With a mature business comprising connected field instruments for remote monitoring, Sysmex realized that the next step in order to transform their business would be to unlock more value from their data. The only way they could outpace their competitors would be to deliver higher quality customer service and improve their internal operational efficiency.

As the HCI market has grown increasingly crowded, Springpath sought to differentiate itself by providing enhanced serviceability to its customers. But it was lacking in its ability to provide fast customer issue resolution for both hardware and software components and in its ability to get meaningful, real-time intelligence from data. Springpath needed to create better operational efficiencies for its support organization. To better service its customers, Springpath would need a solution to resolve customer issues faster while collecting real-time customer data from systems to extract better insights for both internal support teams and end customers alike. Building a solution would require quick ingest and parsing of data – which was at the time often sent in the form of complex log files – and the ability to present it as actionable information. Further, a solution would need to enable support engineers to provide quick issue resolution to minimize downtime. Ideally, Springpath wanted customers to get full visibility into their own systems – and thereby be able to perform timely maintenance tasks – with the goal of maximizing uptime and ensuring optimal system performance. In addition, a solution should integrate with their issue management system, Salesforce.com Service Portal, for easy access for both the in-house support team and end-customers. “Offering world-class Customer Service in the IoT era requires a comprehensive and scalable Analytics platform that is well-integrated with an existing Support workflow,” says Brett Flinchum, VP of Global Customer Success at Springpath.

• Deliver customized vehicles for consumers, better and faster • Control costs by boosting manufacturing efficiency • Improve agility and scalability to support innovation and future production needs

Joy equipment faces many challenges. The first is machine integration and control. The business end of the machine has a rapidly-spinning cylinder with 6-inch diamond-studded cutting teeth. It chews through rock at rates measured in tens of tons per minute. The system grinds through the rock in front, creating a rectangular mine tunnel. Hydraulic lifters support the ceiling as the machine moves forward. Automated drills and screws drive 3-ft long screws into the ceiling to stabilize it. The rock and coal fall into a set of gathering "fingers" below the cutting cylinder. These fingers scoop up the rock and coal and deposit it onto a conveyor belt. The conveyor passes under the machine and out the back. A train of conveyor belt cars, up to a mile long, follows the cutter into the mine. The rock shoots along this train at over 400 feet per minute until it empties into rail cars at the end. Current systems place an operator cage next to the cutter. Choking dust (potentially explosive), the risk of collapse and the proximity of metal and rock mayhem make the operator cage a hazardous location.

The customer company need a centric-view of all equipment & assets, so as to enable RCM (Reliability-Centered Maintenance) and TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) process. The customer's goal is to fully utilize the life-cycle of equipment and thus improving their OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness).

Johnson Controls has advised Jaguar Land Rover on matters relating to the service, maintenance and repair of the Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems installed at the Gaydon Centre for almost 20 years. In 2012 we were invited to submit a proposal for replacement of the evaporator installed in the Climatic Wind Tunnel. In a ‘Site Survey Report’ submitted to Jaguar Land Rover, we drew their attention to the key factors that we believed were behind the evaporator’s less then optimum level of performance. The bulk of these stemmed from the fact that the existing evaporator was over 20 years old and throughout its working life a number of design changes had been made to the overall system that it formed a part of, thus rendering it no longer fit for purpose. Examples of such key factors included: • The old evaporator’s level of performance was now too ‘industrial’. It was capable of operating within a temperature range of -40°C and +55°C, while projected requirements were for a temperature range of between -10°C and +50°C. • Our concerns were raised over the suitability of the existing heat transfer fluid being used, which was proving to be highly corrosive. • The old evaporator was still operating on the soon to be banned R22 refrigerant. The use of all HCFCs for the service and maintenance of HVAC&R systems will become a criminal offence from 1st January 2015.

King's Hawaiian wanted to create a common infrastructure for machine builders for fi rst centralized data-collection system on a greenfield site

Hillshire Brands's weight variance in one-pound sausage rolls was driving up product giveaway and lost revenue.

