Augury

Over at Manufacturing.net, Augury’s VP of Strategy Artem Kroupenev discusses four ways to attract and retain team members. In short: “The breakthroughs of today are what the future industry will be built upon. Invite job seekers to be a part of it.”

This article first appeared on Manufacturing.net on Aug 3, 2022 

No one needs to tell you that there’s a significant labor shortage in manufacturing. You need only look to your open positions to find proof of that. With the Great Resignation, job openings in manufacturing are at record highs: 800,000 each month.

Although great efforts are being made to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and recruit the next generation of talent, manufacturing labor shortages are quite the hurdle to surmount. All is not lost, however. One study found that perceptions are changing around manufacturing, largely due to the industry’s response to the pandemic. But more work needs to be done to attract and retain top talent.

Money is often a good start, as are time-off benefits and greater schedule flexibilities, but companies need to think more about rewriting the cultural narrative of what manufacturing is to better reflect its current state. Technology in manufacturing has been reshaping the industry, but our recruiting tactics don’t reflect that. We show how working for a manufacturer is an attractive proposition for talent with the skills and background to succeed in the industry.

How to Attract Manufacturing Employees and Retain Team Members 

With such a labor shortage, it may be tempting to focus on training and recruiting the next generation of people to work in the manufacturing industry. But that’s not enough. We can’t just wait for a whole generation to grow up and enter the workforce. Instead, turn your attention toward getting the right systems in place to make the proposition of job opportunities more appealing to talent of all ages. The following are often the best places to start:

1. Create Higher Value With Manufacturing Positions
2. Increase Diversity Through Company Culture
3. Change the Perception of Manufacturing
4.  Institute Reskilling Efforts

Read more about these four approaches in the full article on Manufacturing.net.

At a panel discussion during Hannover Messe 2022, representatives from academia, business and government gathered for a constructive look at how manufacturing can not only be transformed to increase productivity, but also become a driver of a human-centered, sustainable and resilient society. “Only by bringing the ingenuity of individuals to the forefront can Industry 4.0 technologies fulfill its promise.”

One Goal, Three Perspectives

Bringing together the wildly contrasting worlds of academia, business and policymaking – the triple helix model of innovation – has long been standard for applying AI and data science to human healthcare. Basically, you need to align all three if you want to take on the technical, ethical, social and legal whirlwind involved in bringing a medical innovation to market. And when it works, the pay-offs can be huge – as we recently witnessed with the speedy development of a rainbow of Covid-19 treatments. 

The panel discussion ‘Looking Beyond 4.0 – Industry As A Driver Of A Human-Centered, Sustainable And Resilient Society’ at Hannover Messe 2022 showed why the triple helix model should be more commonly deployed in helping accelerate change in the increasingly complex world of manufacturing – especially now when the industry must achieve both production goals and societal ones.

“Industry 5.0 provides a strategic orientation to make companies use Industry 4.0 technologies fully, while maximizing industry’s contribution to a sustainable and prosperous society,” noted the panel’s moderator Liviu Stirbat, the Head of Unit Industry 5.0 at the European Commission.  

The View from Academia: First, The Bad News…

As senior research scientist at TNO Innovation for Life, Professor Steven Dhondt is the main coordinator for the EU-funded ‘Beyond 4.0’ research project. He opened the panel by presenting the bad news: wages, employment and productivity all remain too low. “The expected fruits of industry 4.0 are just not there. Yes, there are the 2% of companies that excel in everything, but the 90% who are the followers are really lagging.”

Even companies that are doing well and “speak to our imaginations” such as ASML in the Netherlands or FANUC in Japan are “struggling to make industry 4.0 a great success”, according to Professor Dhondt. “So, industry 5.0 is a new context for companies to think within,” he said. “Companies need to engage their employees to participate in thinking about what’s needed for companies to reach a higher level of productivity.”

Meanwhile, according to Professor Dhondt’s research, of those already working in manufacturing jobs related to robotics, AI and big data, only 18% feel they are being listened to by their employers. 

So there’s work to be done…

Good Business: Motivating, Capturing and Fostering Workforce Creativity 

Doctor Barbara Frei is Executive Vice President of Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric, a leader in digital automation and energy management (and Augury investor and partner). Doctor Frei very much represents the real-world aspects of a company that employs 140,000 people with 300 manufacturing sites worldwide. Happily, she offered good news. 

“Involving people very early is key for having a successful implementation of Industry 4.0,” says Doctor Frei. “Sustainability has always been at the core of what we are doing. Already in 2005, we launched our first sustainability program. But it’s not only about the CO2 emissions, it’s very much also how we engage our employees and treat people. It’s really about people-centricity.”

Around 20 years ago, Schneider Electric started deploying short interval management in its manufacturing sites. This involves the site team meeting daily or twice a week to look at KPIs such as quality and output, and discussing methods for improvement – with everyone being encouraged to participate. 

The approach worked, but only really took off in 2019 when the process was digitized and became much easier to track. Now 34,000 ideas later, about 45% of these have been implemented. “And that’s so motivating for our employees,” said Doctor Frei. “They can look anytime in one of the PC terminals on the shop floor to see Hey, where is my idea? Has my idea been reviewed or implemented? What was the KPI in the end? How did we perform?’”  

