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Proficy Smart Factory - MES Solutions

Film Manufacturer Cuts Downtime with Predictive Analytics

25 %

Reduction in downtime events

15 %

Increase in uptime

$ 500k

Savings per year

Expert analysis

Real-time response to line instability issues

Introduction

Company

Major Film Manufacturer

Industry

Chemical Software

Products

Proficy Operations Analytics Software, Proficy Plant Applications, iFIX

Product Categories

Proficy Smart Factory - MES Solutions, Proficy Historian, Proficy HMI / SCADA

Background

Increasing overall production efficiency

 

A progressive manufacturer of specialty film products was looking for innovative ways to increase their overall production efficiency.

 

The company believed if they could marry in-process predictive analytics with their expert engineering and operations teams they’d be able to substantially improve operating efficiencies, specifically by reducing overall downtime.

 

The company theorized that if they could predict downtime events during production with some advanced warning, they could adjust the manufacturing process in real time to avoid conditions that, left unchecked, would have contributed to costly film breaks.

 

Challenge

Costly Line Downtime and Waste

 

The company produces a variety of engineered plastic film products for various industrial uses - each use and customer has its own particular specifications and corresponding ideal operating line conditions. 

 

Line instability can cause off-quality product and lead to very costly line downtime - due to scrapped product and the extended time required for line cleanup when there is a film break.

 

Each film break can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

 

Solution

Predictive Analytics Combined with Process Knowledge

 

As part of an overall plan to continuously optimize quality and production, the company has implemented an innovative model of partnering process engineers and operations teams working on a 24x7 basis together using real-time data and analytics as their central focus.

 

The manufacturer further looked to leverage predictive technologies and added Proficy Operations Analytics to the mix – using GE Digital’s Predictive Operations Center to pull in data from multiple disparate data sources, monitor over 400 measures of line stability and leveraging machine learning to continuously predict top potential causes of line instability and film breaks in real time.

 

Predictive insights are presented to the process engineers in easy to understand displays, distilling thousands of pieces of data into just the elements needed to address the current problems.

 

Process engineers are able to use GE Digital’s analytics to see and understand the causes of line instability and make real-time recommendations to the operations team to avoid line instability and film breaks.

 

Result

Reducing Costs, Increasing Uptime, Minimizing Waste

 

The manufacturer’s forward-thinking approach has seen real results – improving overall uptime from the mid 80% level to over 90%, saving the company more than $500K annually.

 

The marriage of Proficy Operations Analytics technology with the company’s innovative model of partnering process engineering with operations is delivering new benefits every day. 

 

Currently, the company is expanding its use of Proficy Operations Analytics across new lines and new product areas.

Increase efficiency with cloud-based predictive analytics

Proficy Operations Analytics for Predictive Analytics in the Cloud | GE Digital

Proficy Operations Analytics

Proficy Operations Analytics is a proven self-provisioning, ready-to-deploy SaaS-based predictive operations center for industrial IoT and AI.

 

This cloud analytics solution helps operations, engineering, and executive teams gain data visibility, uncover efficiencies, and operationalize proactive actions at enterprise scale.

Let GE Digital show you how cloud-based analytics can help your operations