“Innovation is exciting – and inspiring. Join us in solving your very specific manufacturing problems,” says Augury’s Product Marketing Managers. In this ongoing series ‘What is Production Health?’, we talk with various key players about the potential in unifying Machine Health with Process Health – and making Maintenance & Operations teams unite in the process.
As Product Marketing Managers at Augury, Kristen Hoppe and Amy Marchesi are interpreters of sorts. They help link Augury’s customers and market with Augury’s product team to define and share how Augury’s innovative products and solutions help solve manufacturing’s biggest challenges. With Amy responsible for Machine Health and Kristen tasked with Process Health, they are the perfect combo to discuss Augury’s quest to combine the two into an all-encompassing Production Health solution.
Read: ‘Roadmap To The Future:
Machine Health + Process Health = Production Health’
Car Vs Cookie: The Ultimate Showdown
It’s still early days, but how are you describing this transition Augury is making towards Production Health?
Kristen: We’re still definitely in the process of more clearly defining our ambitions. But if you’re looking at it from a holistic perspective, it’s about bringing more insights about your production line to operators as well as the decision-makers – to really help everyone involved to better understand the different pieces of what’s going on. As a result, you can prevent loss: may it be by avoiding machine failure, or by minimizing waste or energy use.
Amy: I’ve been trying to find a fitting analogy. And I’m not there yet. But I have a car analogy – because when all else fails, cars always work [laughter]. So, let’s say you have a car that always gets flat tires. The first thing you might think about is the quality of the tires. So, you get better ones. But then you still keep getting flat tires. Then you start to think maybe it’s your driving. So, you start driving more carefully – but you still get flat tires. So, maybe you just need to change these tires more regularly. But this comes with so much cost and inconvenience…
But what you really need is something that checks all the variables – not only the tires and the driver, but also the weather, the state of the roads, etcetera – that could be impacting why you are getting flat tires. And then it turns out to be your route to work: you go by a construction site with lots of debris. So, then you just change your route and you drive happily ever after…
Kristen: I also like the cookie analogy that the Process Health Team uses: that Process Health is about taking in all the factors so you can create that perfect cookie every time. And by looping in Machine Health, we’re also making sure that the things you need to make this perfect cookie are never going down – so you can just continue making those perfect cookies non-stop.
Finally: The Dream Of Industry 4.0 Is Waking Up
Besides when talking about cars or delicious cookies, are there other specific times when people’s eyes light up when you are talking about Production Health?
Amy: I think our customers understand what it’s about: Production Health is the original promise of Industry 4.0 – one that began all shiny but then got further and further out of reach. And now we finally have the concrete steps for actually getting there – to finally fulfill that dream.
Kristen: People seem to get excited when they realize it also offers concrete steps on the sustainability side. It’s not that people are necessarily caring more about sustainability but their companies are now really pushing for it with goals and KPIs that need to be met. They seem especially interested in reducing loss and/or waste and where you can share the monetary value with management.
And how about personally: Did you have your own a-ha moments? A moment where you said to yourself: “Oh wow, we’re really onto something here!”
Kristen: I’m fairly numbers-driven. So, when I see the actual numbers in terms of what we’ve been able to provide in terms of Process Health and Machine Health, this is a great foundation as we move forward in shaping and defining Production Health and the impact it will have on industry.
Amy: For me, it was when the Seebo team first explained in person what their Process Health platform really does: taking into account all these different variables. It really came to life for me: especially how it can fit with Machine Health. It made me better understand the symbiotic nature of our merger and how it offers a view on the full operations: how Process Health insights can improve Machine Health insights and vice versa. Together, we can give an overall picture.
And Now For Something Completely Practical
It’s indeed somewhat eerie how two separate solutions seem so built for each other. But what do you see as the main challenges in making this happen on a practical level?
Kristen: Well first, there’s an actual physical product bump: we are obviously still in the process of finding the optimal integration strategy for what were two distinct companies. On top of that, what we are creating is an entirely new category in Production Health, and that means really understanding the value our customers need to find and building those entirely new insights to deliver them. So, we need the single dashboard before we get production insights. And before that, we have to figure out how Process Health can best ingest data from Machine Health.
Amy: Yes, just from a visual standpoint, we need to have an integrated Production Health platform that includes both Process Health and Machine Health. And yes, there’s a lot of work still in how we can stitch the data sets together so we can start producing these deeper insights. But this will set the groundwork for that bigger – and very fascinating – beast of integrating other data sources into the Process Health world.
What do you think is the most important thing that Augury and Seebo customers should know right now?
Amy: Our customers are already seeing extremely concrete value for using our current solutions. And now as we go into this new frontier of Production Health, they can be actively involved in solving the use cases that are most particular to them – by starting to work with us. Just look at Colgate-Palmolive and their company and culture and see what they have done. As an early adopter of both Machine Health and process optimization, they are now so far ahead in their digitization journey – just by being brave and engaged in their endeavor. Innovation is exciting – and you get to solve the problems that are most important to you and have a big voice in the game.
Kirsten: I want them to understand, this is only the beginning and we are working towards something that will take away a lot of their day-to-day operational troubles – because we’re not chasing symptoms but going after root causes. We want them to have their best day every day. And as a result, they can just really focus on their jobs: the business side of things.
Learn more about Augury’s vision of Production Health here.
Or reach out and talk with us directly.
