The software offers data, analytics, and automation at an industrial scale. Predix is being used on wind turbine farms gathering temperature, misalignments, and vibration levels. “Operators can change the curvature of a blade or make other alterations in real time, which can add $100 million in value to every 100-megawatt farm,” the company told The Street.

Predix is also being used on trains by using sensors to predict mechanical problems and by implementing “a type of cruise control that combs through piles of data and synthesizes them for the driver in a way that allows him to steer the locomotive to maintain the most efficient speed at all times and reduce fuel burn,” according to Fast Company.

3. Cobots

Baxter and Sawyer, the manufacturing robots created by Rethink Robotics, are not here for your manufacturing jobs, their creators swear. “Companies who are buying robots are filling in the tasks they can’t get people to stay and do,” Rethink Robotics co-founder Rodney Brooks told Time. “They’re using the people they have more positively by using their intelligence.”

Baxter and Sawyer are far more advanced than traditional industrial robots. They learn by demonstration– a worker will take the robot’s “wrist” and show it how to perform a task. And the robots learn in a matter of minutes. Think it will be weird to work alongside these guys? Well to make co-workers more comfortable, the robots have digital “faces” with eyes that focus on where it is going next and sensors, so they don’t bump into real people. Office-furniture manufacture Steelcase uses the Sawyer, which starts at about $30,000.

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