Augury’s Process Health Solution, Process Navigator, is steering itself to market after a series of successful proof-of-concepts – including one that translates into saving millions annually on a single separation column. “We are in the middle of an exciting revolution in how manufacturing uses real AI,” writes Iftah Levy, Augury’s General Manager for Process Health. “We’re quickly improving how we can help operators make reliable real-time decisions that align with overall business goals.”
With Process Health, we aim to help Operation teams stabilize and optimize core manufacturing processes – in the name of maximizing yield and minimizing waste and energy use. This is our way of helping manufacturing become significantly more efficient and sustainable.
Next-Level APC
Process Navigator is the platform we built to do this. As a real-time solution using cutting-edge real AI, it provides operators with ever-evolving insights to help them attain and improve their often-conflicting objectives.
Watch the product webinar on Process Navigator:
‘Every Objective, Every Shift, Every Time: Unlock Process Health’
In many ways, Process Navigator can be seen as a new generation of Advanced Process Control (APC), which is a rather broad range of tools and techniques that began to be developed in the 1980s to address opportunities to improve performance and reduce costs. However, the differences are also profound. Process Navigator enables much quicker deployment and increased flexibility. It also supports non-linear optimization, and can not only learn but also be the foundation for full automation down the road.
“You can find the sweet spot that optimizes both yield and sustainability goals.”
From Paper Maps To Full Automation
We often use automobile navigation as an analogy to describe what Process Navigator does. Remember the good old days of charting out your vacation routes on a paper map? Remember when GPS was introduced? Both approaches were, of course, super handy but also super static. We humans still had to do a lot of heavy lifting.
Life got a lot easier with real-time turn-by-turn navigation, as we now enjoy using Google Maps, Tom-Tom, and all the rest. And that’s what Process Navigator represents for manufacturing: your best route is automatically charted out in response to real-time conditions.
Of course, you can always choose not to take a turn. The system will not chastise you but merely recalculate your new best future scenario. And with manufacturing, instead of taking the scenic route, you can find the sweet spot that optimizes both yield and sustainability goals.
And as with automobiles, the next step is fully autonomous driving.
A Great Day For Maximizing Yield
A recent breakthrough with one of our early adopter customers, a major global oil refinery, is an exciting example of Process Health’s overall potential.
As a proof-of-concept, Augury’s Process Navigator was deployed in a single separation column to divide propane-propylene into its component units. Our system offered a recommendation every two hours over a single shift, with three of the four recommendations implemented by control room operators during that time.
The result: purity levels remained high and within specs, while yield increased by three tons per hour – an increase of a whopping 9%. Taken on an annual basis, this translates into millions of dollars of additional capacity and savings for each separation column.
“The yield was so high that the collection tanks filled up quicker than expected, and the flow lines had to be shut down to avoid catastrophe due to excess success.”
If It Works, Scale
In fact, the yield was so high that the collection tanks filled up quicker than expected, and the flow lines had to be shut down to avoid catastrophe due to excess success. The company’s CEO was immediately won over: “Let’s also use it for the night shifts. And let’s start discussing how we can move to direct control.”
Now, as we expand our lines at the facility and switch to 24/7 use of our platform, we hope to share even more impressive numbers in the short term. However, a key challenge is already being overcome: the team is adapting their work processes to increasingly use Process Navigator to optimize their line.
Larger Challenge: Building The Trust
Just as with car drivers, it will be a while before machine operators are all willing to hand over their controls entirely. Sure, those in the C-suite who worry about a diminishing workforce – in terms of both size and experience – would perhaps love to fast-track to full automation. But that’s not realistic.
Watch the product webinar on Process Navigator:
‘Every Objective, Every Shift, Every Time: Unlock Process Health’
What is realistic, albeit still challenging, is using technology to align the company’s goals more with the operators. Today, operators don’t necessarily make decisions based on what resonates most with company objectives. They want stability. They want to finish their shift without too many hiccups. They don’t always want to optimize performance or balance conflicting and often ever-changing objectives.
“And we do all this with a simple and straightforward interface.”
Heavy Lifting Made Easy
In any case, there’s too much going on in terms of data for a single human to track, evaluate, and decide on the best course of action. And our system does this all for them. After establishing the set points around production priorities, our system can calculate the best route and adjust that recommendation based on any changes.
And we do all this with a simple and straightforward interface (also a relative rarity in the world of manufacturing in general, and APC in particular.)
AI As Plant’s Go-To Guy (One Who Never Retires)
As we continue to test and develop our system with other early adopter customers from a range of industries, we are not only fine-tuning the tech but also improving the required change management to help operators better appreciate Process Navigator as that trusted go-to-guy who makes their day easier and more fulfilling while also aligning with the larger business goals.
So, yes, we can safely conclude: we’re excited.
Reach out if you’re also excited.
Or start with watching the webinar: ‘Every Objective, Every Shift, Every Time: Unlock Process Health’.
