Want a Smart Factory? Focus on measurements

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"If you don't  measure it, you can't improve it," may be a slogan everyone can agree with, but that still leaves two important questions:

1. What do you measure?

2. How do you measure it?

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Then, there are a few other concerns such as, "What do the measurements mean, and what should be done about them?"

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ANA's Electronic Batch Processing answers begin with the realization that to be useful any measurement needs to be acquired easily, and processed simply... and ... 

Everything measured must be actionable for making a better batch.  

ANA's actionable toolkit includes key items such as color, particulates, and viscosity. Measuring them is done with the intention of creating repeatable batches by maintaining the critical parameters consistent from batch to batch.

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Among other things, a Smart Factory enables 

1. Process Optimization

2. Automatic/retrievable/searchable record keeping 

3. Flexible product changes ... Personalized products

when the fundamental measurement data is available using the Electronic Batch Processing products in this section.

Not all analyzers are "real"

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There are two types of analyzers used for Electronic Batch Processing: real and virtual.  

• A real analyzer is, what it sounds like, an actual device designed to measure the batch to obtain specific answers.  You can touch it, maybe carry it ... there's something there. A pH meter fits that category.  Another, more sophisticated real analyzer is an optical analyzer.  It measures hundreds or even thousands of data points at once, providing a spectrum of the process batch at each moment of manufacture.

• A virtual analyzer - like the viewer in a TripSaver session - isn't actually there at all. And, yet, like the viewer, the virtual analyzer can and does provide meaningful real time information.  ANA does this by continuously recording  run-time information from the batch process, the frequency, power, temperature, and other process variables that are directed by the recipe and then interpreting these parameters.  An algorithm turns ordinary bits of measurement data into an analyzer. In effect the virtual analyzer, listens to the parameters and then it tells a story of the batch. See Process Variable Analyzer.

PBF for: Replication. Replication. Replication

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For perfect batches, the Electronic Batch Process method zooms in on the requirement for replication and this is determined by the acceptability of the measured parameters. Acceptability is defined in functional terms like color, particulates and viscosity ... precisely the same parameters mentioned earlier.  That sounds very complicated, but ANA offers you a direct and intuitive way to understand and utilize your data.  The Process Batch Fingerprint (PBF) is your great equalizer because you use your experience and common sense as your direct way to evaluate your batch.  By establishing standards for the measured parameters with the PBF, you can start relying on measurements today.  No complicated theory or math is required.  

Best of all, operators of the analyzers - both real and virtual - can collect data with less than an hour of training.  And since ANA can easily adapt even much older factories to measure the necessary parameters, there is nothing to hold you back from updating to modern measurement techniques.  

To review:

• quick, easy installation anywhere

• measurements obtainable the first day

• interpretation and use are intuitive

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