When your crane is moving tons of magma-hot iron, you can’t afford an unexpected failure. McWane Ductile knew monitoring the crane motor metrics within their facility could help prevent a mechanical failure that would strand an enormous bucket of molten metal overhead. Unfortunately, their legacy wired monitoring system couldn’t work with moving objects in this extreme environment. If they could integrate wireless capabilities into their existing equipment they could extend their monitoring capabilities without starting over from scratch.

Fiat Chrysler Automobile needed to keep track of their powered industrial vehicles (PIVs) throughout the 560 acres of the Chrysler Technology Center and World Headquarters. The Chrysler facilities team wanted an easy way to know where all of the PIVS were located at any given time. The team had been encountering issues with the PIVs rented to third-parties not being returned to the designated areas promptly, so they wanted an asset tracking system to help them find the missing PIVs. Unfortunately, all of the commercial systems they looked at would cost nearly a million dollars. The facilities team needed a more cost-effective way to track the PIVs. So they decided to create their own.

While we not often think about it, the breakdown of matter in landfills potential produces methane and hydrogen sulfide gases. These gases present a risk of explosion (as they are both flammable) and hydrogen sulfide serves as a health hazard—potentially causing death if breathed in massive doses. Given the volatility of these two by-products of landfills, many local governments seek out better ways to monitor the potential production of these gases in their landfills. Moreover, seeing the needs of these local governments, Plexus Controls, a Canadian-owned designer and manufacturer of wireless monitoring and control products, decided to create a product for monitoring methane and hydrogen sulfide gases for landfills.

Sigma Industrial Automation formerly specialized in creating weights and scales for the food industry when they realized their customers were doing the majority of their measurements by hand. Seeing an opportunity to expand their product offering and improve their customers’ experience, Sigma team members decided to explore the creation of wireless equipment that could send measurements to a computer. Sigma just needed a way to make a product that met their customers’ needs—and a way to do it fast.