General Electric has established itself as a great entrepreneurial startup company by branching off into areas of healthcare, energy, and transportation. GE Healthcare is a subsidiary of this US-based tech giant with its headquarters based in Buckinghamshire in the UK. Back in 2003, General Electric acquired this multinational firm from Nycomed Amersham.

GE Healthcare – One of General Electric’s Most Successful Startups

Over the course of many years, GE Healthcare has made a name for itself with the help of its parent company, General Electric in the medical equipment market. GE Healthcare is widely known for developing cutting edges medical instruments such as scanners specifically for the field of cardio diseases and oncology. Presently, the company successfully manufactures X-ray, MRI, CT, ECG machines, Incubators, Ultrasound solutions and Respiratory care systems that are used the world over.

Venturing into Software Development

Jeffrey R. Immelt, the Chief Executive Officer of General Electric, has high hopes for the company and wishes to take it forward in the realm of software technology.

By 2020, Immelt wants to cement the status of General Electric among the top 10 software companies that the tech industry should look out for in the coming years.

What is IoT?

IoT or the “Internet of Things” has completely taken over the tech world. Companies that want to make it in the competitive atmosphere of today need to be in line with this new technology. IoT is mainly developed to connect various devices ranging from everyday gadgets such as cell phones to the constituents of machines such as jet engines of planes to drills of oil rigs. This technology is used by a simple on and off switch and does not require anything else.

GE Healthcare’s Chief Engineer, Jimmie Beacham, shares that Internet of Things will affect both hardware and software.
“’Disruptive’ technology means two things to me,” Beacham said. “One – and this is the charter of my team here at AME – is that it can help us make advancements in manufacturing such that we can make breakthrough products for our customers and solve problems traditional manufacturing couldn’t.”
“Two — it means that, especially in the healthcare environment where there’s increasing cost pressure, we can transform supply chains to be more cost effective than ever before.”

General Electric’s Plans for Industrial Internet

General Electric has devised a workable plan to be able to access information from various sensors that it has installed in machines that help automate supply issues. For instance, devices can alert when they need maintenance.

By venturing into the business of software technology, General Electric has taken a brave step but at the same time, the tech behemoth has to overcome a lot of competition put forth by veteran software companies such as IBM and Amazon Inc.  The algorithms that GE Healthcare uses might not mean much if they misfire and present a substandard suggestion to a customer. However, there are larger issues at stake such as a faulty algorithm that stimulates an airline carrier to shed off an engine off the wing.

General Electric now has a software center in San Ramon, California that was formed back in 2011. This particular headquarter is known as GE Digital, and its biggest project to date is to develop an operating system that is common in computers but one that can be used on an industrial scale.

GE Digital’s Predix

General Electric’s very own and coveted software platform is called Predix. GE has integrated this system into the healthcare products that it offers and its efforts have been paying off. Predix is being used successfully to collect, analyze, transmit and deliver real-time data to enhance industrial operations and infrastructures. This is done via the IoT technology. 

“Real-time access to all the information you actually need, when you really need it,  presented in a way you can use it – effectively, there and then,” is one of the critical advancements that IoT provides, Bill Shingleton, PhD Technical Lead at GE Healthcare shared. Shingleton will be speaking at an upcoming IoT Summit in Chicago on October 6th.

General Electric is one of the few companies that has been able to bridge a gap between the physical and the digital world. The company is very keen on securing its position as a technologically apt firm by making all its employees learn how to code so that everyone knows what they are doing.

Initially, the masterminds of the tech industry appeared skeptical of the company’s interest in software development. However, General Electric has now secured its position as one of the leaders of the ‘Industrial Internet’ technology where it is competing with the likes of Cisco and Microsoft.

Internet of Things Healthcare Summit:

Interested in learning more about Internet of Things and how it will affect healthcare? PreScouter is hosting an IoT event with GE Healthcare on October 6, 2016, in Chicago, IL. Use code: PreScouterHelpsInnovate to register for free.  This event is limited to the first 100 people.

Image courtesy of GE Healthcare.

Learn more about PreScouter at www.prescouter.com.