How a global chemical manufacturer reduced
quality & yield losses from toxic side-products by 65%
About the company
Company size: 3,500 employees, across 27 sites worldwide
Annual turnover: €1.4 billion
Industry: Chemicals
Focused on an ethylene dichloride production line
The challenge
Undesired side products hurting bottom line
The company had a number of significant process-driven losses to tackle, in terms of both yield and quality.
The most significant of these was recurring quality-related loss: namely high levels of trichloroethane – a toxic side product – during production (5PPM instead of 2PPM).
The solution
Identifying & preventing the hidden causes of production losses
Using the Seebo solution, the company’s process experts could finally pinpoint the primary causes of their yield and quality issues, as well as recommendations to maintain optimum process settings and prevent similar problems in the future.
In turn, their production teams now receive real-time alerts – so they know precisely when to take action to eliminate those process inefficiencies, should they arise.
Unravelling a complex production process with Process-Based Artificial Intelligence™
Seebo Process-Based Artificial Intelligence™ is a proprietary technology designed to solve complicated process inefficiencies and enable true process mastership – revealing the hidden causes and recommending the right actions:
- WHY? – Automated Root Cause Analysis reveals why process-driven losses happen
- HOW? – Predictive Recommendations show how to prevent process inefficiencies in the future, and reveal the optimal process settings
- WHEN? – Proactive Alerts show when production teams need to take action to prevent losses in real-time
Results
65%
reduction in quality-related losses
~€1million/year
saved on a single production line
142
new insights learned about their process
Toxic side product almost eliminated – quality & yield drastically improved
Seebo revealed 142 completely new insights about the production process for the ethylene dichloride production line – empowering their manufacturing teams to master their process and make quicker and more accurate decisions.
Most importantly, the quality and yield issues that had been plaguing production and harming their bottom line were drastically improved, leading to savings of nearly €1 million.
In particular, instances of losses due to high levels of trichloroethane dropped from 6.7% to just 2.35%, an improvement of 65% – hitting their long-elusive goal for that problem. In other cases, their manufacturing teams even slightly outperformed their goals.