At MIAC 2019, the 26th edition of the international exhibition of paper industry, Fabio Perini S.p.A is presenting the new Tissue Performance Center: an innovative project developed in partnership with SoftJam, a Microsoft Gold Partner for over twenty years, leveraging on Microsoft cloud platform and technology to analyse data.
The Tissue Perfomance Center is an innovative control centre - based on Microsoft, Azure cloud, IoT, Machine Learning and Advanced Analytics technologies - allowing on-going monitoring of Fabio Perini machines installed on production lines around the world.
The solution is based on an architecture developed by Fabio Perini which makes it possible to connect the machinery in order to monitor their operation in an accurate and constant manner. The data gathered are stored on Microsoft’s Azure cloud which, thanks to computing power and scalability offers the opportunity to use enormous storage volumes.
Using Microsoft IoT technologies the data are gathered, aggregated and turned into useful information for aware planning of activities; whereas Power BI, Microsoft’s analysis and business intelligence platform, makes for very user-friendly use of information, also remotely from any mobile device.
This way, it is possible to consult, at any time, the data on the trends of the connected machines, using customised dashboards, especially designed for the most efficient possible use.
Besides the production trend, the platform also allows one to detect any anomalies on the machinery: the algorithms manage to show any discrepancy between the expected data and those actually delivered by the machines, for example if at least 3 alarms have been received in the last 6 hours, generating an overall downtime of more than 30 minutes.
In case of an anomaly, the users receive an alert by sms or email, so they can check the nature of the notice and take prompt steps.
Fabio Perini’s super-experts are able to find the best solution to improve the efficiency of customers’ machines.
Fabio Perini, together with SoftJam, has already thought out a second phase of the Tissue Perfomance Center project. The mass of data stored in the Cloud will be useful for developing predictive analyses. Therefore, the Advanced Data Analysis solution will not only be able to learn the standard behaviour of the machinery and detect any anomalies, but it will also be able to find patterns in apparently uncorrelated data and suggest a solution.
Preventive maintenance of the machinery, planned on the basis of objective data and advanced analyses, will lead to a reduction in line stops, guaranteeing productive efficiency.
Mario Zucca, Delivery Director of SoftJam, says that “For several years, SoftJam has been actively involved in the data and AI industry, and has set up a dedicated division to handle these themes. Thanks to cooperation with Microsoft, we have had the good luck of being able to work with some of the most important Italian projects in the context of the Azure data platform. For several months, we have been working together with the leading Universities involved in the field of Machine Learning. We immediately picked up the Tissue Perfomance Center challenge submitted to us by Fabio Perini. A “data-oriented” business strategy is certainly a winning one both in the short and medium term. Besides, the Azure platform provides ever more evolved tools to handle the complex scenarios which customers are increasingly proposing us. The challenge is hard, in terms of goals, technologies and the people who have to dominate these tools and provide their customers increasingly innovative solutions with services which, very often, are still to be imagined. SoftJam intends to support organisations of any sector and size involved along this path”.
“We are proud that an Italian excellence like Fabio Perini S.p.A chose Microsoft technologies to launch an ambitious project for digital transformation, aimed at merging over 50 years’ history and know-how with the latest technological innovations to optimise production, simplify plant management and reinforce predictive maintenance, says Fabio Santini, Division Director for One Commercial Partner & Small, Medium and Corporate of Microsoft Italia. “Italy today is the seventh manufacturing power in the world and our companies in this sector must act quickly to keep up with technological evolution in order to face global challenges. Technology partners like SoftJam have the important task of helping businesses in our country grasp the benefits of digitalisation and of the Cloud, and providing highly customised solutions to help businesses grow and innovate on highly competitive markets”.
Antonio Mosca, Head of Digital Transformation at Fabio Perini: “On such a highly complex market - which calls for a continuous cycle of digital innovation - only the creation of an ecosystem among industrial partners, customers and research centres will guarantee success. With Microsoft, SoftJam and Pisa University, we have managed to set up a winning team to provide our customers with state-of-the-art solutions allowing us to keep all the fundamental parameters of OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) under control and use the data to provide clues regarding diagnosis - and soon prevention and prediction too, thanks to application of Artificial Intelligence technologies, - in order to constantly improve the OEE.”