SMT007 Magazine


Issue link:

Contents of this Issue


Page 11 of 91

12 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2018 Feature Interview by Barry Matties I-CONNECT007 During productronica, Tom Forsythe, vice president of KYZEN, spoke to Barry Matties about KYZEN's new process control monitor- ing and data service. They discussed the driv- ers behind these developments, the compa- ny's focus on managing data, and how KYZEN plans to support an industry embracing more cleaning and Industry 4.0. Barry Matties: Tom, please tell me about this impressive new technology that you're show- ing us. Tom Forsythe: Absolutely. The beginning part, of course, is process control. We've been sell- ing process control units for 20-something years. Over the last three or four years we've said, "All right, we've got these systems, and they're super robust, very reliable, and very popular, but they're boring. They're kind of in the corner, they're doing their thing, but they're not really engaging the customer very much." We looked into it, and we realized that we were collecting, monitoring, and triggering off loads of data, some of which we saved and some of which we didn't. We thought, "All right. Let's review this data experience." We can collect all this data. We figured out how to blow it up to the cloud in a very attractive, user-defined data visualization sort of mode, and then we started going through the ticks and tacks of it all. What are we actually check- ing? And, how do we collect this data? There are either 40 or 50 different data streams, things like the amount of fluid that's left in the drum, etc., so you don't have to kick it to see if it's empty. You can set parameters for any of these variables and get an email or a text alert to tell you that something has hit a warning zone or a stop zone. You don't have to pay attention, and of course the data is deliv- ered via the cloud, which makes it platform- agnostic; you can see it on your phone, your iPad, and your PC. So you have immediate access to that data for in-the-moment operational troubleshooting, or just process review. One of the other value- Cleaning with Data

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of SMT007 Magazine - SMT-Mar2018