_20% waste reduction – how does a construction materials manufacturer take the first step toward sustainability?

Leader in the construction industry

A Danish construction company, an international manufacturer with a well-established reputation for providing insulation and insulating products made from the highest quality stone wool. The company reached out to IoT solutions to reduce maintenance costs and improve data flow, while also deciding to move/consolidate their IoT solutions onto a single platform.

Optimize data management and reduce costs in the construction industry

One major challenge for the company was the high rate of waste generated during production and its high cost, which was indicative of inefficient work at one stage of the production process. As a result, the organization incurred material losses and additional financial costs. It was also problematic to pinpoint which stage of production needed attention and optimization.

Challenges and needs

The company’s main need was to implement a solution that would identify at which stage of work irregularities occur, leading to inefficient production and loss of material, resulting in increased costs. Integration of production machinery with software was needed to enable accurate identification and control of the production process. Expectations for the data processed from the components of the machinery fleet were also clarified – it was to be stored on a single platform so that it could be easily accessed by authorized employees, allowed to be monitored in real-time, and presented in an accessible way. Transparent, clearly presented data was to become the basis for making informed business decisions.

The solution involved the development of an application that would identify irregularities in the production work and thus reduce material costs during the production process. The company was looking for software that would help with:

• Reducing the time for analyzing production data to enable the detection of product quality problems at the earliest possible stage. Previously, this analysis required manual data collection and occurred at the final stage of production – making it difficult to respond in real-time.
• Effectively managing and optimizing the utilization of production machinery by monitoring its condition and being able to respond immediately to problems with its operation.

In addition, the machines had to be compatible with a multilingual environment and provide message translations to enable operators in different locations. Other amenities were also important, such as the ability to customize the machine to the operator’s needs – for example, by changing the print format. Another necessary feature was the generation of reports related to calculating the cost of products lost during production.

Results

The solution was realized based on the Industrial Internet of Things Platform –  ThingWorx. It integrated scanners and industrial printers, enabling serial number marking and product identification, as well as linking them to storage locations. Access to all data on a single platform reduced the time spent searching for information and facilitated access for authorized persons. The devices monitored the necessary processes and parameters within production.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) enabled the connection and management of printers that created product markings, making it easy to link them to the intermediates used and the end products produced. This provided the ability to track and monitor a complete genealogy of products. In addition, ThingWorx provided real-time information about the production process, saving time in data analysis and enabling machine-to-machine communication, which reduced costs and management time. The solution also made it possible to record information from scanners offline, allowing monitoring of production line parameters in case of loss of network connection.

The ability to mark, identify and track wool products has contributed to increased product quality. When defective goods are detected, the entire batch can be located and rechecked to provide customers with only the highest quality products – which affects customer satisfaction and reduces returns.

With the implementation of IIoT, it has become possible to automatically generate reports, which has significantly improved production processes. In addition, the precise definition of roles and assigning them to appropriate employees with the right permissions has contributed significantly to increased data security.