03.18.2024
Ironsides Technology, a leading provider of automated data collection, production tracking, and business intelligence for the printing, mailing, fulfillment, commercial print, and packaging industries, announced a new module for its Nor’Star Platform. The Automated Productivity Analytics (APA) module includes an overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and productivity analytics system to help businesses gauge machine productivity through OEE metrics and evaluate the efficiency of specific accounts, applications, and associated print jobs.
The APA module helps address daily challenges print manufacturers face, such as access to labor, increasing paper and manufacturing costs, customer retention, and optimizing capital investments. To gain operational efficiency, companies must track, measure, trend, and objectively analyze current production processes to pave the way for continuous improvement. APA equips customers with the tools and insights to navigate the evolving manufacturing landscape successfully.
The new APA functionality builds on Nor’Star’s vendor-agnostic tracking and data collection methodologies to deliver more detailed insights into the “why” behind productivity and operational effectiveness. APA’s easy-to-use interface enables downtime reasoning to be captured, providing a comprehensive audit trail and accounting of a machine’s behavior and doings. This includes make ready timing, run time, downtime reasoning, waste analysis, variable expected vs. actual productivity rates, and job transition timing. The resulting production data is presented in an intuitive dashboard displaying the key metrics contributing to a business’s operational effectiveness.
The insights gathered by APA help businesses bolster manufacturing efficiency while concurrently assessing the efficiency of account production profiles, yielding tangible benefits for all stakeholders. The APA metrics use objective OEE data to identify if print providers are operating at peak efficiency and highlight the product types and applications that align best with their manufacturing profile for sustained profitability. Further, APA helps identify the accounts that best fit the company’s ideal efficiency profile—or not.
“We worked closely with our customers across the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe to better understand their specific needs and challenges and developed advanced analytic tools to help streamline their document manufacturing processes and optimize productivity,” said Bill Riley, CEO, Ironsides Technology. “As a result, customers can make informed, data-driven decisions that drive profitability, growth, and customer satisfaction.”
“In addition, more customers and prospects are raising questions about aligning their account and prospect base with their manufacturing efficiency profile. APA helps answer questions such as, ‘What is our OEE-defined optimal productivity profile?’ or ‘Where do we need to reevaluate jobs and applications for better margin outcomes?’ and ‘How do our accounts resonate with our real-world productivity profile?’. With insights gained from APA, business owners can evaluate current production processes to pave the way for future improvements,” continued Riley.
