GE Launches Brilliant Manufacturing Suite to Help Manufacturers Increase Production Efficiency, Execution and Optimization through Advanced Analytics

September 29, 2015 | By Business Wire News

SAN FRANCISCO

GE (NYSE: GE) today announced the next version of its Brilliant Manufacturing Suite at its fourth annual Minds + Machines conference. Field-tested and optimized within GE’s own factories, the suite maximizes manufacturing production performance through advanced real-time analytics to enable all manufacturers to realize GE’s Brilliant Factory vision.

“Today’s demands on manufacturers are driving an unprecedented rate of change, innovation and agility,” said Jennifer Bennett, General Manager for GE Digital’s Manufacturing Software initiatives. “Manufacturers are challenged to decide what to build, how to build it, where and when to build it, and how to efficiently maintain it. We believe that the key to optimizing the full product life cycle from design to service is through analytics of data that has been traditionally locked inside corporate silos.”

GE’s Brilliant Manufacturing Suite allows customers to begin to realize their own vision of a Brilliant Factory. Integrating and aggregating data from design to service and leveraging analytics to support optimal decision-making allows manufacturers to drive improvements in end-to-end production. Analyzing data in context and providing the right information at the right time allows for better decision support throughout the manufacturing process. Data-driven analytics encompassing machines, material, people and process will transform the factories of today into Brilliant Factories.

GE’s next generation Brilliant Manufacturing Suite includes:

OEE Performance Analyzer – available for early access today, it transforms real-time machine data into actionable production efficiency metrics so that Plant Managers can reduce unplanned downtime, maximize yield and increase equipment utilization.
Production Execution Supervisor – digitizes orders, process steps, instructions and documentation with information pulled directly from ERP and PLM systems. Factories are able to ship higher quality products and deliver new product introductions faster by getting the right information in the right hands to focus on the highest priority manufacturing tasks.
Production Quality Analyzer – real-time identification of quality data boundaries that catch non-conforming events before they occur. Quality engineers can analyze this information to identify patterns and trends that enable factories to ship higher quality products faster.
Product Genealogy Manager – builds a record of all personnel, equipment, raw materials, sub-assemblies and tools used to produce finished goods. Service personnel can respond to customer and regulatory inquiries with confidence, knowing who, what, when, where and how for an individual shipment.

“Our Brilliant Factory capabilities provide process and production data when and where we need it, accelerating our learning and significantly decreasing time to issue resolution,” said James Czelusniak, Brilliant Factory Optimization Leader, GE Power & Water.

GE’s industrial strength Brilliant Manufacturing Suite leverages GE’s Predix platform for edge-to-cloud connectivity, security and manufacturing analytics. Best-of-breed Predix capabilities are extended with a rich partner ecosystem that includes Cisco and PTC. Together, these solutions implement GE’s Brilliant Manufacturing Suite.

“In the past, manufacturers may have instrumented a critical piece of equipment or optimized one aspect of the manufacturing process,” continued Bennett. “However, what we have learned is that connecting information upstream and downstream is critical when optimizing the factory. It is important to create a repeatable, consistent and cost effective approach to connecting machines thereby providing the visibility necessary to form the foundation of the Digital Thread across the complete enterprise where projects flex with business changes and priorities.”

“GE’s Brilliant Manufacturing Suite has enabled significant reduction in unplanned machine downtime resulting in higher plant efficiency,” said Bryce Poland, Advanced Manufacturing Brilliant Factory Leader, GE Transportation. “As part of our Digital Thread strategy, we will increase our machines and materials connectivity by 400% in 2016.”

GE’s Brilliant Manufacturing Suite can be delivered through flexible deployment and software as a service delivery models to reduce Capex and minimize OpEx investment.

Customers can get connected with GE’s Brilliant Manufacturing Suite today by visiting here. For more information about Predix, click here.

About GE

GE (NYSE: GE) is the world’s Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the “GE Store,” through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry. www.ge.com.