The imperative to act
If you ask, ‘why now?’ there are two key responses:
- It can be done. Compute and storage costs are now trivial, allowing clients to exploit the huge quantities of data they’ve been collecting – or throwing away – for years. Sensors that see (open computer vision), smell (gas detection) and hear (machine hearing) really work. The analytics and data processing software, much of it open source, is ready to go.
- It should be done. The industry need to rethink how it attracts the best and the brightest – these are the technologies they want to work with. Automation can also revolutionize safety – a win/win for everybody. And, as ever more products become commoditized, clients will need to focus on competitiveness and cost optimization.
What services can we offer?
Aliter’s Digital Plantsolution Evolve™ helps our clients transform how they build, maintain, operate and optimize their plant. Aliter aligns its thinking around four key performance levers: workers, assets, operations and projects. You’ll likely find these subjects really resonate with manufacturing clients.
Worker performance. This is about empoweringworkers with the right information at the right time. It means first thinking about mobility and Wi-Fi connectivity in the plant – not easy in an industrialized context where devices must be intrinsically safe and spark-free. Then, the use cases expand exponentially – from tracking workers, accessing enterprise data or work orders in the field, or collaborating with experts. Ultimately, it’s about driving worker productivity and safety.
Asset performance. For assets, it’s about raising the bar for reliability – knowing how an asset is running, when it’s going to fail, and what to do to avoid failure. When a piece of equipment goes down unexpectedly, it can cost up to five times more to get it back up and running than a controlled repair made ahead of time. So, having the capacity to predict failure in advance is critical for improving asset uptime and lowering maintenance costs.
Operations performance. This is about coordinating and optimizing all the moving parts of the enterprise.Think of it as a layer cake – ERP at the top all the way down to the systems that control equipment at the most granular level. It’s about driving client performance across the full stack: lower costs, optimized assets, increased security, improved quality and yield, even regulatory compliance.
Project performance. This is about managing the full project lifecycle of capital builds, whether getting data from engineering and construction companies into clients’ systems, procuring materials, or making sure clients are operationally ready to take over an asset.
A revolution in turnarounds
Digital Plant platform Evolve™ is a product from Aliter which connects the entire operating asset vertically from shop floor to boardroom door and horizontally across the value chain from molecule to consumer, enabling 1-5% in revenue uplift and 2-6% in margin uplift.
Our Digital Plant solutions provide predictive, real-time visibility into operational performance, potential risks, and recommended actions, resulting in 10-20% reduced maintenance costs and reduced off-spec product.
In turn, companies can optimize their responses and create opportunities for margin improvements, greater reliability and safer operations.
Aliter pragmatic solutions helped clientsto measure performance, control machinery and breakdowns from remote locations. That’s the foundation for a huge leap forward in key metrics: time-on-tools, performance.
Digital operations
Finally, here’s a flavor of what we’ve been doing in digital operations under Evolve™:
- Plant Dashboard: View performance from to plant floor across all areas of plant
- Advanced Analytics: In-sights for Overall Equipment and People Efficiency
- Active Plant: A digital representation of the plant combining real-time data and analytics. Integrated Alerts for Breakdowns
- Digital Worker: Utilize automated workflow driven mobile solutions such as certified tablets, smart phones, and Industrial glasses with augmented and virtual reality to overlay real time operational data, work history, asset conditions for operations and maintenance workers.
- Warehousing, MES and Pick-to-Light Systems: We developed Pick to light systems, Global Manufacturing Execution Systems for a global automotive Company, allowing them to assess Operational efficiency, Product traceability, performance and adjust operating parameters in real time with customized, role-based dashboards, accessed across the site on wireless devices.
- Evolve Project Management: Capital Project management with flavor of Project management linked to actual Fixed Asset in the Plant.
- Evolve Incident manager: IT systems, Manufacturing systems, IOT devices linked to incident management tools to monitor, track, build ERP like incident manager and solutions for manufacturing systems.
- Evolve Innovator: A game based employee retention and Ideation awarding product.