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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
RESEARCH PROPOSAL ASSIGNMENT
Professor Paul McDONAGH
Submitted by Deepak Shivdutt Kandpal
(MBA in Responsible Management 2014-2015)

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Table of Contents
1. Title...........................................................................................................................................................................3
2. Topic and focus of the study....................................................................................................................................3
3. Background information..........................................................................................................................................3
4. Purpose of the study and how it relates to responsible management..................................................................3
5. Research objectives (central research and related sub-questions) .......................................................................4
6. Overview of the relevant literature ........................................................................................................................4
7. Theoretical framework (draft).................................................................................................................................5
8. Research design (methodology and methods) .......................................................................................................5
9. Resources..................................................................................................................................................................5
10. Time plan..............................................................................................................................................................6
11. Outline structure of the report............................................................................................................................6
12. References............................................................................................................................................................7

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
1. Title
Smart and Sustainable World using Internet of Things (IoT) for Industrial Automation
2. Topic and focus of the study
The topic in this research proposal investigates the Internet of Things (IoT) for making a smart and
sustainable world largely in Europe and its impact on the industrial automation industry. The focus
will be on how IoT will be implemented using industrial automation in retrofit and new cities to make
them smart as well as how the triple bottom line i.e. People, Planet and Profit will be used to make it
sustainable. Although, the focus will be on the Europe, the study will examine the effects and
comparisons of the various aspects (wherever applicable) of the above in Asia Pacific (Australia &
Singapore), USA and BRICS countries i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China and Republic of South Africa
as well.
3. Background information
Before we try to understand how Internet of Things (IoT) will impact Industrial Automation to make a
smart and sustainable cities as well as world we need to understand the definition, the policies and
technology priorities as will be discussed in the seminar hosted by Qualcomm in London on 27th
January, 2015 as described in the IERC website events which is the European Research Cluster on
the Internet of Things. There are many events like this which will bring focus on the policies in most
of the countries including Europe. As per definition, The Internet of Things, or IoT (sometimes called
machine-to-machine technology or M2M) was introduced by British technology pioneer Kevin
Ashton in 1999 and popularized by testing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early
2000’s, IoT represents the connectivity of objects that are tagged and identified, so that these
objects-each with its own ‘fingerprint’-can communicate with one another.(Ashton 2013)
Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept and a paradigm that considers pervasive presence in the
environment of a variety of things/objects that through wireless and wired connections and unique
addressing schemes are able to interact with each other and cooperate with other things/objects to
create new applications/services and reach common goals. In this context, the research and
development challenges to create a smart world are enormous. A world where the real, digital and
the virtual are converging to create smart environments that make energy, transport, cities and
many other areas more intelligent.(Vermesan & Friess 2013)
Thus, with the goal of the IoT which is to enable things to be connected anytime, anyplace, with
anything and anyone ideally using any path/network and any service will be studied.
4. Purpose of the study and how it relates to responsible management
There are many excellent articles on IoT like “Industrial automation industry exploring and
implementing IoT” by Bill Lydon which describes how IBM started its Smart Planet initiative in 2008
and the same year, the non-profit IP for Smart Objects (IPSO) Alliance was started with more than
50 members from technology, communications, and energy companies to promote the IP for "smart
object" communications. This research proposal will mainly draw from many of these articles,
structure them and analyse the results in these articles. Further, how the renewable technologies
which ensure the triple bottom line or 3P’s i.e., People, Planet and Profit along with Microsoft’s
Cloud Computing (Microsoft 2015a) and Data Management with Big Data (Saunders 2014) will
show the importance of Responsible Management practices like Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) (Microsoft 2015b) and Sustainable Development (Gutterman et al. 2014) for the future. We

