Darren Tessitore recently took the lessons he learned applying elements of digital transformation at Pacesetter Steel to a new enterprise, Industrial Intelligence, which guides other companies through this complicated process. 

 

Smart Industry: Describe the history of bringing in industrial engineers to study clients’ manufacturing facilities?

Darren: Pacesetter Steel was founded in 1977. In 1999, they decided to offer a new service to key customers, a service that would set them apart from just being a commodity provider to being a true partner. This new solution, known as the Profit Enhancement Team (PET), aimed to help manufacturing customers increase revenue any way possible. Knowing that technology was the wave of the future, Pacesetter founder Steve Leebow hired a team of experts to build what is now known as Industrial Intelligence, which combines decades of manufacturing expertise with IIoT technology insight. The result is providing customers with the exact data they need—NOW—to increase revenue. 

Smart Industry: How has this process evolved in recent years?

Darren: Greatly. We now have access to technology that enables us to connect anyone, anything, anywhere at any time. This lets us capture the exact data we need that will help factories increase productivity and throughput while lowering downtime. From raw material to finished goods, customers can see exactly where inventory is, which lets them make accurate predictions on needed inventory. And it enables vendors to know exactly when customers are using inventory. 

Smart Industry: How willing are clients to accept third-party recommendations?

Darren: The first step of our process—a detailed analysis—allows us to build an exact ROI and cost justification. This makes it easy for companies to start deploying our IIoT solution because they can see exact benefits before they get started. The key here is knowing what the results will be before implementation. I recommend you have this built out before you ever try to get approval from management. Remember this—knowing what data you need before you try to collect any data will make your life much easier. And having a third-party viewpoint on what data a company should collect makes this much easier.  

If a customer wants to deploy an IoT solution, they need these things:

1. A platform to build the application.

2. Software developers to build those applications.

3. Installation technicians to install the sensors, gateways, tablets or anything going into the factory.

4. Someone to maintain the hardware.

5. Someone to monitor the software to make sure it is performing correctly and giving you the exact data points that will increase revenue.

6. Training for employees on how to use the data obtained. The data needs to create increased revenue, otherwise it’s pointless.

End-to-end solutions do all of these things, enabling the customer to focus on his or her business.