DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
prnewswire | April 28, 2023
Advantech, a leading provider of industrial Internet of Things (IoT) hardware and automation technology, and Altizon, a global software provider of Industrial IoT platform, Datonis Digital Factory, are proud to announce the launch of their joint solution designed for ease of transformation to a smart factory.
The solution bundle includes specially selected Advantech edge hardware and Altizon's Datonis Digital Factory platform, pre-validated and pre-installed to ensure smooth deployment. Altizon's platform provides a ready-made suite of applications that digitize critical operational functions, such as production, maintenance, quality, energy and sustainability. Additional key features are as follows:
Secure data exchanges in real time
Edge device management from the cloud
Out-of-the box apps with rapid configuration capabilities
Standard set of reports and dashboards to accelerate business value realization
Data analysis at scale
"Altizon is excited to partner with Advantech for accelerating the growth of our Digital Factory applications and solutions," said Vinay Nathan, CEO, Altizon. "By offering out-of-the-box connectivity to Altizon's Digital Factory suite with Advantech's IIoT hardware, we see customers benefiting from a one-stop solution that is seamless to deploy and yields rapid ROI (Return on Investment)."
The bundle includes the following Advantech intelligent hardware device
UNO-2271G-V2 Intel-based Edge IoT Gateway
ADAM-6717 Linux Intelligent I/O Gateway
WISE-S100 Stack Light Monitoring Sensor
"The partnership between Advantech and Altizon brings great value to our systems integrators and end-user customers by solving common pain points on the factory floor with simplified digital transformation," said Carolyn Swan, director of partnerships, Advantech North America IIoT Group. "Manufacturing systems integrators can help transition factories with less headache by deploying our bundle solution. End-user customers can be up and running within four to six weeks and enjoy higher productivity, real-time edge intelligent analytics, lower operational costs and faster time to market."
About Altizon
Altizon, a global industrial IoT company, powers digital revolutions by helping enterprises leverage machine data to drive business decisions. Altizon’s Datonis Manufacturing Suite applies advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms to accelerate smart manufacturing initiatives, modernize asset performance management and pioneer new business models for service delivery. Learn more at www.altizon.com.
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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Globenewswire | April 21, 2023
Retrocausal, a leading manufacturing process management platform provider, today announced the release of LeanGPT™, its proprietary foundation models specialized for the manufacturing domain. The company also launched Kaizen Copilot™, Retrocausal’s first LeanGPT application that assists industrial engineers in designing and continuously improving manufacturing assembly processes and integrates Lean Six Sigma and Toyota Production Systems (TPS) principles favored by Industrial Engineers (IEs). The industry-first solution gathers intelligence from Retrocausal's computer vision and IoT-based floor analytics platform Pathfinder. In addition, it can be connected to an organization’s knowledge bases, including Continuous Improvement (CI) systems, Quality Management Systems (QMS), and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) systems, in a secure manner.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Industrial Engineering is a $27B market in the United States alone. IEs design and optimize industrial processes by combining domain expertise, organizational knowledge, and tedious manual observations such as time studies, ergonomics assessments, and yield estimates, while reasoning in a Lean Six Sigma and TPS framework. Insights generated by IEs are strategic to building efficient, adaptable, and sustainable manufacturing businesses. Unfortunately, IEs are often struggling with workload, knowledge sharing, and post-Kaizen analysis which limits their ability to maximize productivity, yield, and quality, and ultimately limits the bottom line for the businesses they operate in.
“We trained Retrocausal's generative AI LeanGPT models on specialized knowledge needed for manufacturing,” said Dr. Zeeshan Zia, CEO of Retrocausal. “Using our new LeanGPT-powered Kaizen Copilot application with our Pathfinder floor analytics platform gives IE’s all the information they need to excel in their roles, including domain expertise, organizational knowledge, and automated process observations, eliminating the need for tedious field studies or combing through unwieldy knowledge bases, while staying firmly rooted in Lean principles.”
