PTC Case Studies Automotive Parts Supplier Launches IoT Initiative in SixWeek Sprints Powered by PTC IoT Manufacturing Solutions

	Automotive Parts Supplier Launches IoT Initiative in SixWeek Sprints Powered by PTC IoT Manufacturing Solutions PTC

Automotive Parts Supplier Launches IoT Initiative in SixWeek Sprints Powered by PTC IoT Manufacturing Solutions

PTC

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Connectivity Platforms
Applicable Industries	Automotive
Applicable Functions	Discrete Manufacturing Maintenance
Use Cases	Asset Health Management (AHM) Manufacturing System Automation Predictive Maintenance
Services	Data Science Services System Integration
Challenge	HIROTEC AMERICA, a part of the HIROTEC Group Companies, faced significant operational downtime issues. The machinery involved ran without condition-based monitoring, operating until a failure occurred. This reactive maintenance approach led to lost opportunities and inefficiencies. HIROTEC had been collecting industrial data from sensors and machines across customer production facilities and its own systems. However, this data was manually separated and stored across multiple sources, making it inaccessible for collective and systematic analysis. To improve quality, reduce downtime, and optimize production schedules, HIROTEC needed to implement a modern, automated solution that could gather maintenance and operational information into one source and offer actionable recommendations to its quality professionals. Read More
About Customer	HIROTEC AMERICA is part of the HIROTEC Group Companies, a $1.6 billion corporation with over 60 years of mass production experience and engineering discipline. With 26 facilities in nine countries around the world, HIROTEC Group is globally recognized as a premier automation manufacturing equipment and parts supplier. For over 50 years, top vehicle producers like General Motors and Mazda have used HIROTEC’s proven, high-quality industrial manufacturing concepts and systems. The parts and tooling supplier designs and builds roughly 7 million doors and 1.5 million exhaust systems a year, making it one of the largest private production companies in today’s global automotive market. Read More
Solution	HIROTEC turned to the ThingWorx IoT Platform and Kepware’s KEPServerEX to enable company-wide device-to-cloud connectivity through one overarching toolset. The ThingWorx platform provided analytical insight into HIROTEC’s data through industrial data streamed from the IoT Gateway for KEPServerEX, an advanced plug-in capable of pushing information from KEPServerEX into Big Data and analytic software applications. HIROTEC collaborated with representatives at PTC to build an IoT framework supported by short, six-week Agile sprints. The Scrum model provided company executives with visible and quantifiable progress in just weeks. HIROTEC’s North American shop in Detroit, Michigan was chosen as the test bed for the first small sprint because of the unique data types generated among its eight Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Connectivity Platforms

Applicable Industries

Automotive

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing

Maintenance

Use Cases

Asset Health Management (AHM)

Manufacturing System Automation

Predictive Maintenance

Services

Data Science Services

System Integration

Challenge

HIROTEC AMERICA, a part of the HIROTEC Group Companies, faced significant operational downtime issues. The machinery involved ran without condition-based monitoring, operating until a failure occurred. This reactive maintenance approach led to lost opportunities and inefficiencies. HIROTEC had been collecting industrial data from sensors and machines across customer production facilities and its own systems. However, this data was manually separated and stored across multiple sources, making it inaccessible for collective and systematic analysis. To improve quality, reduce downtime, and optimize production schedules, HIROTEC needed to implement a modern, automated solution that could gather maintenance and operational information into one source and offer actionable recommendations to its quality professionals.

About Customer

HIROTEC AMERICA is part of the HIROTEC Group Companies, a $1.6 billion corporation with over 60 years of mass production experience and engineering discipline. With 26 facilities in nine countries around the world, HIROTEC Group is globally recognized as a premier automation manufacturing equipment and parts supplier. For over 50 years, top vehicle producers like General Motors and Mazda have used HIROTEC’s proven, high-quality industrial manufacturing concepts and systems. The parts and tooling supplier designs and builds roughly 7 million doors and 1.5 million exhaust systems a year, making it one of the largest private production companies in today’s global automotive market.

Solution

HIROTEC turned to the ThingWorx IoT Platform and Kepware’s KEPServerEX to enable company-wide device-to-cloud connectivity through one overarching toolset. The ThingWorx platform provided analytical insight into HIROTEC’s data through industrial data streamed from the IoT Gateway for KEPServerEX, an advanced plug-in capable of pushing information from KEPServerEX into Big Data and analytic software applications. HIROTEC collaborated with representatives at PTC to build an IoT framework supported by short, six-week Agile sprints. The Scrum model provided company executives with visible and quantifiable progress in just weeks. HIROTEC’s North American shop in Detroit, Michigan was chosen as the test bed for the first small sprint because of the unique data types generated among its eight Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines.

Impact #1	Improved visibility into the processes of the CNC shop and gained deeper insight into operations.
Impact #2	Added the ability to leverage real-time data from the shop floor and tie it to the scheduling ERP system, optimizing the scheduling of parts to CNC modules.
Impact #3	Increased productivity and ROI by gaining greater insight into asset and resource allocation.

Impact #1

Improved visibility into the processes of the CNC shop and gained deeper insight into operations.

Impact #2

Added the ability to leverage real-time data from the shop floor and tie it to the scheduling ERP system, optimizing the scheduling of parts to CNC modules.

Impact #3

Increased productivity and ROI by gaining greater insight into asset and resource allocation.

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Overview

Automotive Parts Supplier Launches IoT Initiative in SixWeek Sprints Powered by PTC IoT Manufacturing Solutions

Operational Impact