April 28, 2016 — At the Hannover Messe industrial fair, Microsoft Corp. announced that Jabil, a leading design and manufacturing solution providers, has built its predictive analytics solution on Microsoft Azure Machine Learning. The platform is designed to predict errors or failures on the assembly floor before they occur. Jabil has rolled out the platform in two of its megasites in Penang, Malaysia, and Guadalajara, Mexico, and plans to deploy the solution to its facilities worldwide.
In digital manufacturing, quality assurance across the assembly line is imperative. Identifying errors, slowdowns and potential failures before they occur rather than after they happen can help companies be more proactive and improve productivity.
Through a collaboration with Microsoft, Jabil is using Microsoft Azure services to analyze millions of data points from machines running dozens of steps throughout the manufacturing process. Through Azure Machine Learning, Jabil can help predict failures earlier in the process, for example, at step two in a 32-step process instead of step 15.
In addition to time and cost savings through the reduction of waste, Jabil’s operators and engineers can also proactively make adjustments to equipment based on predictions, eliminating the need for unnecessary inspections that cause downtime.