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will also look how the various policies and rules will be changed by the European Union to
accommodate IoT as well as the other countries as mentioned previously.(Vermesan & Friess 2014)
5. Research objectives (central research and related sub-questions)
The research objective will include all of the aforementioned points, dwell further into some other
aspects such as how the IoT vision and IoT applications that can be improved with sensing and
control, including health care, traffic control, vehicle safety, energy use, agriculture, and
manufacturing. This vision includes coupling massive sensing and control with big data and
analytics to accomplish advanced levels of optimization and efficiency in Europe, Asia Pacific
(Australia & Singapore), USA and BRICS countries i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China and Republic of
South Africa and further analyse and try to find answers or take a stand on some of the following
research questions (these are representative and more will be added and refined after discussions
with the supervisor):
How is smart and sustainable world possible with Internet of Things (IoT) vision and applications?
How to explore and implement IoT for Industrial Automation industry using Microsoft’s products?
What are the policies and technology changes required so that the triple bottom line (TBL) is
maintained and sustainability achieved?
6. Overview of the relevant literature
We will start with Kevin Ashton (2013) article which offers information about the use of radio
frequency identification (RFID) technology and the Internet of Things in city streets. It discusses the
move of city governments to identify and deploy applications for RFID and wireless sensor networks
that manage transportation and precious maintenance resources.
We will then see the excellent review article by Bill Lydon (2014) to understand how IoT has been
explored and implemented by the Industrial Automation industry using open standards like Wireless
HART, ISA 100, WIA-PA and OPC UA with the IPSO Alliance as well as Big Data using Apache
Hadoop. This will also cover PLCopen, MES and ERP systems which are also used for Industrial
Internet of Things (IIoT) or Manufacturing Internet of Things (MIoT).
The two books by Vermesan & Friess (2013, 2014) will provide more data on how the IoT vision will
be researched and innovated further in Europe under the umbrella of IERC which will provide more
data for my research on how the smart cities will be implemented and deployed considering the
ecosystems and environment.
Also, the article by Sara Gutterman (2014) Co-Founder and CEO of Green Builder will throw more
light on how the environment management and sustainable development will be achieved with the
rise of Internet of Things. This will contribute deeply on the TBL or 3P concept which need to be
considered from the Responsible Management point of view.
From the management point of view as described by the article from Andrew Saunders (2014), we
need to understand the Internet of Everything with focus on the notable changes that are happening
in healthcare and urban living and exploring the speed of growth of the Internet of things. This also
includes the smart home innovation, the predicted growth in healthcare applications by 2020 and
the benefits of connecting cars to the Internet.
We will also how Microsoft’s Cloud Computing, Azure services for IoT, Data Management and other
Server products will be used as offerings to enable the Industrial Automation market to deploy these

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technologies seamlessly to build Sustainable Cities (2015).
7. Theoretical framework (draft)
To carry-out this research, Industrial Automation concepts like Wireless HART, ISA 100, Smart
Objects, OPC UA, PLCopen, MES & Cybersecurity, Microsoft Cloud Computing, Big Data using
Apache Hadoop for Data Management will be applied. Also, we need to refer the Triple Bottom Line
(TBL) or 3P’s i.e. People, Planet and Profit as explained in the famous book Corporation 2020 by
Pavan Sukhdev (2012).
We will also need the managerial accounting, finance and CSR as well as sustainable development
competencies gained during the MBA in Responsible Management course to understand how the
various policies and technology changes can be brought about in the various countries starting with
European Union to build smart and sustainable world as well as cities.
8. Research design (methodology and methods)
The methodology will be “analytical” and “deductive” in nature wherein we will try to look in the
Industrial Automation industry like Oil & Gas, Energy, Transport, Grid together with Smart Home,
Healthcare and Urban Living where IoT is already impacting and getting implemented in regions like
European Union, Asia Pacific (Australia & Singapore), USA and the BRICS countries. But, more
than this we will try to take a particular point of view in the market deployment (wherever possible)
rather than just give various possibilities and scenarios.
The research will be based largely on “qualitative data” although we may use some basic
quantitative data to illustrate our points but these quantitative data will be from already published
articles (hence for the present thesis it will be “secondary data”). It may be mentioned that a lot of
these articles get these data largely from ISA & IERC.
If we can get access to some key people in the big industrial automation industry and/or
consultancy firms then we will use a questionnaire (via email) and get their views on some of the
above topics. This will add value to this research project however we will have to check the
possibility. Similarly we can even think of getting the views of some experts in academia for e.g.
IERC Research Cluster Events & Seminars, Institute of Technology Management, Swinburne
University, University of Houston, Automation World, Boston University etc.-(all the methods in
this paragraph are optional and will be subject to access).
9. Resources
First, I will use EBSCO as a knowledge resource for my literature review to find significant articles
and business journals together with LinkedIn Groups and IERC as well as Microsoft Internet of
Things websites. I have already initiated contact with Dr. Ovidiu Vermesan and Dr. Peter Friess who
are the main researchers and editors for IERC Research Cluster for Internet of Things. I have really
a good network of professionals who have worked with me in Engineering and R&D in Industrial
Automation industry but will also try to contact experts in Microsoft as well as Nivis, Cisco, TCS and
Rockwell Automation as there is a lot of research happening in Denmark for IoT. My supervisor will
be the most valuable source of information. I will try to gather information from Internet as well as
the events, fairs and seminars conducted by IERC from February 2015 to July 2015 as this will give
insight of the market deployment of IoT. For further customer information, I will probably use a
survey questionnaire via email or telephone. EBSCO with DATAMONITOR will be useful to gather
comprehensive information for Industrial Automation industry using IoT.

