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Calgary-based Nova Chemicals was struggling to process more than 20,000 maintenance work orders per year at each of its 11 chemicals and plastics resins manufacturing facilities. To improve its maintenance scheduling, the company introduced advanced analytics and cloud computing in collaboration with Enterprise Asset Management software (EAM). Today, the EAM software provides a complete and consolidated view of scheduled maintenance at Nova Chemicals. It facilitates maintenance scheduling, work execution, and material availability processes.

BENEFITS

  • Time spent on reactive, emergency work has been reduced by 47%
  • Time spent on proactive, preventative maintenance has increased by 61%
  • Maintenance schedule compliance has improved by 22%

Source: McKinsey & Company

Logistics company Knapp AG developed a paperless picking technology that uses augmented reality to optimize the picking process in a warehouse. This wearable technology resembles eyeglasses and is worn as a headset by the employee.

BENEFITS

  • Reduction of training time for new and seasonal workers
  • Acceleration of the picking process
  • Reduction of the error rate by approximately 40%

Source: McKinsey & Company

An automotive OEM was experiencing increasing warranty expenses and recall execution costs driven by a reactive approach to issue identification, the long turnaround time between issue identification and resolution, and the inability to track the effectiveness of production and field fix issues. Real-time data was captured by sensors on the manufacturing line and aggregated with quality, warranty, and safety data to populate a cloud-based data lake. Advanced analytical techniques, including text clustering, probability analytics, concept extraction, and event history were utilized to identify potential issues. Digital user interfaces were leveraged to drive user adoption and enhance employee ability to translate insights into action. An end-to-end set of dashboards was utilized to create visibility into priority issues, enabling the execution of field fix implementations sooner.

BENEFITS

  • Enhanced overall level of product safety for consumers
  • Early identification of quality issues (13 months earlier than before)
  • Annual savings of $24-$36 million

Source: Deloitte

A major coffee manufacturer needed to reduce the percent of machines that were offline for cleaning. To keep the production rates steady, the manufacturer needed to purchase 100 extra machines to compensate for the offline equipment or find a better solution. The coffee manufacturer chose to implement an IoT solution to enable the coffee-production equipment to generate a real-time information stream regarding its operational state. This enabled the company to more effectively predict downtime and significantly decrease the extent of surplus equipment needed on the production line.

BENEFITS

  • Predictable downtime
  • Eliminated need to purchase new machines.
  • Gained real-time information on the system’s operational state.

Source: Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)

Lido Stone Works manufacturer of high-end architectural stone products. Seeking to realize a more-automated production environment, Lido Stone Works leveraged IoT to craft an intelligent manufacturing system that directly links Lido and their clients’ architects into a seamless, IoT-enabled cloud platform. The platform generates a real-time stream of information, and both the client and technicians can monitor a job’s progress in real-time, detecting, and fixing, problems as they unfold.

BENEFITS

  • The workforce grew by 67%
  • Productivity increased by 30% (largely by reducing downtime)
  • Boosted revenues by 70%
  • Saved a half-million dollars in travel costs annually

Source: Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)

KUKA Industrial robotics manufacturer. KUKA seized the opportunity to integrate IoT systems when the company built a new facility in Toledo, Ohio for manufacturing Jeep Wrangler bodies. KUKA connected over 60,000 devices, including 259 assembly-line robots, into a central data management system. By linking the devices, line-of-business applications, and back end systems together, KUKA has achieved an automated manufacturing process capable of producing one of eight different Jeep Wrangler auto bodies every 77 seconds off the same production line without interrupting production flow.

BENEFITS

  • Increased Production flexibility
  • Central control tasks and diagnostic processes can be performed directly on robots from the control panel’s interface.

Source: Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), Control Solutions Inc.

HIROTEC America Automation manufacturing equipment and parts supplier with 26 facilities in 9 countries that designs and builds approximately 7 million doors and 1.5 million exhaust systems annually. Volumes of data were manually separated and stored across multiple sources. To improve quality, reduce downtime, and optimize production schedules, HIROTEC needed to implement a modern, automated solution that could gather maintenance and operational information into one source and offer actionable recommendations. HIROTEC turned to IoT and connectivity platforms to enable company-wide device-to-cloud connectivity through one overarching toolset. A manufacturing suite and IoT Gateway advanced plug-in was also part of the solution.

BENEFITS

  • Improved visibility into the processes of the CNC shop and gained deeper insight into operations
  • Added the ability to leverage real-time data from the shop floor and tie it to the scheduling ERP system, optimizing the scheduling of parts to CNC modules
  • Increased productivity and ROI by gaining greater insight into asset and resource allocation
  • Improved collaboration between Operations Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) departments, reducing downtime and enabling more efficient responses to IT jobs
  • Reduced costs, effort, and development time by selecting proven, interoperable technologies
  • Provided quick proof-of-concept into the value of IoT via short, six-week Agile sprints

Source: PTC, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)

Kaeser Kompressoren German-based manufacturer of compressed air systems and services.  To avoid unplanned outages and system downtime, Kaeser began equipping its compressed air equipment with IoT sensors that capture key environmental and performance data such as temperature, humidity, and vibration. With equipment continuously transmitting operational status in real-time, Kaeser conducts predictive analytics to determine whether parts might be prone to failure and to identify and replace faulty parts during regularly scheduled maintenance instead of after an outage has occurred. Kaeser upgraded to a relational database management system to orchestrate new business processes across the organization, improve supply chain management, and harness the power of big data analytics.

BENEFITS

  • 60% reduction in unscheduled equipment downtime
  • Estimated annual savings of $10 million in break-fix costs

Source: Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)

BENEFITS

Inventory Management


Maintaining inventory stores can be a tedious task that, when performed poorly, leads to obsolete inventory, excessive storage costs and failure to meet client delivery requirements. Warehouse and Inventory Management software allows for the tracking of inventory levels and analysis.


This means that the contents in inventory are visible and that an analysis can be performed to perform functions such as minimizing storage costs or work-in-progress (WIP). A clear understanding of inventory levels can eliminate a degree of risk and allow the company to reduce inventory thus reducing costs. This applies to raw material management as well as component or finished good storage.


Inventory Management

Data exchanged in the Activity:

INPUT
  • Raw material delivery requirements
  • Finished goods delivery requirements
  • Inventory locations
  • Inventory quantities

OUTPUT
  • Inventory reports
  • Inventory audits

Tools:

  • Inventory Management Software
  • Warehouse Management Software
  • Enterprise Resource Planning Software

Digital Solutions


  • Competitive advantage - Improved competitive advantage

  • Digital Inventory management - Efficient Inventory management

Potential Issues with this Activity:


  • Increased costs due to obsolescence - Obsolete Inventory

  • Increased inventory carrying costs - Inefficient Inventory management

  • Loss of Customer confidence - inefficient inventory management