TechHub: Anheuser-Busch steps up after hurricane, Manufacturing & Digital Transformation and WEFTEC

In times of national disaster, Anheuser-Busch steps up

Anheuser-Busch paused beer production this week to send 155,000 cans of drinking water to those affected by Hurricane Harvey in Louisiana and Texas.

The first shipment arrived at the American Red Cross in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Monday, with two more shipments sent to Arlington, Texas, according to USA Today.

The Georgia brewery regularly stops beer brewing to fill cans with drinking water throughout the year to assure the water is ready should a local community need it.

This is a part of the Anheuser-Busch emergency drinking water program, which partners with the Red Cross to identify communities in crisis and supply them with safe, clean, canned drinking water following disasters.

“Putting our production and logistics strengths to work by providing safe, clean drinking water is the best way we can help in these situations,” said Bill Bradley, the company’s vice president of community affairs.

Providing emergency drinking water to people since 1988, over 76 million cans have been shipped nationwide. The last wave of support was last year, in which cans were shipped to those affected by Hurricane Matthew, floods in Louisiana and wildfires in California.

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3 Keys to manufacturing digital transformation

Digital transformation must have a purpose: to increase efficiency, quality and cost savings. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of time.

Manufacturers are struggling to keep up with the increase in volatile customer demand, according to Industry Week.

Processes and supply chains must be adaptable enough to turn on a dime. This doesn’t happen if everything is done manually, in Excel spreadsheets, or in systems that don’t talk to each other.

The idea of capturing data, automating manual processes and enabling information sharing becomes imperative.

Controlling the shop floor

Manufacturing starts at the shop floor. Manufacturers must have shop floor control, including access to production information, inventory, quality data and the ability to quickly adjust to machine status across the enterprise.

Connecting the business

The shop floor must connect to the rest of the enterprise to make data accessible and promote rapid, accurate decision-making. Cloud manufacturing ERP not only automates paper-based, manual processes, but also consolidates information into a single set of accurate data.

Unlocking People Potential

Once the cloud computing infrastructure is in place, people can pivot to work as business analysts. Production workers can see everything in the “manufacturing moment” over any device, rather than hunting down and piecing together information.

Managers can view analytics and dashboards that relate to their role from anywhere, over any device, to stay on stop of business.

Steel innovator Gerdau sought out the goal to reduce maintenance costs by 20%, undergoing a digital transformation as a result.

With a company of more than 35,000 people across 13 countries, accomplishing the reduction was critical to its profitability.

By jumping into the digital realm of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT):

• • An initial investment of $1.5 million yielded annual savings of $4.5 million
  • 93 hours per month were saved in scrap classification
  • Savings of more than 130 hours in unplanned downtime
  • Truck driver productivity had gains of more than 100% with a resulting 5% drop in freight costs
  • Raw material inventory reduced from 3 days to 7 minutes

[ut_button color=”red” target=”_blank” link=”http://graymattersystems.com/gerdau-digital-transformation-case-study/” size=”medium” ]Download the Steel Case Study[/ut_button]

WEFTEC: The world’s largest annual water quality conference & exhibition

Recognized as the largest annual water quality exhibition of its kind, WEFTEC offers water quality professionals from around the world quality education and training.

Showcasing the most cutting-edge technologies in the field, it serves as a forum for domestic and international business opportunities and promotes industry networking.

A smart sensor fountain demo will be at WEFTEC, a co-innovation product by GrayMatter and DC Water.

Experts in the water quality field offer a wide range of technical sessions and workshops, creating a diverse list of water and wastewater issues and solutions including:

• Collective Systems
• Energy Conservation and Management
• Membrane Technologies
• Plant Operations and Treatment
• Regulations
• Research
• Residuals and Biosolids
• Stormwater
• Utility Management
• Water Reuse/Recycling
• Water Quality & Watershed Management

GrayMatter and DC Water have created a drinking fountain that monitors water quality and flow in real time – giving users more confidence in the water they are drinking and saving money spent on maintenance and testing.

Find GrayMatter at booth #6549 to learn about the co-innovative partnership and see a live demo of the fountain.

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