From 2017, Schneider Electric began setting up their Smart Factory Program, which also actively involves those working on the floor and in support functions. They’re the ones who decide what’s best to implement – based on their knowledge of their particular site’s capabilities – in terms of digitalization, automation and making more data-based decisions.

Besides being inspiring for the team, the approach also works to impress customers visiting the site. “The employees themselves present to the customer saying, Look, this is what we have implemented. This is working well… And this is working less well… This gives us a strong credibility in how we’re implementing industry 4.0,” said Doctor Frei. “It shows clients we eat our own food.”

“So, I would say we did it a bit the other way around: we came from a people-centric approach, and then built the industry 4.0 implementation on top of this.”

Policymaking: Supporting the Innovators

Peter Dröll is Director for Research and Innovation at the European Commission. As an EU leader, he represents the political side of the spectrum. He believes fervently in looping in workforce creativity and insight to reinvigorate industry. With manufacturing representing one job out of five, he sees any decline in manufacturing as a direct threat to European cohesion and democracy – citing ‘The Revenge of the Places That Don’t Matter’ as one potential outcome.

“Industry, which in Latin means ‘hard work’, is about going from the individual to the collective, and from the small to the scale. But currently, industry is also not only part of the solution, it is also part of the problem – in terms of emissions and resources. We need to transform,” says Director Dröll. “This is what’s behind 5.0: to bring the ingenuity of the individual, as we heard from Schneider Electric, more to the forefront.” 

“So how are we going to do it?” he asked. Basically besides sponsoring research, the EU is putting money where its mouth is, for instance via the ‘ERA industrial technology roadmap for low-carbon technologies in energy-intensive industries’ and more grassroots initiatives such as the first Industry 5.0 Award. “And look out for more Industry 5.0 projects in the future investment package.”

Let’s Get Concrete: Sharing The Success Stories

The second part of the panel discussion addressed what further concrete steps were needed to push through the Industry 5.0 agenda. 

Professor Dhondt noted that research should now focus more on the actual workers – “We still need to learn more from them.” He also believes companies should be more actively pushed to invest in themselves and the future.  

Doctor Frei named upskilling and leadership. “Upskilling is really key. But we also need leaders who can explain to the team: Why are we doing this? What’s the picture we’re going towards?”

Director Dröll agreed. “We need leaders who take risks, who show that it’s possible – that industry can be competitive, clean, and provide a regenerative nature of production – giving back the human and natural capital. And we need to showcase these success stories of trendsetters over trend followers.”

“As well as success stories about those who upskilled successfully,” added Professor Dhondt.

And to prove the power of stories, the panel ended with Doctor Frei sharing a personal experience. “Together with 300 employees – all of them skilled people – I lost my job once because of a consolidation of factories. We all found a job within the shortest time. I’m happy that this happened, because I would never have the career path that I do right now. So, I believe even if there is a restructuring, there is usually a better opportunity just looking for you.”

Participants of Hannover 2022 can watch the full panel discussion here.

To learn more about how Augury is taking Industry 4.0 to the next level, read ‘The Trillion-Dollar Challenge: Closing The Gap With Production Health’.

Looking for a happy ending? Cheerful news around manufacturing seems hard to find these days. But it’s there if you dig deeper! Read all about it in our monthly round-up of manufacturing-related news.

Impending Gas Catastrophe May Spark Post-Winter Party

It’s not looking good, according to ‘Europe’s Winter of Discontent’.

“If you have spent the past few days being sizzled alive on a Mediterranean beach or slow-roasted on the streets of Berlin, London or Rome amid a heatwave, cold weather may be the last thing on your mind. But make no mistake, winter is coming, and it promises to be brutal and divisive because of an energy crisis that is rapidly worsening as Vladimir Putin strangles supplies of Russian gas.”

“Industrial users such as chemicals and glassmaking firms are in trouble, as well as a broad list of businesses, including many German champions.”

It’s time for the European Union to show unity. It’s time for a plan. Sacrifices will need to be made. But it may be a blessing in disguise: “The prize for Europe is not just getting through the coming months. Europe will forever free itself from Russian energy intimidation. It will also have created a coherent continent-wide energy-security mechanism that will help accelerate the shift to cleaner energy. Europe has a habit of coming together during crises. It is time to do so again. If you are reading this in Paris or Madrid with the air-conditioning on, turn it down a notch.”

Once Again: A Perfect Storm of Perfect Storms

“War, raising the specter of nuclear conflict. Climate change, threatening famine, flood, and fire. Inflation, forcing central banks to crush consumer demand. The pandemic, closing factories and overloading hospitals. Each crisis is hard enough to parse by itself; the interconnected mess of them is infinitely more so,” according to ‘A Crisis Historian Has Some Bad News For Us’.

“America and the world are living through what Adam Tooze, the internet’s foremost historian of money and disaster, describes as a ‘polycrisis’. As he sips a beer at a bar near Columbia University, where he is the director of the European Institute, Tooze talks through a long list of challenges.”