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10. Time plan
We will prepare a detailed Gantt chart using the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) but the basic
schedule will look like the following:
February 2015-March 2015: Assignment of Supervisor who would find this topic interesting and I
will keep collecting literature on the topic.
April 2015-May 2015: Refine the topic according to the guidance/inputs of the supervisor and if
required collect more literature to that effect. Review the literature and formulate the research
questions that the thesis will address.
June 2015-July 2015: Set the protocols for how to conduct the research, collect required data and
finally analyse and interpret the data and literature to answer the research questions and take a
stand on some of these questions based on our analysis.
August 2015: Refine the thesis and submit by end of August.
11. Outline structure of the report
 Acknowledgements
 Table of Contents
 Introduction
o Internet of Things (IoT)
o Industrial Automation
 IoT Vision & Industrial Automation Smart Products
o Smart Cities
o Smart Homes
o Smart Energy
o Smart Oil & Gas
o Policies & Technology
 Microsoft IoT Products for Sustainable World
o Microsoft Cloud Computing
o Microsoft Azure Services
o Data Management
 Industrial IoT & Manufacturing IoT
o Wireless HART
o ISA 100
o Smart Objects
o Cyber Security
o OPC UA
o PLCopen
o MES
o PI Products
 Virtual Sensors in IoT
o Different types of Sensors
o RFID
o Temperature sensors
 IoT Technologies used over the World
o Deployment in European Union
o Deployment in Asia Pacific (Australia & Singapore)
o Deployment in USA
o Deployment in BRICS

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 IoT & Sustainable Development
o Impact on 3P’s or TBL
o Policies to be changed for Sustainable Development using IoT
 Conclusion
12. References
Ashton, K., 2013. Street Smarts. RFID Journal, pp.1–1.
Gutterman, S., Co-Founder, M. & CEO Green Builder, N., 2014. The Rise of the Internet of Things.
Environmental Management & Sustainable Development News. Available at:
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2014/01/08/the-rise-of-the-internet-of-things/ [Accessed
December 9, 2014].
Microsoft, M., 2015a. Internet of Things | Microsoft. Available at: http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/server-cloud/internet-of-things.aspx [Accessed December 9, 2014].
Microsoft, M., 2015b. Microsoft on Sustainable Cities and the Internet of Things. Environmental
Management & Sustainable Development News. Available at:
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2014/10/06/microsoft-on-sustainable-cities-and-the-
internet-of-things/ [Accessed December 9, 2014].
Saunders, A., 2014. The Internet of Everything. Management Today, (5), pp.40–43.
Vermesan, O. & Friess, P., 2013. Internet of Things - Converging Technologies for Smart
Environments and Integrated Ecosystems, Denmark: River Publishers. Available at:
http://www.internet-of-things-
research.eu/pdf/Converging_Technologies_for_Smart_Environments_and_Integrated_Ecos
ystems_IERC_Book_Open_Access_2013.pdf.
Vermesan, O. & Friess, P., 2014. Internet of Things - From Research and Innovation to Market
Deployment, Denmark: River Publishers. Available at: http://www.internet-of-things-
research.eu/pdf/IoT-
From%20Research%20and%20Innovation%20to%20Market%20Deployment_IERC_Cluster
_eBook_978-87-93102-95-8_P.pdf.