Hosokawa Micron Ltd is a member of the worldwide Hosokawa Micron Group founded in Osaka in 1916. Today, it is a world leader in providing process solutions in the fields of powder and particle processing technology and blown film technology. Hosokawa Micron Group maintains facilities for research, engineering, manufacturing and service throughout Asia/Oceania, the Americas and Europe.
When the UK division of the Hosokawa Micron Group looked to improve its productivity, the route the innovative powder processing company chose was to couple its market leading equipment and services to the world of virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), and then to harness this to data analytics.
An end-user interface that enables effective monitoring of equipment and processes – alerting operators to problems before they occur with anomaly detection and predictive analytics. Capturing and automating best practice domain expertise of the workforce and enhancing with machine learning. Creating a digital twin of the powder processing to identify the service and maintenance requirements of equipment in distant places. The digital twin could also be used in plant commissioning.
Connected machines sharing data in real time to maximise efficiency across the suite. Continual monitoring of key equipment parameters to ensure all control actions are based on actual process data and verified process models with pre-set limits. Operational data now integrated throughout the business processes. Complaints due to out-of-spec material minimised - 98% right first time.