Bobst and American Packaging Corporation (APC) share insights on how they used ei3 to streamline their production, reduce waste, and increase asset utilisation. In doing so, they managed to make great products – better!
This video shows Paul Stoudmann from Bobst and Lee Blythe from APC sharing the direct benefits achieved with ei3's IIoT.
For packaging producers, converters and die-makers, achieving better quality and increasing operational efficiency would involve significant capital expenditure, but thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), it is low-cost and more effective than ever before. When fully adopted, IIoT becomes part of a management culture that is driven by data facts and insights, creating maximum benefits for the organization.
The foundation: You cannot improve what you cannot measure
Peter Drucker (arguably the inventor of modern business management) gets credit for the profound insight that you cannot improve what you cannot measure. Therefore, increasing business value is all about measuring things. And, the measurements and their analysis are not just backdrops to business decisions but become the core of them. IIoT takes the all-important role of collecting, harvesting, and presenting that data.
Lee Blythe from APC, a long-time user of the ei3 solution which came with his Bobst machines, said it better than we ever could: "
"Every Monday morning our board gets the reports from ei3 and sets the agenda for the week."
Lee Blyth, Senior Process Engineer at APC
The image above showcases APC's Insights Overview dashboard, displaying key machine metrics such as machine speed, its OEE breakdown, material produced, and uptime
Transforming daily operations with cutting-edge technology
Lee talks about the transformation in their daily operations brought out by applying ei3's cutting-edge technology:
- Automatic Certificate of Analysis (CoA) creation based on real-time process data collected during manufacturing
- Real-time performance lists that show how all their machines are performing by shift, job and day to help find the leaders and laggards
- Quality Assurance coordination tools to coordinate tests and capture Quality Assurance results
- Deviation alerting on key settings
- And more...
The broader impact of IIoT adoption
Our clients benefit from the value of IIoT in many ways; most commonly:
- Increased asset utilization
- Reduced downtime
- Increased after-sales service revenue
- Happier clients
The most impact we have is with clients that use ei3, not as a reporting tool but that have embedded the ei3 IIoT solution into their management culture. Because, as Peter Drucker discovered, managers need measurements.