Practical reading for industrial operators — no hype.

Guides written for plant managers, engineers and operations leaders: real numbers, honest trade-offs, and the failure modes nobody puts in a brochure. Built around the questions buyers actually ask before an IoT project.

Condition monitoring  ·  8 min read

Why most vibration-based motor monitoring projects are doomed to fail

The five failure modes that sink condition-monitoring projects — and how to scope one that actually pays back.

Connectivity  ·  9 min read

South Africa's IoT connectivity dilemma: 4G vs LoRaWAN vs NB-IoT vs Sigfox

A practical decision guide for choosing the right network per site — coverage, cost, power and data.

Water & compliance  ·  7 min read

Effluent monitoring and DWS compliance in South Africa

What the regulator expects, what to measure, and how to automate compliance reporting.

OEE  ·  8 min read

How much does an OEE monitoring system cost in South Africa?

The cost drivers, indicative ZAR bands per line, what inflates a quote, and how to size a pilot that pays back.

OEE  ·  7 min read

How to measure OEE on an old line without a new PLC

The signals a legacy machine already gives you, and a step-by-step path to live OEE without rip-and-replace.

Energy & resilience  ·  8 min read

Will your IoT sensors survive load shedding?

Why outages lose data, not sensors — and how to design IoT that keeps recording through Stage 6.

Industrial IoT  ·  10 min read

Industrial IoT in South Africa: a practical guide for operators

What IIoT is, what it costs, where it pays back first, and how to deploy it on real SA sites.

Digital transformation  ·  9 min read

Digital transformation for South African manufacturers: a roadmap

A staged, low-risk path from one proven win to a connected plant — not a seven-figure gamble.

Mining safety  ·  9 min read

MHSA 8.10.1 collision prevention for trackless mobile machinery

What the law requires, the EMESRT Level 9 / PDS standard, and how to choose a system that works underground.

Condition monitoring  ·  8 min read

Predictive maintenance for South African mining

Beyond oil analysis — real-time vibration, temperature and current monitoring on critical assets.

Water  ·  9 min read

Non-revenue water: how smart metering cuts the losses

SA municipalities lose 37–47% of water (~R9.9bn/yr). How metering finds it and what it recovers.

Mining safety  ·  8 min read

MHSA 16.7: missing person locator systems for underground mines

The amended Chapter 16 duty, intrinsic safety, and choosing a person-location system that works underground.

Fleet  ·  8 min read

Fleet fuel-theft detection: how it actually works

Fuel theft costs SA fleets ~R15bn/yr. How tank-level sensors and telematics catch it — and what you save.

Mining safety  ·  8 min read

Real-time occupational hygiene monitoring in SA mines

Continuous dust, gas, DPM, noise and heat data instead of periodic spot samples — for safety and MHSA compliance.

Agriculture  ·  8 min read

Automated irrigation ROI for a commercial farm

Water, electricity, labour and yield — where the return comes from, and how to calculate your own payback.

Agriculture  ·  7 min read

RFID livestock tracking: what does it cost per head?

Tags vs infrastructure, what drives the price, and how it pays back through stock-theft reduction and traceability.

Energy & resilience  ·  7 min read

Can solar power run remote IoT monitoring?

Off-grid sensing for boreholes, reservoirs and farm sensors — and how to size solar so it survives winter.

Water  ·  8 min read

What does smart water metering / NRW cost in SA?

Cost drivers, where to start cheaply with district metering, and why the recovery beats the spend.

Mining safety  ·  9 min read

Real-time tailings dam monitoring (GISTM)

Piezometers, displacement and trigger levels — how real-time monitoring supports GISTM conformance.

Condition monitoring  ·  7 min read

Conveyor belt monitoring for mines & plants

Bearing health, belt drift and fire risk — catch the failures that stop a line before they stop it.

Industrial IoT  ·  8 min read

SCADA vs IoT platform: which do you need?

Control vs visibility — the difference, when you need each, and why they work together.

Water  ·  7 min read

Pressure management: cut pipe bursts & water loss

Why a modest pressure reduction cuts leakage and bursts disproportionately — and how to manage it.

Mining safety  ·  8 min read

Proximity detection compared: radar, UWB, RFID, LiDAR

How the sensing technologies behind collision prevention differ — and why fusion usually wins.

Industrial IoT  ·  8 min read

OPC-UA vs Modbus vs MQTT explained

The three protocols on every IIoT project — what each is for, and how they work together.

Industrial IoT  ·  8 min read

IIoT security: connect without exposing your PLCs

Read-only, no exposed ports, segmentation — get the data out without letting control in.

Water  ·  8 min read

Wastewater treatment works (WWTW) monitoring

Keep a works running and compliant — DO, pumps, blowers and final-effluent quality, with Green Drop in mind.

Water  ·  8 min read

Water quality sensors explained

pH, turbidity, DO, COD, chlorine — what each tells you and which to monitor for your water.

Mining safety  ·  8 min read

Mine ventilation monitoring & ventilation-on-demand

Prove the air is safe everywhere — then cut a major energy bill by ventilating to demand.

Industrial IoT  ·  7 min read

Edge vs cloud for industrial IoT

Edge for resilience and real-time, cloud for scale and analytics — and why SA sites need real edge.

More guides are published regularly — on OEE, energy, load shedding, water loss, smart farming and mining safety. Have a question you want answered? Ask us and we'll likely turn it into a guide.