A sawmill worker discovered gold in the rocks of the American River, triggering “The Gold Rush” of the 19th Century. The legend goes that more than 300,000 people rushed to California, risking everything to harvest the wealth. Not every stone bore gold, but it laid the foundation for turning America into one of the world’s largest economies today.
Similarly, IR4 technologies have become a source for manufacturers to dig and hit gold with their production data. The greater benefit, however, is that, unlike the stones from the stream, every bit of relevant data can bear nuggets of crucial inputs.
Like in the 19th Century, AI has shifted the paradigm once again. Shortcomings on the shop floor do not get perceived as final. On the contrary, manufacturers can take learning from process errors or defects in the outcome. Our AI apps have identified and even created opportunities to enhance process control and strike it rich.
Adopting the “Gold Rush Mentality”
Consider the use case of the pharmaceutical industry. Impurities are undesirable substances that stay with the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) or have either developed during the fermentation process. The continued presence of impurities during the manufacturing of the drugs might impact the quality parameters and the productivity eventually.
A large-scale pharmaceutical manufacturer was struggling with high batch-to-batch variability at one of its formulation plants in Italy. There were two types of recurring impurities in the batches, increasing beyond the threshold. They were actively seeking to identify the root causes but did not get success while manually analyzing the enormous production data.
The advantages of having the “Gold Rush Mindset” when your manufacturing is supported by AI apps:
Neewee’s meticulous problem-solving approach was to start drilling down for the Golden Run Analysis of 110 batches. Our specialized machine learning algorithms hit gold by identifying that the multiple parameters, simultaneously interacting and varying, were causing the impurities to creep in and affect the output quality significantly.
Our Golden Production Run AI App successfully identified a significant correlation between the raw material quality and increasing number of bad batches. Also, the harvest age affected productivity directly. These insights proved no less than gold when our AI app recommended the combination of process parameters to be avoided and the best range of upstream controllable parameters to reduce the impurity profiles.
Striking it Rich with AI/ ML Technologies
Our Golden Production Run AI App got deployed to focus on unearthing the cause of the impurities in the batches and process optimization for improved yield. With the help of our proprietary Process Memory-based algorithm, the AI app derived the golden thread by monitoring the LIVE production, analyzing outliers, and recognizing patterns.
Within 8-12 weeks, the facility saw the reduction of both the impurities in the batches and improved productivity by 7-10%.
Significantly improved consistent quality output through process efficiency guaranteed quicker Golden ROI.
Now, here we have a real-world story of transformation into resilient API production worth retelling. A replay of the Gold Rush of sorts!
History made, which Neewee not only witnessed but was instrumental in making the endeavor successful too.