Each day, PAK picked up soiled linen which had been hand counted by its customers. On the following day, they were expected to return the exact same amount of linens. However, manual counts conducted by PAK’s customers were always inaccurate (a problem inherent to soiled counting) and not being able to return exact amounts was very problematic. PAK sought an RFID-enabled textile-tracking system to enable total linen monitoring throughout the whole linen cycle, while increasing facility and operation efficiency, preventing loss and ensuring customers receive the correct textiles. PAK chose to work with USTEK RFID Solutions, a sister company that designs and manufactures integrated RFID terminals for industrial laundry markets worldwide. It was challenging to find RFID products that operated well in the PAK facility, as the environment was damp and full of metal trolleys. After testing many different readers, chips and antennas in the facility, USTEK and PAK chose to use Impinj products due to their superior performance.

Renesas Electronics America (REA)'s on-premises, legacy integration system required a manual process of custom coding by an on-site expert and was costly and complicated. REA needed to replace the existing system. In addition, due to relocation, REA wanted to move the data center to the cloud.

VISIBILITY - Currently unable to see amount of power consumed per machine or plant; need to account for energy used per batch. WASTE - 10% of product fails quality standards, unable to identify point of failure (initial spinning, weaving, final processing, etc). INACCURACY - Acquiring OEE measurements and compiling them is a manual process, which lacks visibility into all parts of the production process and is error-prone. LACK OF INTEROPERABILITY - Outdated machinery still has long, effective lifespans but needs to connect to newer, digital assets

The idea for the Moocall calving sensor came about when one of the Moocall founding team, Niall Austin lost a heifer and her calf due to a difficult calving back in 2010. He had a theory that a device to measure tail movement might be able to predict the onset of calving and brought the idea to the other Moocall founders Michael Stanley and Emmet Savage. After many months of research and development the MooCall device was born, however they needed robust and reliable, global connectivity with roaming capability to ensure that this critical data could be transferred the crucial moment. Vodafone IoT worked closely with MooCall to implement a solution that works seamlessly every time, wherever the cow might be situated.

A large amount of engineering work involving frequent specification changes not only resulted in a nightmare for staff but also caused a considerable amount of material wastage due to miscommunication and last minute change notices. Need a system that is not too complicated to manage, and is easy to learn and use for typical employees because there a shortage of specialist IT staff and the company employs many short-term contract employees. Need an application that is not too expensive to implement, easy to use and powerful enough to handle a large volume of work.

The leading CPG company operates several warehouses, mostly closer to the last distribution point (Large retailers). Products in various categories are packaged in specific delivery or display cartons at these facilities. As most CPG businesses consist of high volume with low margins, optimizing every operation and effective utilization of resources add up to profit margins. The key problem at these warehouses is the lack of visibility into reasons for machine breakdowns or idle time, thereby delay in delivery. The sunrise meetings lead to post-mortem of delivery issues like delay or quality. The customer wanted to implement real-time line monitoring and alert system to gain control over downtime issues and implement improvement measures.

Inaccurate order picking and resulting loss of customer satisfaction.

The client wanted to reduce operating costs while increasing efficiency and consistency within the IT and quality assurance organizations. Executive management mandated continuous process improvement, but the environment lacked consistent processes or tools to manage. A cost-effective software testing was needed.

The customer’s manufacturing process takes raw aluminum billets and uses a cold rolling process to produce rolled aluminum goods. A throughput bottleneck was identified at the cooling station as the existing temperature measurement process required the crane operator to climb down from the crane regularly and perform direct measurements on the rolls.

For many manufacturing companies today, the opportunity to connect people, process, data, and things created by the Internet of Everything (IoE) presents a new way to look at factory automation. The opportunity for digital innovation often arises when a company is expanding capacity or building a new production facility. Mahindra and Mahindra, one of India’s leading automakers, seized the opportunity to deploy a connected factory of the future at their new Chakan facility.

The Internet of Things is an $800 billion industry, with over 8.4 billion connected devices online, and spending predicted to reach nearly $1.4 trillion by 2021 [1]. Most of these devices need to connect to the Internet to function. However, current solutions such as cellular, WiFi, and Bluetooth are suboptimal: they are too expensive, too power hungry, or too limited in range.

