FactoryPal is the outcome of Körber’s Digital Innovation Process, launched in September 2020, and a great example of how an idea morphed into a 30+ employee company in less than a year. Today, FactoryPal counts already around 70 employees across three countries (Germany, Portugal and USA).
After working closely with Körber’s business partners (as per the DIP we used various design thinking methodologies to uncover customer pain points and opportunities), we found that manufacturing and enterprise data generated in factories is not utilized even to a fraction of its potential. FactoryPal aims to solve this problem.
FactoryPal’s goal is to revolutionize the manufacturing world and how data is perceived and utilized. With our AI-solution, process manufacturers can harness the machine data their factories produce. This data provides relevant insights into their production line and machine performance. What this translates to is a much firmer grasp on Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). With a better understanding of their OEE, manufacturers can make machine parameter changes sent to shop floor operators via real-time smart notifications, for gradual marginal increases over time, which is immensely beneficial for a factory’s bottom line.
FactoryPal is a fully-fledged software-as-a-service (SaaS), offering a sophisticated machine learning algorithm and connectivity technologies (Industrial Internet of Things, IIoT) that provides actionable insights for improvements in various verticals. The algorithm learns from unified machine and ERP data and is fine-tuned to constantly optimize for Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Within the perfect setup, it brings together all possible data points and provides optimization suggestions on a factory-wide level. Also, FactoryPal offers shop floor consulting to guide the factory’s teams on their digitization measures by providing change management, industry best practices, as well as deployment and rollout support. Machine operators are guided in real-time by recommendations on which machine settings to change. The recommendations are provided through a very intuitive user interface in our mobile app and are automatically generated by our ML-based algorithm.
To cater to various client demands, FactoryPal offers three separate products – FactoryPal Live, FactoryPal Boost, and FactoryPal Insight. It thus made it easier for various factories, depending on their digital maturity level, to use various parts of the solution to gain the benefits early on and see results quickly.
FactoryPal Live provides a full digital view of daily operations with real-time data visualizations of line performance and shift KPIs. It creates transparency, improves downtime data accuracy, and eliminates unreliable paper-based reporting and time-consuming double work. Live transforms production to meet Industry 4.0 standards with live visualizations of shift performance, and state-of-the-art automated downtime reporting enhanced with qualitative context. Our digital approach to documentation reduces time and effort by up to 50%. The real-time status of the production is accessible from anywhere in the world.
FactoryPal Boost unlocks hidden potential for OEE increase by algorithmically generated centerlines. Intelligent recommendations support operators in adjusting optimal machine settings. The Boost solution is laser-focused on centerline efficiency and built to constantly optimize for the highest OEE. It can bring up to 30% increase in OEE with an AI-based machine learning algorithm that holistically analyzes each individual production lines’ data. It also has proven to reduce machine downtimes by 50%. Boost empowers process engineers and machine operators with a mobile app to keep full control over the centerline.
FactoryPal Insight is a cutting-edge analytics solution uncovering the full potential of shop floor data for maximum manufacturing efficiency. It levels up the production to get the maximal output with cutting-edge analytics and actionable dashboards to discover bottlenecks and potential for improvement. Insight works best in synergy with Live & Boost, preparing data sets for easy-to-understand visualizations with out-of-the-box analysis on downtimes, production performance, and machine alarms to quickly identify bottlenecks in your production process. Through customized dashboards, it makes it possible to focus on what is important for individual production needs.
FactoryPal’s smart solution architecture supports business, information, and technical excellence. It makes it easier for various factories, depending on their digital maturity level, to use various parts of the solution to gain the benefits early on and see results quickly. Furthermore, it guarantees information available across devices and transparency across teams. This setup has demonstrated in our pilot use case a 25% increase in OEE, which translates into multiple thousands of savings per month for the factory. FactoryPal’s goal is to revolutionize the manufacturing world with AI-solutions and how data is perceived and utilized.
These three products work best together and are necessary to take full advantage of the utilized technologies. By applying FactoryPal recommendations, the customer will realize a significant increase in the so-called OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) of more than 5p.p. or 30%+, which translates into multiple thousands of savings per month for the factory.
Within its venture culture, FactoryPal strives to innovate and re-examine traditional approaches in manufacturing continuously. We firmly believe and have now learned many times in the process, that the synergy between human expertise and smart machine learning applications is an unbeatable formula and the driver of the revolution that strives to reimagine performance and profitability. The overarching goal is to demystify the process of AI-powered manufacturing. FactoryPal is a user-friendly solution that, amongst other things, uncovers the full potential of shop floor data and delivers maximum manufacturing efficiency. It does this by providing easy to understand visualizations, downtime analysis, production performance, machine alarms, bottleneck identification, OEE bridging, and many more.
FactoryPal has already recorded initial sales in the millions. In our pilot application, we also achieved an increase in OEE of up to 10 %P, which would mean savings of several thousand euros per month for our customer. For 2021 we are trending towards €15M, which would more than double compared to 2020.On top, it has an employee growth rate of 200% from the original venture team and a user growth of more than 100% on external clients (from 3 to 6). In the coming years, FactoryPal plans to expand its teams even further in order to increase its supply capabilities, as demand is currently higher than they can accommodate (as a newly launched venture).
Overall impact of FactoryPal in 2020: Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) increased by up to 25%, which means that during Corona times, more toilet paper was produced on the production lines we digitized. Therefore, our solution helped the tissue industry to keep up with the unusual demand during the toilet paper crunch.
Evidence of the market success of the innovation: Wepa (https://www.wepa.eu/en/) incoming orders in the double-digit million range.
Last, but not least, FactoryPal has made it among the winners of this year’s iF DESIGN AWARD and was honored for the design of its user-oriented machine learning software for Industry 4.0. Since 1954, the iF DESIGN AWARD has been regarded as a seal of quality for exceptional design and is one of the most important design awards in the world.
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