The company’s ERP/MRP system worked well but couldn’t provide the flexibility of detailed capacity planning or sales and operational planning (S&OP) the company needed to remain competitive. Monthly manual forecasting done on spreadsheets was time-consuming, out of date, and inaccurate. The company could not get detailed shop floor control through visual finite capacity planning for a realistic snapshot of work center loading, late jobs, lead times, or inventory. Unable to provide a high level of service to the company’s top 100 customers without stocking inventory—raw material from overseas required a two to three-month lead time; but, customer lead time was less than a month.

In 2011, the City of Boulder’s Public Works Department (Transportation Division) aimed to enhance its traffic management system to ensure a smooth flow of traffic into, around, and out of the city. Boulder, located less than 30 miles from Denver, experiences traffic volumes exceeding 250,000 vehicles per day due to its attractiveness as a destination spot for its beauty, college town atmosphere, economic prosperity, and tourist attractions. The need for a smart cities application, particularly in traffic management, was critical to maintaining Boulder’s growth and prosperity.

In late 2009, CNPC started a pilot test using a wireless M2M communication solution made by a competitor of FreeWave Technologies. CNPC has numerous oil fields in Northern Peru (El Alto), and it had plans to test the new equipment in a coastal environment near the ocean in Piura, Peru. Close to the equator, the average temperature there is 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), and this particular zone has small rivers and large amounts of rain in the summer. The goal was to have several test sites reporting to a gateway and then into a SCADA system to monitor several pumping devices and equipment including: Pump of Controller (POC), Pump Cavity Progressive (PCP), Balance Oil Recovery System (BORS) and plunger lift. For the pilot, distances between links were not long. However, the challenge was to communicate to sites that were located in depressions, canyons or small streams and did not have clear line-of-site (LOS). Engineers at CNPC attempted to get the pilot M2M network working for several weeks, but the competing communication solutions caused a lot of ambient noise and failed to establish reliable or consistent links. Without working links, the pilot would be a failure.

More than two years ago, RMCS was faced with a daunting task. An important customer - one of the world’s largest oil companies - wanted to overhaul the remote monitoring functions of its oil and gas field M2M networks to increase operational efficiency, reporting and tracking. The oil and gas producer also wanted to expand exploration and production into new geographical areas. The company faced two challenges: the need for reliable and accurate remote monitoring over a vast and rugged terrain, and having an affordable solution that could be implemented quickly. The oil and gas producer’s M2M network is spread throughout several states in the Rocky Mountain region with long distances (more than 13 miles) between different controllers and well heads. When asked by the oil and gas producer to overhaul its field sites and improve the M2M network performance of its real-time remote monitoring communications and control capabilities, RMCS first tried modifying its existing system and equipment to fit these new requirements. It became obvious that trying to integrate the existing devices into the communication facilities was extremely not feasible. They wanted a solution that could overcome these obstacles with easy deployment and maintenance, but was also reliable and cost effective.

Following the devastation of Hurricane Andrew in South Florida in 1992, Solarbeam realized the need to upgrade from hard-wired systems, which required extensive piping and trenching, to wireless systems that could be easily integrated into existing infrastructure. The company aimed to develop a comprehensive wireless system designed for independent monitoring, diagnostics, and integrated video. The challenge was to create a reliable, versatile, and cost-effective perimeter protection solution that could operate in remote locations with harsh weather conditions. Solarbeam needed a solution that would allow for easy deployment and configuration flexibility while maintaining high dependability.

St. George Water Services Department needed to collect reliable and accurate data from hundreds of I/O points scattered throughout a large and diverse topographical area. They identified that upgrading to a SCADA system would cover a wider area and provide a better overall network capable of transferring data in real time. The first issue was the protocol for transmitting data from one point to another. In the context of wireless M2M data communication, a network protocol is a formal set of rules, conventions, and data structures that govern how computers and other devices exchange information over a network. The 'backbone' is typically a wireless M2M communications technology to allow for many data items to be transmitted bi-directionally at the same time.

