Enterprise Manufacturing Intel (EMI)

The need for Modern EMI as the first step in the Journey toward Industry 4.0

ThinkIQ equips manufacturers to go beyond the limitations of traditional EMI in their transformational journey toward achieving Industry 4.0 Smart Manufacturing.

As the pace of business accelerates, there is a greater need for companies to see and understand manufacturing activity across the extended supply chain in order to make faster, more informed decisions. However complex supply chains, non-standard and distributed operations, and data captured in different formats can make gaining access to such critical operational intelligence difficult.

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Pharma safety

How an Industry Leader in Frozen Food Manufacturing used IoT, Big Data, and Machine Learning to Increase Yield.

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So, What is Traditional EMI?

Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence (EMI) refers to software systems that integrate different sources of operational data for the purpose of deeper analytics, reporting, visual summaries, and the sharing of data between enterprise-level and plant-floor systems. EMI software has become a crucial tool organizations use to gain immediate, actionable intelligence from both shop floor automation and enterprise business systems.

Furthermore, while some may equate EMI with Business Intelligence (BI), there is a difference. BI traditionally measures sales, revenues, and other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are of a corporate nature. EMI, on the other hand, measures the productivity of both the humans and the machines on your factory floor. EMI can plug into BI to add more value to the enterprise, but, by itself, it can still be used as an independent stream of insight into manufacturing operations.

ThinkIQ Visualize™ delivers a revolutionary shift from traditional EMI solutions – as a cloud-native, platform-agnostic solution that can be implemented in manageable increments offering significant benefits at each step in the journey toward Smart Manufacturing.

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Networked map overlaid on warehoused foods

Why the need for a modern EMI?

“The enterprise software layer is not connected consistently to the factory, line, or machine level. Often, data is not collected at all or is fragmented between organizational silos. Manual translation between the enterprise and operations layers (often via a spreadsheet software) leads to limited transparency and is prone to human errors. …. there is a low level of interconnectedness between process steps, few sensors/analytics are built in, and most machines within lines are not interconnected….Despite the progress made by some, very few have achieved a fully integrated industrial automation stack.” — McKinsey & Company, Industry 4.0: Capturing value at scale in discrete manufacturing, July 2019

ThinkIQ delivers a modern and cost-effective alternative to traditional equipment-centric solutions by eliminating information blind-spots that result in risk to revenue.

 

Networked map overlaid on warehoused foods

Visibility has been Equipment-centric

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ThinkIQ works inside the plant or across the supply chain as a digital twin, bringing material flow and process data together with first principles and modeling to predict potential process problems and provide traceability. Whether you have invested in traditional systems or not, ThinkIQ’s cloud-native and operationally agnostic offering provides manufacturers the unique flexibility to quickly deliver operational insights while also providing a world-class and full-featured platform to support their journey toward Smart Manufacturing.

Integrated Operational Controls provide Unparalleled Insight

Person examining a tablet in front of a cargo shipment
With ThinkIQ, all your data is standardized within a cloud-native platform; available in one location, empowering your manufacturing leaders, plant managers, process and data engineers, and operators to explore manufacturing and supply chain data within the context of your business. Visibility is now extended beyond the four walls of the factory to include related supply chain data. You can also start the process of creating alerts and noti­fications that may bring problems to immediate attention. You’ll be able to see a view of all your data on one screen (across multiple locations) from anywhere on a browser – a revolutionary moment for most production teams.

ThinkIQ also includes the unique ability to collect and organize data compiled from a variety of information sources that affect the manufacturing process.  Such source systems include Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Quality Management Systems (QMS), planning and scheduling systems, Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) systems, and others. ThinkIQ connects and unifies these data sources into one accessible analytical model, providing capabilities to explore and drill down into contextualized data based on each end user’s role and point of interest. ThinkIQ recognizes that no two factory or manufacturing operations are the same and as such provides an easy way to collect and harness what is available from location to location.

Features of ThinkIQ for EMI

  • Full Data Aggregation
  • Real-time and/or historical data reporting
  • Enterprise-wide; inside and outside the four walls; capturing data from outside that directly impacts inside the four walls
  • Real-time and/or historical data analysis
  • Contextualized Data
  • Plant-level and/or enterprise-level drill-down analysis
  • Advanced analytics
  • Comprehensive data visualization
  • Scorecards and dashboards
  • Custom and standard Key Performance Indicator (KPI) calculations
  • Data mining
  • Integration and standardization of different data systems/sources
Through intelligent analytics, ThinkIQ can monitor the factory’s entire infrastructure, enabling users to understand which machines are not producing to specifications and to improve overall resource effectiveness and efficiency. Workers have access to this information in real-time, so issues can be addressed as they occur. ThinkIQ also provides historical data to track past performance and outcomes and compare them to current or future needs. At the enterprise level, ThinkIQ can be used to benchmark and compare production runs or to predict various plant operations. ThinkIQ also enables collection of and visibility into data points outside the four walls; directly impacting operations within the plant.

Benefits of ThinkIQ for EMI?

Benefits of ThinkIQ for EMI:

  • Correlation Analysis – Deep/Contextualized Analytics
  • Respond more quickly to changes – Timely Insights & Actionable Intelligence
  • Improve overall production performance and manufacturing execution
  • Make better, more informed business decisions
  • Establish best practices
  • Establish benchmarking for continuous improvement
  • Support lean initiatives

The rapidly expanding need for just-in-time manufacturing and fulfillment capabilities across industries requires Manufacturing Intelligence systems to play an integral role in driving mission-critical decisions within today’s manufacturing organization.
With ThinkIQ, you can learn what happened, why it happened, predict future events, and then share this intelligence with other systems and workgroups to drive operational efficiency and provide broader decision support impacting issues across your company. Once you have this level of insight, you can confidently take the next step in your journey toward Industry 4.0 Smart Manufacturing.

enterprise manufacturing flow chart
enterprise manufacturing chart

Contact us today for a no obligation Chemical Supply Chain Traceability demonstration, and to discuss the 5 stages of becoming a Smart Manufacturer.