Powers Digital Transformation of the World’s Largest Magnet Wire Manufacturer

Improving Throughput Without Sacrificing Quality

Essex Furukawa’s growth depended on the ability to increase production without affecting quality. The magnet wire Essex Furukawa makes for EV motors must meet exacting standards enabling it to withstand years of severe stress, including high heat, high electrical current, and fast switching frequencies.

Essex Furukawa leadership knew that by connecting their manufacturing plants using an IT/OT approach, they could collect and analyze production data to predict, diagnose, and resolve production issues faster. They sought a real-time view of production and the ability to apply advanced analytics for predictive maintenance and continuous operational optimization.

Essex Furukawa

Essex Furukawa is the leading, global provider of magnet wire that is used by most major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and industry leaders in the automotive, energy, and industrial sectors. Essex Furukawa Magnet Wire operates its business to act globally but serves locally.

Deploying Sight Machine on Azure

After evaluating competing solutions, Essex Furukawa chose Microsoft partner Sight Machine to begin the digital transformation of their manufacturing plant in Torreon, Mexico. Essex Furukawa chose Sight Machine due to its unique ability to able to turn all production data into a common data foundation for manufacturing operations and analysis.

Sight Machine developed analytics models focused on improving quality. The system recommends ways to improve quality and validates the magnitude of improvements to ensure worthwhile results. The model is continuously retrained using real-time streaming data for optimal effectiveness. The recommendations have resulted in significant efficiency improvements. After successful deployment in their Mexico manufacturing plant, Essex Furukawa chose Sight Machine as the manufacturing productivity platform for its plants in the United States, China, Germany, Serbia, Canada, and Malaysia.

• [Data Management - Data Availability]
  
  • Greatly increased throughput without loss in quality or availability.
  • Developed solutions to improve quality.
• [Efficiency Improvement - Operation]
  

  Sight Machine is being scaled to Essex Furukawa plants worldwide.