Augmentir, Inc., a leading provider of augmented worker software for industrial companies, announced that STRONGARM, the leading manufacturer of operator interface systems and industrial displays, has expanded the use of Augmentir’s AI-Powered Augmented Worker Platform across its operations, resulting in improved technician performance and training, better insight into job status, and improved quality.
“The use of Augmentir across our manufacturing operation represents an important step for us in our digital journey and continued commitment to quality and innovation in the products we build,” said Steve Thorne, General Manager of Operations at STRONGARM. “We chose Augmentir because their platform allows us to not only digitize and standardize on our manufacturing work instructions but also to intelligently close the skills gaps when on-boarding new technicians. In addition, it’s AI-based ‘True Opportunity™’ system enables us to gain insight into how our technicians are performing, and autonomously identifies our largest capturable opportunities across our entire operation.”
STRONGARM designs and manufactures ergonomic and environmentally protected workstations for companies in a wide range of markets, including food, pharmaceutical, CPG, packaging, and transportation, with additional interface solutions for specialized verticals, including STRONGARMenergy and STRONGARMhealthcare. The company credits its long-term leadership position to its commitment to innovation. Since its 1990 founding, STRONGARM has maintained a robust “lot-size-one” offering wherein STRONGARM collaborates with clients, and then designs innovates, fabricates, and assembles these customer-specific products, all in-house.
“STRONGARM is a great example of a small, innovative manufacturing company that was able to capitalize on the emerging trends around Industry 4.0 and digital transformation,” said Russ Fadel, Co-Founder, and CEO of Augmentir. “Augmentir was uniquely designed to meet the needs of industrial companies of all sizes, enabling even small to mid-sized manufacturing companies to get the benefits of Industry 4.0 today. Our SaaS-based ‘consumerized’ enterprise software approach makes trying, buying, and owning Augmentir simple, with free pilots, low IT support, and best in class usability.”
According to Thorne, STRONGARM started seeing value from Augmentir within 10 days of their Augmentir rollout. “The process for getting our operation set up with the Augmentir platform was easy and painless, with little required IT overhead,” stated Thorne. “Because the process was so easy, our technicians were able to quickly incorporate Augmentir into their daily operations, and the results were immediate – technician productivity improved, and inspection times went down. Furthermore, when one of our senior and most experienced technicians retired recently, we were able to onboard a new technician and trust Augmentir’s AI engine to guide him during the learning curve to get a product out the door at 100% quality so that we didn’t miss shipments. Once Augmentir’s AI engine determined that the worker had become proficient, it recommended that the instructions should be adjusted to enable him to complete the job faster while still meeting quality and safety goals. This has resulted in a 20% reduction in average build time in our most complex workstations.” Thorne added that based on the initial successes, STRONGARM plans to expand its use of Augmentir into the manufacturing operations of their ruggedized workstations used in the oil and gas industry.
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