Case Study
Leading global manufacturer boosted productivity by 30-40% with UST digital factory functionality
OUR CLIENT
The American multinational manufacturing company has operations in more than 25 countries, employs nearly 300,000 people, and is valued at more than $2 billion.
THE CHALLENGE
Needed to finetune new digital manufacturing management system
The client embarked on a massive multi-year smart factory project to digitize its manufacturing systems with IoT sensors to automate manual tasks, implement data-driven preventative maintenance processes, and increase manufacturing output. To support the new digital factory strategy, the company designed and deployed a proprietary management platform. However, the manufacturer wanted to optimize several aspects of the new system to increase employee productivity and equipment uptime, including:
- Unifying and streamlining several UIs into a single user-friendly screen so employees can process more work orders faster.
- Integrating real-time equipment sensor data with the production forecasting system to improve supply chain and assembly line maintenance.
- Deploying an alert system to increase user productivity.
- Synchronizing data across multiple applications, factory locations, and production lines to boost output by 30%.
THE TRANSFORMATION
UST developed a scalable microservices framework to streamline new digital factory dashboards
Because UST helped the company support the new smart factory management platform, the client tapped our digital manufacturing experts to design and deploy the overlay systems to augment the new platform. Adhering to strict development guidelines and an extremely tight 5–6-month delivery schedule, our team of consultants consolidated multiple UIs with customizable, reusable components. We implemented an API web service so third-party applications can retrieve data and call functions within the smart factory management system. Using an agile CICD architecture pipeline, we deployed a microservice for each module, including:
- A parse service to extract and process bulk measurement data records more efficiently.
- Job sync functionality to auto-synchronize smart factory data with other business applications every five minutes that will also auto-archive deleted files and restore files when similar work orders are detected.
- Enhanced reporting and defined templates to streamline work order processes, optimize equipment and staffing, and track FAI, GRR, SPC, and CPK production measurement results.
THE IMPACT
New fine-tuned functionality delivers expected 30-40% productivity and output gains
The new smart factory overlay functionality was deployed on time and according to the rigorous development guidelines—without disrupting existing end-customer manufacturing projects. The client saw dramatic performance improvements in its smart factory management platform. The new functionality has generated the 30-40% productivity and output gains the company expected because of the consolidated UIs, automated tasks, data synchronization, predictive equipment maintenance, and streamlined work order processes. UST’s team of 15 consultants continues to enhance the different modules with new features and functionalities in its CICD pipeline.
EXPERTISE & RESOURCES
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Manufacturing Consulting Services & Transformation Solutions | UST