Technology Record - Issue 25: Summer 2022

136 I NT E R V I EW A new vision for manufacturing Chris Dobbrow and Liran Akavia discuss how Augury’s Production Health solutions can transform manufacturing by improving machines and processes simultaneously Decades of production improvements have benefited people a great deal. We’re more comfortable, live longer lives, and have relatively easy access to everything from food to furniture. But those advances have had a cost, too. “There has been an endless series of tradeoffs since the start of the industrial revolution between business, workers, consumers and the planet itself,” says Chris Dobbrow, vice president of business development at Augury. “While poverty, for example, has been significantly reduced since the 18th century, carbon dioxide emissions have gone from a very low level to 35 billion tonnes per year. And as new technologies have been introduced to increase productivity and reduce dangerous work, workers fear being entirely replaced by those ever-more-capable machines. We believe there’s an opportunity to change how we think about production on a macroeconomic level to reduce the negative impact on the environment and people.” According to Liran Akavia, co-founder and former chief operating officer of Seebo and now vice president of sales for Process Health at Augury, there are three reasons why manufacturing is an industry ripe for change. “First, there’s a need to be more efficient from a competition point of view,” says Akavia. “Second, computing power and new technologies are now available to enable change. In the complex world of manufacturing, with dynamic goals and an array of process parameters, it’s impossible to fulfill demand without algorithms fit for manufacturing, which just wasn’t possible two years ago. Industrial businesses can’t afford to be slow-moving ships anymore. External circumstances change every day, and they need to adapt at the same speed. And finally, there is a massive change in the business mindset due to increased regulation, more meaningful sustainability goals and a volatile market situation. The war in Ukraine, for example, has made the supply of energy and certain materials less reliable and much more expensive. That pushes manufacturers to be more efficient than ever before.” “We’re able to help in a number of ways when it comes to ensuring production health,” says Dobbrow. “By monitoring machines and collecting data at all times, our customers can see the true health of their assets. Once they’re able to trust the data, they can take proactive measures to prevent and remedy problems. That enables plant staff to do more with the tools they have, and reduce the costs and energy needed to maintain machines.” Augury’s Machine Health capabilities have now been expanded with Seebo’s Process Health solution, which predicts and prevents processbased production losses. Using custom-built artificial intelligence, manufacturers are able to BY A L E X SM I TH “ By targeting Process Health, manufacturers can define objectives and uncover inefficiencies using root cause analysis” LIRAN AKAVIA

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