HECO faced the challenge of improving customer satisfaction by mitigating or responding to power outages more quickly. The island's growing population increased load requirements, necessitating a reliable data network for various automation purposes. However, the rough terrain, unpredictable weather, and remote locations of the equipment required a flexible yet reliable M2M communications technology that could transmit data over long distances and was not exceedingly costly to deploy.

In 2000, Dairyland identified the need for a M2M communications system to monitor critical field data and streamline power delivery. At the time, wireless M2M communications in the utilities industry was a relatively new concept, and Dairyland’s existing infrastructure was complicated, expensive, inefficient, and cobbled together offerings from about 30 different technology providers. Specifically, Dairyland needed an integrated M2M solution tailored to meet the needs of electric power distributors that enabled high-speed, reliable, and cost-efficient communications in remote locations under harsh weather conditions and line-of-sight challenges from hilly terrain.

The Institute of Geophysics of Ecuador faced the challenge of implementing an affordable, real-time telemetry system that is simple and sturdy for seismic and volcanic monitoring. The need for early warning of volcanic eruptions is critical to ensure that authorities and citizens have enough time to take appropriate precautionary measures. The existing systems required constant maintenance and were not always reliable, especially in extreme conditions. The Institute needed a solution that could provide real-time data transmission from remote and harsh environments, such as the tops of active volcanoes, to improve disaster preparedness and lessen the impact of seismic and volcanic phenomena throughout Ecuador.

The Sangamon Valley Public Water District (SVPWD) aimed to design a Water Treatment Plant (WTP) with a significant focus on improving operational efficiency. The community of Mahomet, IL, has experienced significant growth, necessitating substantial investments in water, sewer, and fiber optic lines to support commercial and industrial expansion. The challenge was to create a system that could handle the increased demand while providing reliable communication and control over remote assets. The existing infrastructure needed an upgrade to ensure seamless data access and control, which was critical for making informed decisions and maintaining operational efficiency.

The Parker Water and Sanitation District faced the challenge of supporting rapid population growth in Parker, Colorado, which required a highly efficient and reliable communication system to enhance operations and ensure high-quality water service. The existing network needed an overhaul to provide uninterrupted and economical Machine to Machine (M2M) communications. The district sought a solution that could integrate seamlessly with its existing Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to monitor and control water and wastewater operations effectively.

GeoNet faced the challenge of accurately monitoring seismic activity in New Zealand, a region prone to frequent and significant earthquakes. The existing wireless M2M communication network was sparse, with limited monitoring capabilities. To enhance the accuracy and reliability of seismic monitoring, GeoNet needed to upgrade its systems and infrastructure. The goal was to provide real-time data on seismic activity and ground movement to protect the population and the local economy from potential hazards.

AGCO faced significant challenges in managing its fragmented procurement function, which was spread across multiple business units. External events such as earthquakes disrupted the supply base, leading to a lack of teamwork and collaboration among buyers. This resulted in internal competition for the same suppliers, causing inefficiencies and increased costs. The company recognized the need for a more effective approach to secure supplier capacity and mitigate risks, prompting a shift towards a center-led Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) strategy.

Wilbur Curtis faced significant challenges in managing its extensive supplier network. The company struggled with suppliers delaying shipments without proper notification, which disrupted their production schedules. This lack of timely information forced Wilbur Curtis to make last-minute adjustments, impacting their operational efficiency and reliability. The complexity of tracking hundreds of vendors and ensuring precise accuracy in sourcing decisions added to the difficulty. The need for a solution to enhance visibility and manage risks in the supply chain became evident.

Risk management in multi-tier supply chains is a component that is critical to success for Belimo in terms of ensuring company-wide parts supply, and helps support existing supplier management. Important reasons for initiating supply chain risk management included: Prevention of loss of sales as a result of disruptions in supply relationships, Monitoring of supplier stability, Supporting the sourcing and supplier management process.

In the last few years Dräger has faced threats across risks of all kinds such as supplier insolvency and fires at production sites. Meanwhile Dräger is among the many companies following the outsourcing trend, resulting in increased dependency on their suppliers. In order to identify possible insolvency risks in the supply chain and in the supply base, Dräger collected very selective financial information from their suppliers. Therefore, complete transparency in the supply chain was not ensured. During these aforementioned supply chain disruptions this approach resulted in significant costs for damage prevention.

Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik (HBM) faced the challenge of creating transparency along global supply chains to minimize risks, secure production, and ensure profitability. They needed to address three key questions: the risk associated with each supplier, the influence of each supplier on profitability, and how to create transparency to prevent production crippling due to supplier defaults. Initially, HBM used extensive Excel lists to collect and prepare risk and supplier data, but as risks and data volumes increased, this method became inadequate. A new, innovative solution was required to integrate data throughout the organization and ensure optimal use of risk information for preventive actions.

Kardex has made it its goal to further professionalize and internationalize its procurement. Globalization of procurement always opens up opportunities and carries high potential - at the same time, greater risks arise through new markets, increased complexity in the supplier structure and new supply chains. The main challenges include safeguarding supply in the global procurement environment on a sustainable basis, achieving clarity and transparency along the entire 1-n tier supply chain, and monitoring all types of risks while assessing the impact in a risk situation.

Modern global supply networks are complex and vulnerable. Like many companies with suppliers in the region, Leica Camera AG was affected by the floods in Thailand and the earthquake in Japan. Having weathered the impact of these events, the company recognized the need for comprehensive supply chain risk management: Reduce manual effort and automate information procurement, Preventive action planning and an early warning system for safeguarding supplies, Constant monitoring of all direct suppliers, up to second-tier suppliers, Risk management as part of supplier management.

Swiss Steel faced significant challenges in ensuring supply security due to various risks in the supply chain. Traditional methods of monitoring financial stability and country risk ratings were insufficient. The company needed a comprehensive approach to monitor all potential risks, including supplier, location, and country risks. Information procurement was cumbersome and time-intensive, leading to an unsatisfactory feeling concerning supply security.

Historically, risk management at West Pharmaceutical Services was embedded in each corporate function, providing a segmented view of risks and potential impacts. The company recognized the need to connect their value chain from customers through suppliers, which required a global scope and increased complexity. Dr. Carsten Meissner was tasked with focusing on the processes and structures to manage the supply chain, emphasizing the importance of a big picture view to identify unmitigated threats. West needed a solution that could integrate with existing systems and processes, provide robust databases, and be easy to implement and use.

The major challenges faced by the retail bank included the need to protect sensitive personal information (PII) and the long, cumbersome compliance process. Traditional masking and anonymization techniques were insufficient to protect PII, and preparing and obtaining clearance to use the data would have taken several months, even for an experienced internal team. The bank needed an automated solution to access records quickly and efficiently, allowing their talented team members to focus on more critical tasks.

Our Client, a large European multinational bank, found compliance reporting a recurring challenge. Their Insurance, Asset Management and Financial Products all operate independently and for reporting purposes, all divisions are required to provide highly accurate and detailed input. As a regulated organisation with many lines of business, the rules governing its many divisions are both complex and exhaustive. Particularly, the risk of defects in the software underpins their regulatory reporting. Accurate testing of these systems was critical to ensuring accurate reporting... then leading to the technical challenge which was ensuring the test data was correct and complete. Before working with Synthesized, it took considerable time and resources for the bank to undertake the testing and creation of reporting required to satisfy its legal requirements — and even then the bank did not have the capability to guarantee full coverage of all of its scenarios. The customer was lacking a clear way to measure test data coverage. The manual creation of test scenarios and gathering the right data was both expensive, and risky as defects were only noticed in production. The manually intensive and repetitive nature of the task meant too much time was spent on the test data and not enough was spent on testing the actual software. At the same time, strategically more important and other value-driving projects were delayed because of this labour-intensive process. Test engineers would spend an additional two days to manually reconcile the data against the rules that need to be validated within the report. Only a Team Leader, or someone in a similar position, with high-level clearance could pull data from production and mask it so it was safe to share with other engineers. Despite their best efforts and spending up to four days on the task, data engineers still could not guarantee full coverage of test cases due to the complex nature of the testing rules and requirements.