The once obscure academic is now an economic influencer. And while he drowns us in bad news, he remains strangely chirpy. “In person, he comes off as intellectual, sure, but also self-deprecating, voluble, funny. While we chat polycrisis, he riffs on his love of cities (‘You cannot feel depressed!’); his sense of alienation, being so few degrees from so many important people (‘a weird club’); and his experience in therapy (‘Being present is the hardest thing on Earth’).”

Meanwhile: “He is offering no reassurance about where that might head – only the hope that perhaps this polycrisis might be knowable to us.”

Here’s to turning knowledge into power.

ESG Is Not Experiencing Its Happiest Hour

“Every industry can be part of the solution — or part of the ongoing problem”, according to ‘Corporate Greenwashing Is Getting Harder To Spot – Here’s How To Do It’. “Greenwashing obscures the level of change that needs to happen,” says one activist. “It’s a giant societal placebo that makes you think we’re moving in the right direction when that’s not true.”

Meanwhile, much ire is saved for ESG – since its vagueness-in-vastness can easily be exploited. “The methods used to evaluate companies’ Environmental, Social, and Governance credentials are often misleading and downplay climate impacts.”

In another article, it’s argued ‘ESG Should Be Boiled Down To One Simple Measure: Emissions’. “Although ESG is often well-meaning it is deeply flawed. It risks setting conflicting goals for firms, fleecing savers and distracting from the vital task of tackling climate change. It is an unholy mess that needs to be ruthlessly streamlined.”

And indeed, it’s good to focus. “Investors and regulators are already pushing to make disclosure by firms of their emissions more uniform and universal. The more standardized they are, the easier it will be to assess which companies are large carbon culprits—and which are doing most to reduce emissions. Fund managers and banks should be better able to track the carbon footprints of their portfolios and whether they shrink over time.”

“Make no mistake, though: tougher government action is essential now.”

Turning Plastic into Innovation

Speaking of tougher government action: ‘California Requires Plastics Makers to Foot the Bill for Recycling’. “The landmark legislation also restricts single-use plastics. And because California’s economy is so big, experts say, the law could have far-reaching effects.”

It’s estimated the law will eliminate 23 million tons of plastic over the next decade.

Now, this may sound like bad news for plastic packaging manufacturers. However: “Those tracking the bill were buoyed by the comparative buy-in from industry groups, which have historically resisted producer responsibility laws. In a statement, the American Chemistry Council described the law as ‘not perfect’ but said it would work to eliminate plastic waste.”

“Recycling advocates said that they hoped the law would lead to potential innovations such as refill stations for products like detergents or beverages.”

Opportunity knocks.

This Can’t End Well. Or Can It?

“Operators are forced to defer maintenance as aging fleet is ‘run harder than it’s ever been run’,” according to ‘“Things Are Going to Break”: Texas Power Plants Are Running Nonstop’.

Power generating stations are being pushed to their limits as Texas faces a growing population, a surge in energy-hungry crypto mining, and severe weather conditions, which demands cranking either the air conditioner or the heater.

“It’s kind of like humans – we need to rest and recover. If we run full speed for a long time, we can collapse.” So, where’s the happy ending here? Well, not to toot our own horn… But haven’t they heard of Augury?

Read ‘Manufacturing – The News: Stay Positive, But Not Too Positive’.
To learn more about the good news Augury’s full-stack solutions offer manufacturers, get in touch today.

As manufacturing innovation leaders at the Colgate-Palmolive Company, Norris McLean and Andres Bejarano were instrumental in the implementation of Augury’s AI-driven Machine Health Solutions throughout the company’s global manufacturing operations. We asked them what they thought were the main secrets behind the roll-out’s success.

Left to right:  Senior Technology Engineer Norris McLean
and Global Oral Care Technical Director Andres Bejarano.

This article was originally published on May 19, 2022.

Colgate is a caring, innovative growth company reimagining a healthier future for all people, their pets and our planet – and it is leading the way in applying predictive maintenance to maximize uptime so store shelves remain filled with the company’s health and hygiene products that people need. 

In this quest, Colgate was an early-adopter of Augury’s Machine Health Solutions, which uses the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to predict and prevent industrial machine failures and improve machine performance.

Making Moves As Innovation Leaders

Senior Technology Engineer Norris McLean and Global Oral Care Technical Director Andres Bejarano are both backed by long international careers to drive innovation throughout Colgate’s Global Supply Chain. Their biographies reflect the highlights of a Colgate career: diverse experiences, global cross-functional teams, and an embrace of the Company’s FEED concept: to encourage all employees to be Focused, Experimental, Empowered and Digital.

Norris not only has a variety of patents to his name, he also developed interconnectivity strategies to increase office floor plan flexibility at two major telecoms – radically cutting floor space requirements while speeding up the implementation of new equipment. And since he represented New Jersey at the 2007 United States Tennis Association Nationals Championships, we can also assume he’s got an amazing serve.

As far as diverse backgrounds go, Norris meets his match in Andres. Andres began his career at Colgate 25 years ago and his career has grown ever since. Andres knows how to bring innovation – and savings – to the work floor, as evidenced by his work to improve the unplanned downtime globally for the company’s factories. 

