Aspects of body metrics data management in the long term for the European fitness industry

Abstract

The dawn of the fourth industrial revolution, mostly known through the German initiative "Industrie 4.0", builds on a set of technologies emerging from software and information and communication technologies (ICT); paired with the growth of the Internet-of-Things (IoT), the so-called “smart products” are expanding on the market. These smart products integrate data collection and processing capacities. Additionally, the collected data have their own lifecycle, and can be classified as sensitive data. In that sense, companies developing hardware products may need support to step in “smart products” development. Digital transformation strategy is a possible overall support for companies. However, regarding smart product development and IoT data management, no studies to date have addressed formalized guidelines to support companies. This article proposes a set of guidelines focusing on IoT data management to support hardware companies in their transformation towards smart products. The proposed guidelines are exemplified on a fitness industry case which is using wearable devices collecting body metrics, considered as sensitive data.