Skaigh Engineering's Journey to Improved Casting with IoT

For optimum control of product quality, Banner relies on a high production depth. Its 560 production employees produce nearly all the components in¬-house that they need to make finished batteries on Banner’s six assembly lines. This includes the plastic parts for the battery cases as well as the paste-filled lead oxide grids. Their production involves two to five¬ days rest in maturing chambers to create optimum current absorption and storage capacity. Banner’s ongoing success was accompanied by a continuous, organic growth of the production facilities, adding or extending hall after hall until the complex filled the site that had seemed ever so spacious when the company moved here from a smaller place in 1959. These developments led to a heterogeneous production environment. “This confronts us with significant challenges, particularly concerning intra¬logistics issues, such as scheduling for the maturing chambers,” says Franz Dorninger, technical director at Banner. “We contemplated various ways to overcome this problem, including relocating to new premises.”

The GSL SMART Lab, a collective effort of the GSL College of Medicine and the GSL College of Nursing and Health Science, was facing a challenge in providing superior training to healthcare professionals. As clinical medicine was becoming more focused on patient safety and quality of care, the need for medical simulation to bridge the educational gap between the classroom and the clinical environment was becoming increasingly apparent. Dr. Sandeep Ganni, the director of the GSL SMART Lab, envisioned a world-class surgical and medical training center where physicians and healthcare professionals could learn skills through simulation training. He was looking for different simulators for different specialties to provide both basic and advanced simulation training. For laparoscopic surgery, he was interested in a high fidelity simulator that could provide basic surgical and suturing skills training for international accreditation as well as specific hands-on training in complex laparoscopic procedures for practicing physicians in India.

Fundacio Puigvert, a leading European medical center specializing in Urology, Nephrology, and Andrology, faced a significant challenge in training its surgical residents. The institution recognized the need for a more standardized and comprehensive training curriculum, particularly in the area of robotic surgery. The challenge was underscored by two independent studies showing that less than 5% of residents in Italian and German residency programs could perform major or complex procedures by the end of their residency. The institution sought to establish a virtual reality simulation lab that would include endourological, laparoscopic, and robotic platforms. However, they needed a simulator that could replicate both the hardware and software of the robotic Da Vinci console used in the operating room, without being connected to the actual physical console. They also required a system that could provide both basic and advanced simulation training, and a metrics system to assess the proficiency of the trainees before they performed surgical procedures in the operating theater.

The UK’s National Health Service, the UK’s national public health care provider, trains thousands of healthcare assistants, nurses, and doctors every year and employs some 1.5 million people, making it a top five employer globally. As a result, the NHS is constantly searching for better ways to train their employees and achieve better learning results.One problem they identified was that certain subject areas were challenging for learners using conventional training methods, which are both costly and time consuming. They needed a solution that would accelerate knowledge transfer of key subject areas, reduce costs, and improve the number of people who can be exposed to training.

GreenFlex, a company that supports sustainable development, decarbonization, and energy efficiency, faced several challenges in its quest to expand its business. The company needed to deploy a robust and sustainable IoT technology to support its growth. It was crucial for them to monitor and control devices at customer sites in a safe and reliable manner. They also needed to integrate devices across a range of communication protocols and gather and act on data to meet efficiency targets. GreenFlex had previously built IoT capabilities into its digital platform, GreenFlexIQ, to monitor and manage customer sites remotely. However, they soon realized that they needed a new platform to support their ambitions. They needed a platform that could scale to connect more devices for production management and make it easier for the operations team to manage devices in the field.

Toyo Tire, a Japanese-based tire manufacturer, was facing the challenge of keeping up with the rapid changes in the automotive industry. With the advent of electric vehicles and connected cars, the company recognized the need to innovate and develop new types of tires to meet these specific needs. However, their existing product development processes were not sufficient to keep pace with the industry's transformation. The company's data was held in siloes, preventing users from easily accessing all the information they needed. This lack of integration was hindering their ability to innovate and develop new products efficiently. Toyo Tire needed a solution that would accelerate its product development processes and put innovation at the core of its activities.