Predictive Maintenance as Springboard To Full Digital Transformation

It’s safe to say Andres and Norris have found their place at Colgate. Together, they’ve been instrumental in bringing the Augury solution into the fold. 

Colgate’s Global Supply Chain organization is central to the Company’s purpose considering the millions of homes that depend on its health and hygiene products for people and pets. 

The Company is regarded as a pioneer in bolstering supply chain reliability by having rolled out a machine health program throughout all their global manufacturing operations. In fact, the Company’s ambitions go much further than just saving significantly on time, money and energy. By applying predictive maintenance technologies across the board, the Company is out to create a fully digitized manufacturing universe.

Global Manufacturing Learning Points When Applying Augury

When Andres and Norris reflected back on their journey with Augury, they had this advice to offer those just getting started.

1) Empowered Core Team, with Senior-Leader Sponsorship

“Our senior leaders empowered us to pursue this journey with Augury – that was the first step. And that sponsorship is one of the main reasons for the project’s success,” says Andres. “An empowered core team as well as engaged senior leadership was certainly key to getting started and moving the project forward.”

2) When Thinking Big, Focus

Andres recommends focusing on a key site to lead the roll-out. “We picked a site where we had a strong and engaged practitioner who could help push the pilot along. You really need to collaborate with a practitioner on the ground: not only with selecting the type of equipment you want to monitor, but to ensure all priorities are fully aligned,” says Andres. “Augury understands this and made the pilot very easy with a fast deployment. The platform is also very easy to use, which helped maintain team engagement during the pilot.”

3) Power of Partnership

“At Colgate, we believe in the power of partnership. You need to help the Augury team build relationships and have regular conversations with your team. And by ‘team’, I mean this across the board: not only with those who are in-country, but also with end users and the companies you may have brought in to do the maintenance and operations,” says Norris. “And don’t forget to include site leads and procurement, finance and logistics.” 

4) Engage Your Stakeholders Early

“If you’re looking to include international regions,” says Norris, “you should get ahead – way ahead of the planned rollout – of all requirements and procedures related to duties, importation and asset classification.”

5) Celebrate – and Communicate – Wins

“You should spotlight and promote successes in utilization and bringing down equipment downtime, as well as all the savings in terms of maintenance operations and materials,” according to Norris. “And you should do it company-wide and keep doing it on a regular basis.”

Andres totally agrees. “One thing that was very important was how the technology proved itself very quickly. So once we had a few predictions and repairs, the practitioner from the first pilot site shared the results with our other sites and with senior leaders. This helped create excitement. As a result, other sites began requesting the solution – and as we know, such requests help fuel the most effective deployments,” says Andres. 

“And by continuing to communicate the further successes, you keep up momentum. I really believe these sorts of communications were a big reason why we were able to deploy Augury worldwide so quickly and successfully.”

Learn more about how Colgate is digitizing its manufacturing universe. And do follow Colgate on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on how Colgate is reimagining a healthier future for all people, their pets and our planet.

With an effective digital transformation strategy, organizations can transform their production ecosystem into something more insight-driven, streamlined, and responsive to specific customer demands. Digital transformation in manufacturing can provide businesses with a better way to handle supply chain disruptions and give them a considerable competitive advantage.

Since early on in the pandemic, manufacturers have been dealing with supply chain disruptions. Shipment delays and a lack of supplies became the top COVID-19 worries of supply managers in 2021, and 2022 hasn’t done much to allay those concerns.

What first looked like a pandemic-induced hiccup is actually a long-term problem that organizations can no longer hope to wait out. Even if today’s shortages bounce back, manufacturers must be proactive to develop resiliency over the shortages to come. Implementing a strong digital transformation strategy will provide organizations with the control they need, both over their manufacturing operations and over their supply chains.

This type of transformation is not an easy fix. You’ll need people willing to shake up existing structures and employees ready to learn new skills and face new challenges. It will require a willingness to take a completely new approach to operations to truly bring manufacturing into the digital age. But by the end, you will have a company that is not only ahead of the pack, but also ready for whatever bumps in the road may come next.

How to Ensure Your Digital Transformation Strategy Will Produce a Competitive Advantage

Digital transformation in manufacturing has the power to significantly improve efficiency, giving you the edge over the competition. However, not every transformation is a success. While organizations that hit their transformation ROI goals surpassed those goals by an average of 50%, there were also many who failed to hit the mark, underperforming by an average of 30%. With that in mind, here are three strategies to help you overcome the challenges of digital transformation in manufacturing and, ultimately, reap its rewards.

1) Use Remote Management to Make Space for Major Strategic Initiatives

With fewer people on-site than ever, now is the time to switch to a machine health monitoring platform with a robust suite of remote management tools. Not only will this enable smarter predictive maintenance, but it will also free up a notable amount of your managers’ time. This will allow them to focus instead on important issues such as deployment and root cause analysis. It will also make it possible for them to plan out and enact innovative manufacturing initiatives designed to address deeper, portfolio-level problems rather than spending all their time on routine maintenance issues.

2) Prepare Your Employees for the Digital Future

One of the major challenges of digital transformation in manufacturing is making sure reliability and maintenance teams have the skills necessary to excel in a more modern environment — there’s simply not enough time in the day with all the routine (and often unnecessary) maintenance. Luckily, AI-driven machine health monitoring doesn’t just free up management’s time — it also lightens the load of employees and technicians, providing them with enough time necessary to focus on higher-level work.

