on the threat level
compared to, as you were suggesting, information that's being
sent--that's actually being captured we don't know it--the
example you gave around the device in the home connecting back
to the network or a video camera in a municipality that's
sending information back to individuals that we don't want it
to go to.
And there, I think, we and a number of companies working on
networking technology that can detect if information is being
sent that is different than what we intended to be sent.
And I think if we can audit the network, if you will, the
pipe of data that's being sent to see what's actually being
sent versus what we've authorized, and at the same time we can
continue to invest and drive in IoT. So all of our devices, for
instance, that are connected out in the field can connect back,
we can literally count the devices we've shipped. We can count
the devices we see. And if there's more devices we see than
we've shipped then something else is going on.
So those, I think, are perhaps two ways to look at it.
Certainly a complicated problem, as our colleagues have pointed
out. But a food for thought, perhaps.
Mr. Bucshon. OK. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Latta. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cardenas. Thank you, Chairman Latta and Ranking Member
Schakowsky, for calling this hearing.
As a former small business owner myself, I know that a
business that is not growing and evolving is a business that is
not succeeding.
As an engineer, I've studied the rise and proliferation of
connected devices and for the potential to help businesses and
government evolve and better serve their consumers and
constituents. For example, a company in my district that
testified last June in this hearing on the Internet of Things,
Louroe Electronics uses connected microphones and sensors to
help protect property and also help law enforcement detect and
rapidly respond to gunshots.
On the public service side, the Internet of Things
technology has helped local governments and firefighters
monitor and prevent and fight back firefighters in southern
California, for example.
Recently, the House passed my amendment to study the use of
drones to detect and fight wildfires. However, I also know that
as with any rapid-growing technology we must encourage
innovation smartly, responsibly, and with our eyes wide open.
We are constantly learning that virtually any connection
can be hacked. So cyber security is an area that businesses and
government will have to pay extremely close attention to and
invest a lot of resources.
Another issue that we need to hold our businesses to a high
standard on is workforce preparedness. As our companies evolve,
our workforce must necessarily evolve as well.
Ideally, this evolution will come in the form of education
and retraining. This was an important issue that I brought up
during our markup of the SELF DRIVE Act and it's an important
issue in every environment. For example, southern California
happens to be--I was told when I got elected to Congress I was
reminded that southern California is the largest manufacturing
area in the entire country. I was pleased and surprised to hear
that. So this is an issue that not only is important to my
district but important to one of the biggest economies in the
world, which is California.
My first question is to Dr. Kurfess. You have the advantage
of a bird's eye view of the industrial Internet of Things
through your work with a variety of companies.
So can you describe briefly what practices you've seen that
help workers adapt to and learn how to better use new
technologies?
Mr. Kurfess. Sure. It's relatively straightforward. Some of
the practices that are out there actually get to some of the
discussions we've had about just hygiene. Don't plug your phone
into the million-dollar machine tool out there because it might
have a virus on it and so forth. But some of the other
practices really go along the lines of understanding what
people are comfortable with in terms of using and so forth and
letting them make use of that technology in place.
As I said before, we actually have developed some software
where you're doing a Ppkeman type of program--you're looking
for the guy to try and capture. But that guy you're trying to
capture is a flaw in your production cycle and so forth and you
capture it.
So you actually start to bring these together. The Internet
of Things--people are very comfortable in general. It just
doesn't matter who you are. People have the smart phones now
and they're very comfortable using it.
And so the idea really is yes, can you bring that comfort
together so that they make use of it in a very easy and natural
way.
So that's one of the things. The other thing, again, and
we've heard from several companies here, just continuous
learning, to make it easy, you make it rewarding, to provide
the time so that the people in the plant can do some learning.
And we are not talking hours and hours of time. Typically,
it's just yes, just take a look at this thing--we can track
your progress and so forth and making sure that they're up to
speed on what a company needs to have them up to speed on,
whatever that might be.
Today it's going to be, and again, coming out of California
you realize this--whatever's going on today may not make a
whole lot of difference tomorrow in terms of technology. That's
how rapidly things are changing.
Mr. Cardenas. It's interesting that you describe the
example of the cell phone and how that could interfere with the
opportunity to, unfortunately, have an infiltration in your
system.
I learned, again, through one of the subcommittees on
health, is that some hospitals, and a lot of people now realize
that infections--if you're going to get an infection, probably
going to get it a hospital more than anywhere else--that it
wasn't some incredibly expensive process to bring down the
infection rate at hospitals other than having the discipline of
everybody washing their hands at every opportunity. Something
as simple as soap.
But what I am getting at is I think it's important for us
to teach the next generation of workforce that even though they
find these things to be so darn convenient and think that it's
the answer to everything. It actually, if not handled properly,
with simple measures you could actually cause a disaster or
catastrophe that is unintended.
So I think it's important for us to realize that sometimes
the answers are complicated. Sometimes the answers are really
simple about basic discipline.
Thank you very much, and I yield back my time.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida for 5
minutes.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it,
and thanks for the testimony.
I was at the joint VA Committee hearing. So I apologize for
being late.
I have a couple questions. The first one for Mr.
Bianculli--in your testimony you state that industrial IoT-
based solutions are allowing companies to create jobs. One of
the big concerns we are facing is automation replacing jobs. So
can you please explain to us how these solutions help create
jobs?
