Situation
Faced with unsettling variability and a marked yield reduction in a crucial product, our Client needed to confront a dire challenge that threatened the core of their site's profitability. How to turn around this persisting trend of yield decrease and high variability, casting ripple effects in their ability to meet market demand? Despite our Client’s many efforts using traditional analytical methods and diligent investigation into probable causes, they were not able to find a path forward. Desperate for a turnaround, they recognized the need for a novel approach to decipher and address the underlying issues plaguing their production. The mission: to better understand the true root causes undermining both yield and stability.
Solution
When called in to help reverse the declining trend, we applied our proven consulting framework of Discovery, Analysis, Business Validation, and Industrialization. From a broader set of data sources ingested into Aizon Unify, across initial raw material pooling through several fractionation and polishing steps, we identified all the relevant factors and cause-effect relationships that could reveal the answers our Client was searching for. This journey of digital transformation allowed for the seamless integration of over 3 billion data points and growing, ranging from raw materials to critical process parameters (CPP), critical quality attributes (CQAs), and real-time process metrics captured by the SCADA system.
The resulting fusion of data allowed for improved process robustness and the identification of the root causes of production variability, where raw materials alone were shown to account for 55% of yield variability, thereby establishing a solid foundation for further analysis and targeted interventions. We did not stop there; leveraging the cutting-edge capabilities of Aizon Predict, we harnessed real-time classification and yield prediction technologies to offer precise recommendations for parameter adjustments during every step of the fractionation process. This strategic move significantly uplifted the average yield for underperforming batches by over 4% within a mere 3 months, translating to an impactful cost of goods sold (COGS) reduction exceeding $6 million annually.
Result
The crowning achievement in this journey, however, has been the dramatic financial turnaround our Client experienced, deploying real-time AI predictive models across 3 manufacturing sites with savings soaring beyond $30 million, and growing. This remarkable feat was accomplished by strategically applying the insights gained from Aizon’s initial 3-month impact at the first site, enabling us to industrialize these solutions across multiple sites for compounded benefits. This success story is a demonstration of how our innovative approaches directly translate into significant bottom-line impacts for our clients. Can you envision similar transformative results within your operations?
