Alite International is celebrating a huge milestone with one of its long-lasting clients, Nederman. We have been helping Nederman digitalise and prepare for its future endeavours such as protecting the people, the planet and the products from the harmful effects of industrial processes.
The journey started when our client needed a detailed look into its operation and performance of the machines and devices they were producing. Also, they wanted to see how their machines were performing and how they react on alarms in order to use the sensor data for more in-depth insight.
To excel in what they do, Nederman was aiming to connect all their machines and devices to the system with the help of an IoT solution. Finally, they were hoping to acquire a management application that will enable them to manage all users and applications in the organisation.
What Alite had committed to was a cost-effective, scalable and maintainable solution that will meet all current and future needs of the client. We’ll go through the years to tell the story of how Alite and Nedeman have arrived to where they are today!
Nederman Throughout the Years
- June, 2016 – The first sprint was officially launched on June 28, 2016. That is when this successful journey took off. In November, the same year, the Nederman Insight – which is the IoT Platform designed specifically for Nederman – first saw the light of the day on the Fabtech Tradeshow in Las Vegas. For the time being, it was just a digital platform, without the IoT part included.
- May, 2017 – The following year in May, Nederman presented the Insight Alarming Feature to its customers, as part of the Nederman Insight Platform. This was basically the early announcement for the upcoming IoT platform.
- August, 2018 – The first live presentation of the Nederman Insight IoT as cloud support for the on-demand ventilation system for wood-working applications was on a Trade Show in Atlanta, USA.
The idea behind the above-mentioned ventilation system was to adapt the system to the working condition in a way that it will minimise the energy utilisation instead of using more than needed.
During this event, almost all features of the Nederman Insight Platform such as data acquisition, data visualisation, signal processing were presented to Nederman’s competitors.
- May, 2019 – Nederman presented its reporting tool to its customers. The Nederman Insight Platform was enriched with a reporting tool that was developed by our team. The tool is now used by many of Nederman’s customers and allows them to constantly generate Compliance, Maintenance or any other type of reports for their company.
- January, 2020 – Nederman released the Industrial Equipment Model and Advanced Alarming. This was the first stable release that allowed them and the clients to create a product catalogue and present all products and systems as a complex structure built of industrial equipment.
At this stage, the Nederman Insight was already powerful enough to provide real-time data visualisation to the long list of Nederman’s customers. In addition, it was able to provide a smart alarming system and to generate dynamic reports of the systems’ performance for specific periods of time.
Also, the alarming system is ANSI/ISA compliant, and it follows the ANSI/ISA Alarm Management Standard.
The Year Ahead
This June, 2020, is quite special for Alite and Nederman since we had kicked off the 100th sprint. It is an amazing milestone that only proves the profundity of our long-lasting successful collaboration throughout the years.
Alite expects to wrap up July with the Nederman Insight Platform becoming a fully working IoT solution integrated with Smartbox devices designed and developed specifically for Nederman and its customers.
By the end of 2020, we strive to shape the Nederman Insight Platform in the form of a unique monitoring and diagnostics platform which will be used by Nederman and all its customers.
Some of the things that we have on the way are:
- Integration with complex Nederman Filters and enlarging the product catalogue
- Condition-based maintenance which will include basic media predictions and smart alarming
- Exosystem expansion – integration with intelligence from other suppliers, e.g. VFDs, smart motor sensors
- White labelling for 3rd party reselling of the Insight Platform
- Set up in China
All types of products will exist as complex equipment. Taking that into account, we will begin using the information compiled in the past 4 years to enhance all products and make them even smarter.
Final Thoughts
For us, it has been such a rewarding experience to work alongside Nederman for these last few years. We are absolutely looking forward to new and exciting challenges and opportunities to follow.
Certainly, we hope to achieve as many milestones like this one, not only with Nederman but also with all our other clients.