At Augury, we’ve seen this firsthand. Companies that implemented our machine health platform saw employees across plants able to quickly start learning the precision maintenance skills necessary for their new roles while also advancing to a higher level of collaboration between operation and maintenance. Many employees even have enough time to be trained in new capabilities off-site, bringing new expertise to the manufacturing floor and strengthening their company’s digital transformation strategy.

3) Create a Culture of Collaboration and Accountability Around Machine Health

To effectively implement a digital transformation strategy, you need to get your whole staff on board. Collaboration between floor workers, technicians, reliability experts, and management is crucial if you’re serious about creating an efficient and productive business. Luckily, modern machine health monitoring platforms make cross-departmental communication easy. Even better, collaboration through this platform is built on a foundation of AI-driven insights, prioritizing verifiable facts over personal opinions.

Regular conversations around machine health should be encouraged and records of these communications captured and kept within the platform. This will provide you with a clear chain of accountability and build up a database of AI-backed insights from an ever-growing record of machine performance. These insights will inform future decisions and can be used to improve operations on both the site and portfolio levels.

It’s not certain that supply chains will ever get back to where they were pre-pandemic. Instead, it’s time to embrace innovative manufacturing strategies and digital transformation. This can increase the resiliency of your operations, allowing you to optimize production lines, increase output, and put you firmly ahead of the competition.

Interested in seeing how digital transformation can accelerate your growth? Reach out to Augury today.

Production Health combines – and amplifies – the proven benefits of Machine Health and Process Health. Watch the on-demand webinar ‘Production Health Starts Here’ to find out what this holistic approach could mean for you, your company, our industry and the world.

Unlocking Manufacturing’s Hidden Potential

A-list manufacturers rely on Augury for real-time AI insights to predict and prevent machine failure and improve machine performance. But Augury’s Machine Health Solutions is only one half of the Production Health equation.

Today, manufacturers must deal with growing consumer demands, upskilling their workforce, and producing the goods we need in a sustainable manner. By combining Process Health with Machine Health, confronting these issues while unlocking the full potential of production lines is finally possible.

That’s why Augury recently acquired Seebo, a leader in AI-based process intelligence that helps customers predict and prevent quality, yield, and waste losses. Our combined solutions can now provide AI-insights across machines, processes, and production to unlock $1T in hidden capacity and transform the efficiency, profitability, and sustainability of manufacturing.

If you want to learn more, watch the compelling webinar ‘Production Health Starts Here’.

A Stellar Industry 4.0 Cast

Hosted by Augury’s VP of Strategy Artem Kroupenev and featuring Seebo’s Co-Founder and COO Liran Akavia, the webinar includes a well-rounded selection of guests. As Senior Analyst at industry 4.0 specialists ARC Advisory, Inderpreet Shoker provides an industry-wide view. Meanwhile, representing the practitioner side, Scott Reed is on-hand as SVP Quality & Operations Services at GAF – USA’s largest roofing manufacturer.

As Artem observes during his introduction: “Machine Health is optimized for maintenance and reliability – reducing downtime, improving asset care, increasing production capacity and moving towards a predictive and prescriptive approach to maintenance. Process Health, in turn, is about optimizing quality of yield, as well as overall energy use and sustainability across the production. When taken together, we’re building what we call Production Health that provides more holistic insights that can help transform production.”

The Sweet Spot: Where Operations Meets Maintenance

“Right now, the industry has a very siloed approach,” says Inderpreet. “The Operations and Maintenance departments just don’t have the tools that would make them collaborate with one and other. And everybody knows what it could mean if they worked together. And I see this as an ongoing challenge for the industry to bring these two sides together. At the same time, we have all this data. So how can the industry use this data to our advantage – for increased profitability, sustainability and safety?”

The resulting insights is exactly what companies such as GAF are looking for, according to Scott. “It’s about knowledge and people. Our manufacturing processes are very dependent on our frontline workers and the tools they have, and the knowledge they’re able to access, while maintaining and sustaining the operation of our processes.”

Inspiring The Frontline While Driving Innovation

By providing more knowledge and insights to your workforce, you empower them to take more actions. And while streamlining production, employers are also creating the type of jobs that work to attract – and inspire – top talent. “It’s these frontline workers who will bring these algorithms to life,” observes Liran, “and drive innovation further.”

“There’s an analogy to the software engineering world of the early 1990s,” comments Artem. “There was a limited number of software engineers. it wasn’t a very sexy field to go into at the time. Now, there’s a wealth of innovation and an explosion of the number of people entering that field. Building those capabilities was in part enabled by the increased level of insights and real-time access to those insights.”

And now it’s time to see something similar happen – and in a very much accelerated form – to the manufacturing industry…

Interested in learning more about why Production Health is exciting leaders across the manufacturing industry? Watch the full webinar now.

Whether it’s at the mega Hannover Messe or the more focussed Smart Manufacturing Experience, Augury is back setting up booths at many of the upcoming manufacturing events taking place worldwide. Come by for a chat! Let’s talk future!

