In this chapter, the reader will understand how industrial data is generated, gathered, and transferred to the cloud. We will look at continuous discrete processes and how they work, becoming familiar with the model of computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) from its origin in the factories of the 1980s to the current day. The reader will learn about industrial equipment, networks, and protocols, and come to understand terms such as distributed control system (DCS), programmable logic controllers (PLCs), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Historian, manufacturing execution system (MES), Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP), and Fieldbus. We will also look at how the industrial world interacts with the cloud, and look at the devices and protocols that allow this to happen. Related to this, we will learn terms including OPC Proxy, store and forward, edge, and IoT gateway. All the concepts that are sketched in this chapter will be further explained and analyzed over the next few chapters. We will provide a high-level, but all-encompassing, vision of the I-IoT from a data perspective. We will look at the path of industrial signals, from their generation by the sensors to their processing in the cloud.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• The factory processes
• The structure and hierarchy of industrial equipment
• The networks levels in a factory
• The data flow in a factory
• Data sources and interfaces
• The edge and the IoT gateway