Vistara is a multi-tenant SaaS based product that serves thousands of customers, managing a large number of devices. Vistara runs on a highly scalable Big Data platform that processes over a billion data samples per day. Vistara is architected to be scaled out on demand. To ensure that Vistara can meet real-time performance demands, the product is tested thoroughly under variety of conditions and against a wide range of devices. Specific features, like Vistara’s performance data visualization, also require in-depth testing. Vistara’s QA team previously used only physical devices in their lab for testing. With this approach, it was very difficult to test product behavior under extreme load scenarios across devices from many different vendors. To address this need, Vistara decided to augment their lab with a network simulator. Vistara needed an enterprise grade network simulator that can simulate SNMP agent behavior as well as various console protocols such SSH/Telnet in depth. They also needed a tool that came with a large library of pre-defined networks that they could use as simulated test devices. Vistara evaluated the market for an enterprise grade network simulator. MIMIC SNMP and Telnet/SSH Simulator stood out in meeting all of its requirements.

Inability to predict wind power supply limited how much power renewable energy sources could provide.

The client wanted the system to go-live in a short duration of time and it is very critical for them to do this before their production. They wanted a strong SAP (System Application and Products) implementation partner with expertise and experience in the manufacturing domain, especially with expertise in the automotive and Supply Chain space.The client wanted their SAP system to be aligned with their business processes and wanted to derive maximum benefits out of their SAP investments. The client was very particular about having a robust and operational SAP system much ahead of their production timelines.

Tetro factory had the following challenges: - Controlling the production flow, tracing mistakes and optimizing performance. - Running a fully integrated knowledge-based business with systems that work seamlessly together. - Centralizing manufacturing production data into one system that can be viewed and analyzed from a single-point-of-entry. - Pinpointing in real-time which stations are compromising production and what can be done to restore and improve efficiency. -Implementing preventative maintenance and ensuring minimum downtime. - Monitoring energy consumption and optimizing material consumption per product.

• Greater agility, flexibility and control • Cost reduction and process innovation • Improved user experience on a range of workstations and devices

Cisco provides many applications as a part of this solution; Hosted Collaboration Fulfillment-Mediation (HCM-F), Cisco Prime Collaboration Assurance, Cisco Unified Call Manage(CUCM), Cisco Unified Presence(CUP), Cisco Unity Connection(CUCxN), Cisco Unified Operation Manager (CUOM), and Cisco Prime License Manager. There are many communications technologies linking the different components: SOAP, REST, XML, SNMP, Cisco IOS, LDAP, VOIP, Telnet and SSH. They all need to be verified for various combinations of scenarios, features and scalability. That is a huge task which would need many different tools to be used and configured. Instead Cisco decided to use one tool that can provide all the test environments they need, MIMIC Web and SNMP Simulator.

Small changes in productivity equal large gains for the bottom line is true for fast-moving consumer goods and food service. However, traditional Statistical Process Control is now facing limits.

MAAC is a corporate situated in Chicago and specialized in manufacturing thermoforming machinery and other companion products. MAAC found out that the automation control technology was the key to succeed in the machinery sector.

All industrial measurements are inaccurate and uncertain. As a consequence, a company never has rigorous information about its processes. What’s more, the real numbers about process performance may very well remain hidden in measurement noise. Belsim develops Data Validation & Reconciliation software that automatically corrects measurements in industrial processes. The VALI-suite is the result of many years of R&D and it represents the centerpiece of Belsim’s intellectual property. This led Belsim’s search for a robust yet flexible solution for software protection and license management.

Shimane Fujitsu, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fujitsu and a leading manufacturer of business notebooks and tablets, set out to improve processes where factory inspections found product errors. Prioritizing product rework based on shipping date was challenging, and it caused Shimane Fujitsu to incur additional shipping fees. The company needed a way to collect data to better track the location of products in the rework cycle as well as monitor progress in real time. The collected data would also help process analysis for future improvements. 

The shipping and installing the physical demo equipment to be displayed at trade show exhibitions is expensive, time consuming and requires significant manpower.