Kaizen Copilot can autonomously access the Retrocausal Pathfinder analytics platform through API calls to observe factory floor activity through computer vision and IoT sensors. It can also retrieve hidden insights from an organization’s internal knowledge bases, either by just connecting to it or by “fine-tuning” proprietary LeanGPT models on it. Retrocausal is also releasing Kaizen Copilot as a tablet application so industrial engineers can take it on their Gemba walks around the shopfloor. This app further embeds contextual knowledge into the tool to proactively offer help to IEs and assist in gathering worker feedback on problems and solutions.
The company is piloting its solutions with several Fortune 500 automotive, appliances, medical devices, and electronics manufacturers. Results include improved first-time yields by 20 percent, reduced scrap costs due to assembly mistakes by 75 percent, and reduced operator training times by 44 percent.
“This technology has revolutionized Process Management,” added Dr. Zeeshan Zia. “Instead of starting a new assembly line at 65 percent yield, IEs can now obtain concrete guidance on how to push yield to 95 percent from day one. A Kaizen event performed at one station will automatically trigger notifications to relevant processes across an organization’s factories and assembly lines as determined by the AI, unlocking the potential for massive revenue growth.”
Retrocausal recently raised $3.4 million to advance its AI-powered platform led by Glasswing Ventures and Differential Ventures, along with major investors Incubate Fund US, Argon Ventures, Ascend Ventures Vietnam, and Hypertherm Ventures. The company also opened a new office in Dallas, Texas, to be closer to its manufacturing customers in the Midwest and Mexico. It unveiled joint projects with Honda Innovations and Siemens Digital Industries.
About Retrocausal:
Retrocausal is the industry leader in AI-powered augmentation systems that help manufacturing workers avoid assembly mistakes while assisting industrial engineers continuously improve shopfloor processes. Retrocausal has been named to CB Insights’ Advanced Manufacturing 50 (AM50) list, selected from among 6,000 private market vendors as one of the 50 most promising private, advanced manufacturing companies worldwide.
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MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY, SMART FACTORY
PR Newswire | May 31, 2023
XNRGY Climate Systems, a leader in the design and manufacturing of energy efficient commercial heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems ("HVAC"), today announced that is has secured financing from Divco, a Montreal-based commercial real-estate builder, to add an additional 100,000 sq. ft. of production capacity to its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Montreal. This expansion will bring the total manufacturing capacity in Montreal to 200,000 sq. ft. in 2024.
Led by industry pioneers with decades of combined working experience, XNRGY is on a mission to reduce the carbon footprint of commercial buildings. XNRGY's high-performance HVAC systems are designed to increase energy efficiency, reduce costs, and provide superior indoor air quality to mission critical customers including hospitals, clean rooms, educational institutions, and data centers.
The expanded state-of-the art facility in Montreal will primarily manufacture custom air handling units and DX systems for delivery to building owners across North America. The additional space and equipment will add significant capacity and accelerate the ability of XNRGY's world-class team to meet the rapidly growing customer demand spanning coast to coast.
"We're expanding capacity to meet significant customer demand for XNRGY products. This increased capacity coupled with investment in the management systems to support rapid growth will enable XNRGY to accelerate production, expedite delivery and increase our market share," said Wais Jalali, the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of XNRGY. "We sincerely thank our valued customers, development partner Divco, the greater Montreal business community, and our dedicated XNRGY team for their strong support during this surge in demand."
"We are thrilled to have had the pleasure of working together on the first phase of XNRGY's Montreal facility, and our team is excited to continue our partnership with XNRGY for the second phase." said Adam Turner, President of Divco. "The synergy and shared commitment to excellence between our organizations have laid the foundation for continued success. With great enthusiasm, we look forward to the successful realization of this next phase."
About XNRGY Climate Systems
XNRGY is a privately held climate technology company which designs, engineers, and manufactures sophisticated, sustainable innovative solutions focused on reducing carbon footprint, water usage and energy consumption. Key products include large custom refrigeration and chilled water air handling units, vertical and horizontal CRAC and CRAH units up to 600 kW, clean room systems, energy recovery systems, low dewpoint EV manufacturing units, and factory installed turnkey controls platform. XNRGY uses BIM/CFD to prevent transient performance failures in mission-critical facilities. XNRGY looks at iso vectors and pressure distribution to design the most efficient systems for clients. This contributes to lower KW while delivering the maximum air to the buildings as well as adding to LEED and NET ZERO initiatives (Paris Climate Accord).
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