Artificial Intelligence is a reality in industrial process control, embraced by manufacturers for the reliability and consistency it brings to complex processes and organizations. Metalcasting operations are included in this development, which helps them counter personnel, skill, and performance challenges that can be acute in their line of business.
Norican Group updated its Monitizer AI platform, basing it on a new infrastructure and introducing multiple new features. The core element of the modular suite is the new Monitizer | Discover, which replaces the Monitizer | Global product and brings new functions as a result. (Existing Monitizer users will be transitioned to the new infrastructure “seamlessly,” according to Norican.)
The Monitizer suite is a result of industry-exclusive partnership that Norican formed in 2020 with DataProphet, a developer of AI-as-a-service technologies, to incorporate “meaningful AI applications into real-life foundry environments.”
“With this new infrastructure we’re preparing our digital platforms for an increase in demand,” according to Norican Digital head Nina Dybdal Rasmussen. “Our existing digital customers are expanding their use of Monitizer and we’re seeing a lot of interest from new customers. Monitizer and its tools have proven themselves across all our brands and in hugely different customer settings – it’s becoming very popular around the world.”
Norican Group is a portfolio of metalcasting technology developers – DISA, Italpresse Gauss, StrikoWestofen, and Wheelabrator – which incorporate Monitizer AI functionality in their equipment and systems and will be launching additional modules and tools on the refreshed Monitizer platform.
Ultimately, all Monitizer products will be on the same flexible infrastructure, meaning Norican will be available to introduce new functions more quickly, and customers can upgrade and scale their use of Monitizer much more quickly and easily.
“For our customers all this means they can access a solution that adapts more easily to their local needs, where they can move more seamlessly between modules and where they’ll have faster and immediate access to the new features and innovations that are being released,” Rasmussen continued, adding that Norican will be able to “shape (Monitizer) for the evolving needs of our customers, their people, and applications.”
Monitizer | Discover includes features developed in response to customer feedback, with a particular objective of helping users to adapt, configure, and operate the suite without expert help.
Dashboards can be created and edited by users without any knowledge of SQL or the system’s back-end or data configuration, using drop-down menus, search functions, and the ability to label sensors with names that are relevant.
The technology is fully responsive, so it can be accessed on a tablet or mobile device from anywhere.
The alarm functions have been expanded to include the ability to set alarm escalation protocols (alerting different groups of people in different waves, depending on how an issue develops and whether the first alerted group reacts.) Users also can fine-tune triggers to reduce false alarms, for example by requiring multiple conditions or thresholds to be met.
“Users will absolutely love this,” Rasmussen predicted. “There are countless subtle or seemingly small improvements we have made to Monitizer that we know will mean a lot to our current users – but may sound unglamorous if you’re new to it.
“The aim was to enable more people at our customers (operations) to work with this very powerful platform,” she said. “Ultimately, this will mean customers can maximize the value they get from Monitizer and really embed the use of data in their production.”