Mr. Bianculli. Sure. Yes, I think there's sort of a micro
and a macro view on that. The micro one I mentioned a little
bit earlier around machines working with workers to help them
get their jobs done more effectively. And I think when we think
about that, we have a tendency to think of the brawn side of
that, meaning that the physical movement of goods and that's
for sure a part of it. The other part of it is that the brain
or the intelligence are an assistant that can work along with
the worker. So we mentioned wearable technology, augmented
reality, being able to put information right up in front of the
user. And as this starts to assist you, that should create more
job satisfaction, a better work environment. It also, in
addition to increasing quality and having benefit to the bottom
line, reduces the cost of getting that job done. And so if I
shift from the micro perspective over to macro, as we reduce
the cost of getting that job done, we become more competitive
on a global basis, thereby bringing jobs back in.
So if we look at any one instance we could point to well,
if we are reducing the cost of labor that--some might say
that's reducing the number of jobs. I would say it's increasing
the efficiency of an individual and thereby increasing
efficiency of that individual has the macro effect of making us
more competitive on a global stage.
And I think that we are starting--I mean, it's happening
already. We are starting to see that bear itself out. The other
thing we are starting to see with the on-demand economy that we
mentioned earlier is the peaks are getting peakier, if you
will. If you look at the number of shipments that are happening
from manufacturing facilities or from fulfilment centers in the
November to January timeframe--in some cases, you see this in
the headlines--transportation carriers, retailers, are doubling
or tripling their workforce to be able to handle that peak
demand.
And so when you bring that influx of workers in, if it
takes 2 weeks to train somebody how to do that job, you're a
third of the way through that peak cycle. So leveraging this
technology so that someone can be functional and up and running
in an hour and be as skilled or as capable as someone that's
been doing it for several weeks also becomes very important.
So I think if we view it that way and look at the bigger
picture over the longer time horizon, there's early indicators
that what I just described is starting to happen and I think we
should lean in and accelerate to take advantage of that for the
country. Thanks.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you. Good answer.
In your testimony, Mr. Masney, you note that, and I quote,
``the cost to achieve a full deployment of IoT throughout an
enterprise can be quite daunting,'' and suggest that lowering
those costs would help ensure the deployment of the IoT.
What are some of the ways policy changes could help?
Mr. Masney. Certainly. Looking at ways to reduce the cost
per unit of a sensor or technology can help spur investment
into IoT, and it's not just one thing. It's sensors. It's PLCs.
It's storage. It's systems. It's investment in programming and
those kinds of things.
So, certainly, looking at ways that we can spur innovation,
get products produced at a lower price than manufacturing
companies can consume and deploy at a lower cost point,
especially in a business like ours which is very capital
intensive, is going to be incredibly helpful to move IoT
forward.
Mr. Bilirakis. Very good. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you holding this hearing. Very
informative and I will yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back
the balance of his time.
And seeing that there are no further members wishing to ask
questions, I want to again thank all of our witnesses for your
great testimony.
Before we conclude, I would like to include the following
document to be submitted for the record by unanimous consent--a
letter from the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
And hearing no objection, that letter is part of the
record.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Latta. Pursuant to committee rules, I remind members
that they have 10 business days to submit additional questions
for the record and I ask the witnesses submit their response
within 10 business days upon receipt of the questions.
And without any objection, the committee will stand
adjourned.
Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 11:46 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
Opening statement of Hon. Greg Walden
Good morning, and thank you to our witnesses for appearing
before the Subcommittee today. Chairman Latta, I'm pleased to
see the Disrupter Series continue with this subcommittee's
focus on innovation, and American jobs and competitiveness. The
Internet of Things' impact on the manufacturing sector has been
transformative. I'm looking forward to hearing from the
witnesses today about how their companies think about the best
ways to utilize IoT, particularly if there are applications
that improve safety for their employees.
Over the last year our economy has expanded because of the
efforts of entrepreneurs and American workers, and also in no
small part because of the lifting of regulatory barriers. New
technologies have continued to play their traditional role in
driving American innovation, creating new opportunities and
lowering costs for consumers.
The Internet of Things is one of these technologies. In a
sense the IoT is not new-industrial processes have long sought
to create efficiencies through the acquisition and use of data.
But revolutions in sensor technology, communications devices
and data analysis have allowed manufacturers to utilize
information in ways never before possible. Now machines can
play an active role in their own operation, ensuring they are
functioning properly and receiving attention when needed.
That said, there is also an important conversation to
continue around training and filling the workforce gaps we see
in our own districts. This issue is has many facets, certainly
one is the opioid crisis, and it is important to hear directly
from businesses about their experience training and maintaining
their workforce.
There is bipartisan agreement that we want, and need, to
see American manufacturing succeed. On that front there is
great news: earlier this month the Institute for Supply
Management reported that in 2017 U.S. manufacturing activity
was the highest it has been since 2004, and in December
continued to expand at its fastest pace in three months.
The renaissance in American manufacturing, empowered by new
technology that drives efficiency and lowers costs, holds the
promise of continued opportunities for future generations of
Americans--and to keep good jobs here at home. As policymakers
all of us share the goal of removing barriers to innovation and
productivity.
I look forward to hearing our witnesses describe the role
of IoT in manufacturing, and how it can further drive America's
recent successes in expanding job creation. I also hope that
our witnesses will share with us any areas for improvement,
where Congress can help remove obstacles and promote growth.
Mr. Chairman thank you for holding this hearing, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
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