Rather than depending on a third party vendor, the customer sought to create its own scoring engine, and was looking for a robust solution that would support them in successfully deploying self-built, proprietary systems. Historically, such ambitions proved impossible to achieve due to the high volume of realistic profiles required. More importantly, the small number of manually-created profiles performed poorly when tested for new segmentation models. To safely deploy the engine, they would need to carry out extremely thorough testing on millions of representative customer profiles. The new engine would need to be properly tested against all possible scenarios, including scenarios that did not exist within the customer data - All that, without putting customer data at risk. Deploying the system without rigorous testing and validation would have resulted in downtime, reputational risk, and the potential for incorrect outputs on a large scale. To overcome such key challenges, the customer partnered with Synthesized, using our ML-driven synthesization engine.

San Marcos Boulevard, the second busiest surface arterial in San Diego County, faced significant congestion and delays due to high traffic volumes ranging from 22,000 to 46,000 vehicles daily. The corridor, which intersects a major highway and is lined with businesses and schools, experienced congestion during four peak travel periods: Morning Peak (AM), Midday Peak (MD), Evening Peak (PM), and School Hours/Off Peak (OFF). Despite having a previously coordinated traffic signal plan, the City of San Marcos continued to struggle with traffic congestion, necessitating a more effective solution to manage the high volume of vehicles and improve traffic flow.

The US 50 corridor in Pueblo, CO faced erratic and unpredictable traffic conditions, exposing the limitations of traditional time-of-day signal timing. The corridor primarily serves commuters during the week and recreational travelers on weekends, with traffic patterns influenced by school schedules, tourist activities, and weather conditions. The eight-mile project area included 10 signalized intersections and experienced significant congestion levels. Traditional signal timing plans were ineffective in managing the rapidly changing traffic demands, leading to increased stop delays, travel times, and fuel consumption.

Hefty Commute Times and Congestion Plagued the City’s Primary Arterials and Freeway Interchanges. Temecula’s major corridors connect the City’s residential communities to commercial districts, institutions, and the region’s primary interstate, the I-15 freeway. Existing signal coordination did not respond to prevailing traffic conditions causing unnecessary congestion. In addition, the lack of communication with I-15 signal interchanges caused traffic to backup on the off-ramps, causing residual queuing during the morning and evening rush hours. The project scope included seven major arterials spanning 18 miles of roadway, connecting residential communities, commercial districts, and the freeway. The city faced significant congestion levels, traffic backup on off-ramps, and major intersections that included freeway access.

Given its climate and geography, the Massachusetts coastline is particularly susceptible to massive snow storms and blizzards as well as the power outages that accompany them. When they lose power, the majority of the region’s signalized intersections remain offline until utility service is restored, which in some cases, can be days or weeks. The danger of icy and snow-covered intersections is compounded by dark signals, one of the most dangerous traffic scenarios. In March 2017, late winter storm Stella brought blizzard conditions to parts of Massachusetts, blanketing New England with 3 – 5 feet of snow, leaving 100,000 customers without power. As a result, every one of Newburyport’s conventional traffic cabinets failed when they lost utility power. New England is not alone. Extreme weather is causing a dramatic increase in major power outages, estimated to have increased tenfold since the mid-1980s.

Velocity’s worksite information was paper-based, which was inefficient, time-consuming to process, and hard to integrate with client reporting systems. The industry was moving towards utilizing software that allowed customers to receive real-time information of jobs completed, something that Velocity needed to complement its existing bespoke Vehicle Tracking and Reporting System and their fast, efficient, and long-lasting maintenance service. Additionally, Velocity needed to provide its crews with modern handheld devices to capture and manage site safety information and quicken data transfer between the office and site.

For years, Mervyn Lambert Plant (MLP) used a predominantly paper process for recording their jobs, combined with a hire and accounting system in the background. The problem lay in the quality of the data they gathered from their operatives. The data was either unclear or inaccurate due to the nature of using a paper process, and with over 500 jobs per week, something needed to change. The inefficiencies and inaccuracies in data collection led to delays in identifying quality issues, often resulting in complaints from the general public or clients. Additionally, the paper-based process made it difficult to enforce compliance with health and safety laws and to manage documentation effectively.