It is an exciting time as the “factory of the future” emerges at a certain Japanese chemical company. The benefits are becoming clear: factory workers are better at their jobs, productivity is on the rise, equipment is better maintained, people are safer, and product quality continues to improve. With a new view of its business, this company can now identify and seize opportunities for improvement beyond the factory floor and bring a new level of confidence to decision-making.

These types of sweeping changes are being ushered in to virtually every industry by a suite of complementary technologies, including video intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, artificial intelligence (AI), and powerful analytics software, that combine to allow organizations to gather, blend, analyze, and visualize data like never before. Similar solutions are being used to improve everything from airports and retail stores to entire cities and states that touch the lives of millions of people.

“Taking data from multiple sources and bringing that to a single pane of glass to apply analytics and AI to make communities and entities safer and more efficient, that is what we mean by smart spaces,” says Mark Jules, global vice president, Smart Spaces and Lumada Video Insights for Hitachi Vantara. “We look at three outcomes: enhanced safety and security, operations, and business.”