If you read our recent post ‘Report from NAMES: Is There Change in the Air for Manufacturing?’, you know we are thrilled to be out meeting manufacturing leaders face-to-face again. And now with our recent acquisition we’re also primed in how machine health and process health can be fused to give AI-driven insights across the full production process.

As Warren Pruitt, VP of Global Engineering Services at Colgate-Palmolive Company, describes our very recent acquisition: “We see the combination of capabilities that Augury and Seebo are working to bring together as exactly the right approach to helping us maximize production health and achieve our other goals around sustainability, workforce engagement and profitability.”

So indeed, there’s excitement in the air. And if you have any questions about recent developments around Augury, just fire away!  

As always, we’re also eager to talk about all your manufacturing challenges anywhere and at any time. 

May 25 – 26 at the American Manufacturing Summit, Chicago, IL 

The Generis American Manufacturing Summit has always been great for Augury. We really appreciate their focus on making one-on-ones happen. In that way, we can really dive in and deal with the specific challenges a particular manufacturer is facing. 

There’s also always a real sense of camaraderie here, as the industry gathers to share insights and best practices, as well as brainstorm new strategies, in how to best deal with our ever-changing manufacturing realities. Together, we are indeed stronger.

May 30 – June 2 at Hannover Messe, Hannover, Germany 

What Hannover Messe might lack in coziness as one of the world’s largest trade fairs dedicated to industry development, it makes up for in terms of sheer mass. The event attracts over 6,500 exhibitors and 250,000 visitors. Do drop by and see us! (But yes, do download the app to help you find us.)

And naturally this invitation is also open to any of the speakers at this iconic event, including Olaf Scholz, the new Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. Hey @Bundeskanzler! we’d love to share our vision on scaling with you! 

June 6 – 9 at Accelerating Industrial Digital Transformation and Sustainability, Orlando, FL

We have a soft spot for this event since it’s organized by our friends at ARC Advisory Group – with whom we share many of the same views when it comes to revitalizing the manufacturing industry. As they put it, they are believers in “disruptive technologies to transform business operations and competitive strategies, improve resilience, reduce costs, and better serve customers.” In fact, we read all their reports, including the one around the trillion-dollar gap in manufacturing that we are actively out to unlock. 

June 7 – 9 at the Smart Manufacturing Experience, Pittsburgh, PA

Augury is also very much aligned with this inspiring event. It’s co-organized by The Smart Manufacturing Institute, the nonprofit working tirelessly to help put the cultural and technological requirements in place required to digitally transform our industry as a whole. We’re not there yet, but meanwhile you can connect at this ‘experience’ with the like-minded. Everyone here is out to upskill the workforce, improve product quality, and generally advance the future of manufacturing.

What we also appreciate about this event and The Smart Manufacturing Institute as a whole is how they are out to share the love for innovation by actively targeting and involving more mid-size manufacturers. Great work! 

June 16 at The Future of Maintenance & Reliability Conference

Full disclosure: this is actually an online event. However, it’s also the largest of its sort in our sector. Here you can join over a thousand leaders from not only manufacturing but also energy & infrastructure, automotive, healthcare, facility management & maintenance, transport, etcetera. Basically, this conference is for everyone interested in transforming their maintenance & reliability strategies.  

We’ll certainly be on hand, as well as hosting our own workshop. And don’t miss the keynote from our friend Jake Hall, The Manufacturing Millennial.

For any of these events feel free to reach out in advance, or just look for us at the Augury booth!

May 25 – 26 at the American Manufacturing Summit, Chicago, IL
May 30 – June 2 at Hannover Messe, Hannover, Germany
June 6 – 9 at Accelerating Industrial Digital Transformation and Sustainability, Orlando, FL
June 7 – 9 at the Smart Manufacturing Experience, Pittsburgh, PA
June 16 at The Future of Maintenance & Reliability Conference

See our full event schedule. 

Industrial leaders are finally demanding – and finding – value-proven technologies 

There was a spark in the air at last week’s North American Manufacturing Excellence Summit (NAMES) in Chicago. Part of that energy was generated by the excitement of being back to in-person events. We were thrilled to be face to face with manufacturing leaders, hearing about their challenges and successes and talking about Machine Health. Plus, it was amazing to be socializing IRL, away from video meetings, mute buttons, and screen sharing – what a relief!

Even better, we heard a lot of excitement from industrial leaders about the state of manufacturing tech and what the future looks like for digital transformation, ESG, and improving operational efficiency. Our observations:

• After years of much talk and little progress, manufacturers sense that progress is on the horizon. Across sectors, there’s belief that a wave of technology-enabled improvements is coming, from maximizing machine efficiency to better employee safety and uncovering capacity and org-wide process improvements. 
• We think it’s even more exciting than that, because those outcomes are happening right now. Here’s how two of our customers are seeing real-world improvements:

PepsiCo saw zero breakdowns or interruptions after one year, saved one million pounds of food, and gained four months of saved run-time. Colgate-Palmolive used Machine Health to cut costs, boost quality, and create a fully digitized manufacturing universe.

