How Integrated Data Delivers Success in Process Manufacturing

Breaking down data silos empowers process manufacturing organizations to drive productivity, efficiency and operational excellence.

Manufacturing businesses generate and store large volumes of essential data that can inform stakeholders how to optimize projects, improve operational efficiencies across facilities and extend the lifespan of their assets. However, many companies fail to realize these benefits due to disconnected systems, fragmented processes and manual tasks that can’t keep up with industry demands.

“Process manufacturing organizations are inundated with data from various systems, but none of those systems talk in a fashion that allows that data to be usable,” says Thomas (TC) Newbill, Senior Industry Consultant at Hexagon. “Companies often have a mix of legacy systems and newer tools, which can make the data aggregation processes more complex.

Without an integrated, intelligent, automated approach, these organizations struggle to effectively plan, design, operate and maintain their assets and projects throughout the entire asset lifecycle, leading to operational inefficiencies and organizational risk.

Many process manufacturing businesses rely on outdated, disconnected data systems, including spreadsheets and home-grown tools, to manage their assets. These systems often cannot connect with other related systems and may lack automation capabilities, which makes it difficult to extract intelligent insights from the data. When data is not properly aggregated and automated, it cannot be effectively and quickly analyzed.

Process manufacturing organizations might find themselves missing project deadlines, replacing equipment more often than planned, failing compliance requirements and investing more capital than needed to complete projects and maintain assets. For instance, managing and maintaining manufacturing facilities — and all the assets that enable these facilities to operate (i.e., machinery, vehicles, etc.) — involves collecting the right information from these disparate sources and making sense of it in real-time.  
 
 

Data-Driven Insights 

What’s required is a solution that helps companies effectively integrate and aggregate all the data they need to track, manage and optimize their projects and assets effectively. That includes helping companies in industries such as pharmaceuticals, consumer packaged goods and food and beverage not only enhance their operations but also comply with regulatory requirements around traceability.

“Hexagon can bring together the data on all the components that took an asset from planning to execution to operations and determine what has failed, to inform maintenance teams on where the problem lies,” Newbill says. And Hexagon provides tools to overlay all these different sources of data together so trends can be captured in real time about failure intervals or “what’s failing and when it’s failing.”

Hexagon takes a strategic approach to data aggregation and integration. It helps customers identify the critical data sources across the asset lifecycle rather than collecting and processing all available data — leading to noise and inefficiencies. With intelligent automation, data collection and analysis, Hexagon filters through the noise and bubbles to the top only the data needed to make informed decisions on asset maintenance, operations and projects.

“Our digital backbone is designed to aggregate data from various sources across the asset lifecycle to ensure the right data is shared with the right people at the right time,” says Peyton Griggers, Executive Industry Consultant at Hexagon. “Our true differentiator is that Hexagon can cover the entire asset lifecycle.

To learn more about how Hexagon can empower your organization with data-driven insights, watch this video and visit our website.