How Power Packs Solve Manufacturing Challenges

Jul 9

The directive was clear to the four Corso Systems engineers sitting in the conference room at a large-scale electric adventure vehicle factory:

“Build Google Maps for our factory, including dashboard components that display process data from the production area down to the individual robotic cells as you zoom in.”

Within an hour, they filled the whiteboard with a project plan, then imagine a Hollywood style montage of the team opening their Ignition Designers, database tools, and CAD programs and hammering out code. It was clear this project was a test and we were determined to get an A+.

By leveraging the power of Ignition’s Perspective module and built-in map component, we completed the task of getting dashboard components to work based on zoom level the following day. Then, we only needed one additional day of work to build a tool to map the components to specific coordinates on the map. With Corso Systems’ in-house geographic information system (GIS) expertise, we even figured out the process of transforming their CAD drawings into map layers within the next couple of days. Then our engineers made sense of all the data now available to populate the dashboards. We had a demo ready for one of the production areas at the end of the week.

This was a “small” project with the potential for a huge impact on the company’s operations. After we completed the proof of concept, we began rolling it out to over 900 giant TV displays hung from the factory ceiling. Each display provided a view of the specific production area, at the correct zoom level to display relevant information. The displays inside work cells showed individual robots, while the production line TVs were zoomed out to display the entire line. Production area TVs visible from the second story walkways displayed entire sections of the plant. Anyone with access to the system could access a display of the entire factory from their computer or phone and get real-time data about everything in the plant.

From receiving the directive to having functional data throughout the plant, the rollout only took about four weeks. A perfect small project to start a new relationship!

Once we passed the test and delivered this powerful tool, we took everything we learned about the process, the customer’s team, and how we all worked together to roll out other project phases across the entire organization that’s continued going on four years at this point. With our focus on education and sharing everything we know, we even included some enhancements to our Geofencing Ignition Exchange resource!

Start with a Small Project

The most successful relationships we have built usually started with small projects, then grew into projects affecting every area of our customers’ businesses, just like the one described above. Based on this approach to projects we developed Power Packs to help companies with little to no previous automation or integrations to level up their operations with minimal upfront investment.

Your company can get significant results faster when starting with a small project instead of a large-scale integration project. While a full system deployment can take 6-18 months, a Power Pack project can be done in a matter of weeks. You’ll also see how we work together with a very little risk, and it will help your team understand how automation can help make their lives easier while removing some of the fears that automation could replace their jobs entirely.

Power Packs make small projects easier and faster to implement by leveraging code we have tested across many different projects and industries. This gives us the time to focus on what makes your business unique, learn how to speak your company’s internal language, and provide the maximum amount of impact with as few unknowns as possible.

Get Results Fast

Power Packs are focused on Integration and Connectivity. The goal is to integrate one or more of your existing pieces of equipment (and the processes surrounding it) with your overall business operations.

The benefits of Power Pack projects often include:

Real-Time process data collection and historization
Replacing paper-based data management with digital systems
Improved alarm and alarm notification integrations
A solid foundation for consistent user interfaces for future integrations
The peace of mind knowing you’re no longer relying on a sheet of paper for overall production data for a given shift or day

Large scale integrations often involve weeks of up front discussion before development even starts. The project team needs to understand the overall scope of the project, which integrations need to take place, determine who has feelings about the project from internal planning prior to finding an integrator. And of course figuring out who needs to be involved from IT to get access to everything we need to succeed. Not to mention many of rounds of revisions to user interface mockups, data flows, and overall integration support.

Once all of these topics are discussed and finally agreed upon for a large scale integration, we can finally begin our iterative development process. Depending on the project’s scope, this process can take 6-18 months before the project is running in production. We’ve even seen projects miss their original implementation deadline when a question posed during the proposal process meant that the customer needed to re-think all of their requirements and re-scope the project from scratch. And after your team begins to use the project, they will discover improvements to their work flows and start having new ideas to implement once they see what is possible. So, why not get those wheels turning as quickly as possible?

Power Packs solve these headaches. Starting small typically allows for deploying the project at your facility before we could begin development on a large scale project. This means that Power Packs start the process of improving the system and expanding to new possibilities long before development is started on a large scale project.

Another significant benefit of starting with a small Power Pack project is that you can use the results of this first project to quickly determine the next major process pain point you would like to solve with the next new project phase. Ultimately by stringing together a handful of phases with the Power Pack approach, your business will be massively further along than by starting with a large company-wide deployment.

Help Shift Your Company Culture

Change can be scary. Your operators may be happy with the status quo, and there are legitimate fears that automation may be poised to take over their jobs. Even if they aren’t worried about automation, you may have been burned by a large-scale implementation in the past and your team may have a “that sounds great, but last time we did this it didn’t work out very well” attitude.

If your goal is to use automation to make everyone’s lives easier, a key component to any automation project is listening to those fears, addressing them before the project is deployed, and growing your company culture to use automation as a tool to get the job done more easily.

Starting small helps increase your overall chance for success by getting results quickly, addressing the most painful parts of your process in order, and helps ensure you are seeing a return on your investment throughout the project rather than waiting for it a year from now.

Power Packs help you accomplish all of this, almost by default. Your company will get results in a matter of weeks, your team will be involved at every step of the project, so they can see how automation will help them. And you will get experience working with our team through every phase of a project rather than waiting months before a project is deployed to production.

Wrapping Up

Our most successful projects and started with a small deployment for the first phase. This let our customers get to know us, lets everyone see every aspect of the project lifecycle in a matter of weeks, and helps show your team automation is coming in to make their lives easier.

Power Packs are our way to simplify the process of starting small. We set out a clear scope of work that we can complete in a short time frame. These options are low cost so you see a fast return on investment, and they open the door to future expansion of your automation and integrations to build on the momentum from the first deployment.

The goal with every project we take on is to help our customers do what they do better. Power Packs take a lot of the guesswork out of the equation, leverage tried and true code we have tested on many systems in the past, and get you results fast.