Although the term ‛Industry 4.0’ has been around for many years already, the manufacturing industry still has a long way to travel in its journey to digitization. In many companies, manual processes survive. Just think of handwritten documentation, multiple local, unsynchronized spreadsheets that each claim to hold the truth, workflow diagrams that only exist on whiteboards… On top of that, there is a disconnect between IT (Information Technology) and OT (Operational Technology) systems, with no real method of connection or communication established between them.
Solving manufacturing challenges
The Internet of Things (IoT) brings solutions to these challenges. IoT bridges the divide between IT and OT, and ensures that manufacturers can get a single source of truth and a holistic view of the performance of their machine park. As one of the main players in this market, Inimco accelerates the digital journey at scale by providing a proven, best-fit digital solution for its customers, called Inimco.Facts. Inimco.Facts was built for companies in manufacturing, the process or chemical industry and machine and equipment builders who want to perform cloud-based data analysis of a large installed base, optimize OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) and energy consumption at scale, provide data-driven services to their end customers and adopt lean manufacturing on the production floor. By using Inimco.Facts, they avoid long development cycles, get fast Return on Investment (ROI), avoid vendor lock-in and are able to start small, scale fast and work modularly and flexibly.
Inimco.Facts comes in three strands:
- The core platform delivers a better, real-time insight into your entire machine park.
- Facts Lean Manufacturing allows you to use actionable data to the production floor.
- Facts Energy Management reduces energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
It’s all about turning data into value
Inimco.Facts centralizes data collection, allowing you to collect data from multiple sources such as UPC UA, Modbus, SQL, files, APIs… Data collection is fully automated and all data are standardized and contextualized. This allows you easy accessibility to data, from anywhere at any time, thanks to web-based dashboards that visualize data in real time, and fully automated rules, alerts and reporting. By analyzing data and linking process data to context data such as quality, product or energy, you uncover actionable insights. Further turning of data into value (through the collaboration with Yazzoom) follows. After issuing specific recommendations, the platform finally delivers fully connected plants with automated correction cycles.
Inimco customers are thrilled by the fact that they can pull standardized data into dashboards that deliver input to the production floor. By delivering this data through user-friendly and customized dashboards, production supervisors get the exact data they need to optimize production. When new data sources are connected, this is completely transparent to the users on the production floor. The only thing they notice is that they get even better instruction on how to increase performance.
How customers are using the Inimco.Facts platform
Let’s illustrate this with a couple of examples from both production companies and machine builders.
AkzoNobel, a world-leader in paints and coatings, collaborated with Inimco to transition from manual OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) measurement processes to a digitized solution. Previously, manual data entry led to inaccuracies and week-long delays in data access. Inimco introduced the AkzoNobel Performance Portal, a cloud-based IoT platform based on Inimco.Facts, thus enabling real-time data access and analysis within 24 hours. Since its deployment across 50 plants with over 1,129 production lines, the company has seen labor savings, improved equipment and process overview, and enabled a new OEE Accelerator program. This shift has enhanced plant performance by 5-15%, realizing approximately €17m in direct savings.
Picanol, a global market leader in hi-tech weaving machines, has harnessed the power of Inimco.Facts platform to drive digital innovation. By integrating the platform, Picanol launched PicConnect in 2021, a cloud-based system centralizing digital services and facilitating machine-to-cloud data transmission. This platform offers customers insights into weaving machine efficiency, energy usage, and fabric quality. Users can quickly compare and optimize machine settings, leading to enhanced fabric quality and decreased energy consumption – by up to 5% in some cases. Furthermore, PicConnect supports Picanol’s R&D with real-time data, enhancing software algorithms and allowing remote assistance. The cloud-based nature ensures scalable, up-to-date services. By using the Inimco.Facts platform, Picanol saved 18 months of development time.
AquaSecurity, active in fire protection solutions in the industry, built its fully digitized cloud platform Rosiot using the Inimco.Facts solutions. Rosiot allows AquaSecurity to test and monitor the water pump installations on customer sites remotely. This saves valuable time and transportation costs as engineers no longer need to travel to the customer sites to test these installations. At the same time, the IoT platform allows them to gather data and develop future use cases based on these insights.
TOMRA Sorting, in collaboration with Inimco, launched TOMRA Insight, a potent cloud solution on the Microsoft Azure Platform. This innovation enhances TOMRA's cloud-connected machines to provide users with valuable real-time data from their machines, thus optimizing operations. The platform offers insights into product quality and defects, facilitating informed decision-making for businesses. The system links hundreds of machines globally, offering benefits such as increased efficiency and better product quality. Thus, TOMRA Insight empowers businesses to monitor, analyze, and improve their sorting processes, directly enhancing profitability.
You are not alone
We realize that implementing an IoT or cloud solution is not a plug-and-play project. That’s why Inimco also delivers services and expert advice on top of its Inimco.Facts platform. These services do not only apply to the initial implementation of the platform, but also on an ongoing basis through our managed services offering that covers Cloud Support Services (second- and third-line support to keep your end-users and business moving, 24/7), Platform Support Services (technical proactive and reactive support services to manage the platform for you) and Facts Software Support, keeping you updated with new software releases and product fixes.
Visit us on booth 33 at the ABISS Summit taking place at Kortrijk Xpo on October 5th and we will show you how Inimco can help you shorten development cycles and deliver fast ROI for your IoT projects. You can register for free, using this link.