Augury’s James Newman, Director of Market Strategy, spoke about how we’re making these benefits a reality for manufacturers. In his presentation, “Digital Transformation that Works: Machine Health Drives Organizational Outcomes,” he discussed how our full-stack, AI-driven  solution delivers prescriptive diagnostics to people on the front lines of machine health, allowing them to save time, money, and resources with predictive maintenance. (Read more here about how our AI tools are helping companies with digital transformation). 

More Excitement on the Horizon: Meet Us at these Upcoming Events!

We’re eager to talk about manufacturing challenges, AI advances, and Machine Health any time, but we’re especially excited to meet all of you industrial leaders in person at any of these upcoming events! 

• May 25 and 26 at the American Manufacturing Summit, Chicago, IL
• May 30 to June 2 at Hannover Messe, Hannover, Germany 
• June 6 – 9 at ARC Advisory Group’s Accelerating Industrial Digital Transformation and Sustainability, Orlando, FL
• June 7 – 9 at the Smart Manufacturing Experience, Pittsburgh, PA

Reach out in advance, or just look for us at the Augury booth!

Products and their manufacturing processes are only becoming more complicated. Hence, collaboration has become more important for sharing risks, costs and specialty skills. Now as more governments smell the long-term gains to be made in innovation, they are investing in evermore hubs for startups and corporates to work together. But is it really a fair trade-off? Read all about it!

Imagine: you’ve come up with a sensor that scavenges its own power, or a solar panel that generates electricity at night. Such paradigm-shifting products can change the world. But it’s also very possible that the dream gets smashed – like Google Glass.

So, what do you do? You bring in collaborators to share in the pleasure and/or pain.

Healthcare is already one sector where innovations are achieved by the coming together of a whole rainbow of disparate players – academia, big pharma, startups, care facilities, government bodies, etcetera. This only makes sense. A single medicine can take 10 years and a couple of billion dollars before it actually starts helping people. And now such trajectories are becoming more common across many industries.

Go For It: Save The World

For instance, one chemicals company took a decade to go from being an academic spin-off to manufacturing and first sales, according to ‘We Commercialized A Methane Capture Technology In Ten Years — Here’s How’.

“That sounds like a long time, but it’s actually fast. In our field of industrial chemistry, it often takes up to 20 years to get a product out of the lab and on to the market,” says one of the founders. “Most prototypes fail at the first hurdle – getting industry backing. Patents last for only 20 years, making it a race against time.”

And yes: “Beyond an exciting product, it needs time, money, business management and collaboration across many sectors.” And if your innovation has international potential, you should try to pull in international partners. “These open up funding channels, areas of expertise and markets. Conferences and exhibitions are good places to connect.”

“Finally, find collaborators wherever conditions are most favourable. For example, we benefited from working with partners in Australia for IP generation, a German manufacturer who supplied specialized raw materials, and gas companies in China for processing and commercial demonstration.”

They have one final piece of advice: Just go for it! Especially if you foresee making positive real-world impact. In this case: “Methane accounts for 16-20% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, and is more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.”

See The Light. Share The Vision

“Faster, lighter, more durable, and, at the end of the day, also much cheaper: the benefits of photonic circuits are considerable, for a wide range of applications. And the Netherlands plays an important role, globally, in the development and application of this key technology,” according to ‘Shared Innovation Is An Essential Condition In The World Of Photonics’.

“The development of new technologies is so complex and expensive that companies cannot do it alone. What’s more, the necessary knowledge is often spread across research institutes and companies. It is part of the strength of the Netherlands to collectively enable developments which we would not get done individually.”

And startups are often a smart choice as collaborator. They’re also easily dispensible: “If something doesn’t work, we pull the plug.”

Corporates And Startups: Is It Really A Match Made In Heaven?

Today “co-innovation” hubs are popping up like so many pimples on an adolescent boy. Governments are indeed stepping up to make long-term investments for the greater good down the road (and the potentially dizzying ROI).

It’s certainly working for Singapore: ‘How Co-Innovation Is Driving Industrial Transformation in Singapore’s Manufacturing Sector’. (And yes, this article is an advertorial but a rather informative one.)

“The success of the partnership speaks to the power of open innovation, with a large corporate combining its own industry expertise and scale with the skills and innovation that a start-up partner can bring to the table. […] “It is an ecosystem that promises to benefit both sides hugely, enabling start-ups to grow at pace through tackling real-world issues at scale, and multinationals to tap into an incredible and ever-growing pool of cutting-edge innovation and talent.”

But the process is not all sunshine. “Both parties need to understand the tedious process of having multiple iterations to reach consensus on the right functionality.”

Step Up. Or Lose Opportunity

Almost three-quarters of manufacturing leaders in the UK say collaborating with startups is part of their long-term strategy to stimulate innovation. However, many are not making it a priority over the next year, according to ‘How Manufacturers Are Turbo Charging Innovation Through Start-Ups’.

Many see this as a risk-adverse – and short-sighted – response to COVID-19. And in actual fact, “manufacturers can insulate themselves from it by managing projects closely and working in collaboration with suppliers to help define scope and detailing project milestones. The risk/reward is heavily in favour of using start-ups who normally revolve around a committed team who work hard and are keen to succeed.”

