The goal of a testbed is new product and new business development. Participating in testbed activities:

• Creates growth opportunities for your business
• Puts you at the leading edge of new products and services development
• Gives you a direct role in shaping the Industrial Internet
• Provides you with insight into new technologies and ideas, so you can act on them quickly, both as a user (with choice) and a vendor (with an expanded market).

A successful testbed:

• Provides rigorous, transparent, and replicable testing of new technologies
• Applies new technologies to create new products & services
• Shows how new technologies can be usefully deployed
• Fuels R&D ideas and opportunities
• Generates an appreciable and measurable impact on new and existing markets

For members, specific guidelines on getting started are found in our Members Area website.

The IIC is focused on three kinds of testbed activities:

• Small, quick-turnaround, short-term projects focused on near-term products and services. These are typically funded directly by member companies.
• Medium-size, medium-term (about a year) focused projects to create something we know is feasible, but we can't do today. These projects may have partial public funding, possibly via academia.
• Grand challenge, multi-year projects that create new products and services continually. These IIC or CPS projects discover new requirements as they proceed, and priorities change during their lifetimes. These are usually public-private partnerships in the multi-million dollar price range.

The member or members running a specific test bed, determine the participant companies. Many testbed activities are opened up to IIC members before opportunities are extended to nonmembers. Member companies will be able to incorporate their products into different testbeds to verify their product conforms to the architecture and meets security requirements. Industry IoT Consortium Members, please access this information in the Members-Only area.

A testbed starts by identifying the business opportunity or problem to be solved and outlining the use cases. Next, the necessary technologies, process flow and interoperability issues need to be identified. Industry IoT Consortium members can access testbed templates and examples of past projects.

Information about Industry IoT Consortium member testbed proposals and requests for potential partners, is in the Industry IoT Consortium Members-Only area.

The Industry IoT Consortium is a not-for-profit group that offers open membership for any public, or private business, organization or entity.

Testbeds can be privately funded by member companies, publicly funded by government agencies, or a combination of both.

No. Testbeds are optional business development activities available to IIC member companies. Member companies who choose not to participate will still receive indirect benefits from testbed activities, such as firsthand knowledge of key technologies and new deliverables.

Some of the first testbeds focus on the horizontal platforms. Other short- and medium-term projects, will focus on the vertical areas of Industry IoT Consortium member companies, including Manufacturing, Energy & Utilities, Healthcare, Public Sector, Buildings & Facilities and Transportation & Logistics. The larger testbed activities typically involve multiple industries.

The content for the testbeds is owned by the funding agency and the member participants according to the specific terms of the testbed documentation.