After all: “Nobody excels by doing the same as everyone else.”

Read: ‘Manufacturing – The News: The Rise Of Radical Modularity’.

The second episode of ChangeOver – the home to the Machine Health Movement – deep dives into the state of Career Health. Expert guests include a legendary former VP of Manufacturing, his sons following in his footsteps, a MIT social scientist and the ‘Manufacturing Millennial’. Together, they chart out how current technologies not only improve operations but also work to create meaningful and lucrative career opportunities.

Manufacturing As Attractive Career Choice

Today, manufacturers face dual questions: 

1)     How can we fight the perfect storm of worker and skills shortages? 

2)     How can we inspire young people to join the manufacturing workforce – and make them as adept with a tablet as with a toolbox? 

The answer for both is technology, according to ChangeOver host Jason Silva of National Geographic’s ‘Brain Games!’ fame.  

“Technologies like machine health, AI and IIoT give frontline workers higher value and more interesting work, while supplementing overstretched and under-skilled teams and improving the quality of life on the factory floor,” says Jason. “New tech also allows manufacturing workers to gain digital skills that open up entirely new career paths. In other words, machine health really is career health.” 

And such digital transformations are proving effective: “A recent survey of Gen Z manufacturing workers showed that 92% were satisfied with their jobs, and said those jobs pay well and have a strong technology focus.”

Watch the full episode on-demand now!

Home of The Machine Health Movement

The second episode of ChangeOver took place on 3 March 2022 with the title ‘Boots on the Ground, Heads in the Cloud: High-Tech Manufacturing Workforce’. While the first edition was a general overview on how machine health contributes to improving careers, businesses and supply chains, this 35-minute episode focuses on the current challenges related to the manufacturing workforce.  

Industry legend Eduardo (Ed) Ballina and his two sons who followed in his footsteps are on hand to share their insights, along with MIT social scientist Ben Armstrong and ‘The Manufacturing Millennial’ Jake Hall. They all agree: with the right technologies backed by the right training, the future of manufacturing looks bright – for both manufacturers and workers. 

The Flying Ballina Family

It’s educational and entertaining to witness former PepsiCo VP for Manufacturing and Warehousing Ed Ballina talk shop with his two sons Eddie and David. In fact, they deserve their own reality show.

The two brothers followed their dad into manufacturing but only after taking their own circuitous routes – routes that were obviously not stress-free for their parents. “Actually, I think I committed an injustice,” says Ed, “pushing the idea that to be successful, you have to go to college, get a degree and run up mountains of debt.”

In the end, while many young people are lured by the simpler work and similar starting pay offered by the Amazons and Walmarts, the brothers were attracted to the challenges and salary potential of manufacturing. “At the end of the tunnel, you can make six figures a year as a mechanic in aviation. But yes, the startup is a little rough,” says Eddie. 

Today, all three Ballinas are champions of machine health, with Ed bringing in the historical perspective. “I remember following around this guy, Bob Bauer. He would grab a broomstick and put one end on the bearing block and the other against his muffs. I realized he was using it as a stethoscope! It was vibration analysis, but the old-fashioned way. Now fast forward to today, we have sensors that can pick that information up, along with a lot of other info, and with a much higher degree of accuracy,” says Ed. “And now with all these Bob Bauers retiring, machine health is only going to be more important.” 

The Ballina Family panel concludes with “a huge shout-out for all the folks that work in supply chain. They really are the heroes,” says Ed. “They work long hours with a lot of stress to get products on the shelves day-in-day-out. And they can’t Zoom it in.” The sons agree vigorously.

Getting Creative With Training and Upskilling

Ben Armstrong is a research scientist and interim executive director at MIT’s Industrial Performance Center, where he examines how manufacturing workers, firms and regions adapt to technological change. 

Ben notes how manufacturing wages have not adjusted to inflation since the 1980s – and this is the main reason why the industry is largely “no longer upwardly mobile, stable, a path to the middle class”. He believes investment into new technologies, backed by the proper training, as the way to reestablish this upward mobility – while also working to replenish the workforce. 

Traditionally, manufacturers have tried to minimize training their workers out of fear they’d be poached by competitors. However, Ben points to new forms of apprenticeships that may offer a workaround. For instance, the Alliance For Working Together in Ohio brings together mostly SMEs to share expertise and learning sessions to cut investment costs. It also stops poachers since “it essentially leads to them being ostracized from this community of manufacturers,” says Ben.

Ben also sees a lot of potential in Manufacturing USA, which links innovation institutes across the country. “It builds on American strengths,” says Ben. “Because it tries to mix the US competitiveness in R&D with manufacturing.”

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel: Manufacturing

“There is a lot of opportunity in manufacturing,” says Jake Hall – aka ‘The Manufacturing Millennial’ – during his rallying-cry conclusion. “You can learn while you earn. Meanwhile, manufacturers need to better communicate their purpose. No longer is it just this dark, dirty, dangerous and dull environment. The industry is in fact full of opportunity.”

The above article only touches on a few of the many offered insights during this edition of ChangeOver. So watch the full 35-minute episode on-demand.

And please follow ChangeOver where we will continue to chart out the Machine Health Movement.