One of the unique features of Blackbird is that it can cross borders - immediately.
The cloud solution that is one of the core technologies to empower Blackbird products is very useful in international companies with factories in many countries. The plant managers not only have the “factory in the pocket” but also have “all factories in the pocket”, no matter where the plants are located.
Many of our customers start using single Factbird to collect data from one of their manufacturing processes, and after a while, they expand to more units on more lines in the same plant or in other factories. As the installation is plug and play, our customers can easily implement the same Blackbird system in other plants in different countries without worrying whether the system is compatible or not. They get the same system with no additional integration - just plug and play.
One example is a well-known global company that started to use the Blackbird solution in one factory and gradually added more units in their own factories as well as in their contract factories in multiple countries. More than 20 lines are now connected on the Blackbird system, and that is within just a few months since the first unit was installed.
The customer’s factories are spread across multiple countries. They already had some sort of output monitoring system, but these were all different from one factory to the other, depending on local suppliers. Thus, the data could not be compared in the same standard and it was hard to integrate the data into one common picture. Very frustrating!
After introducing Factbirds in all the factories, the customer is now able to compare the same data in real time on one dashboard. It was so simple that it was hard to believe for the customer.
If two factories are producing the same product, the customer can now compare the 2 lines in 2 different plants to the same standard and follow the production progress in real time. All the managers have access to the data and can see the “good” and “bad” situations very clearly without speculating. Even the production progress in multiple plants can be tracked on one screen.
Having a real time overview across the different plants saves a lot of time, effort, and energy, as travelling to each plant can be reduced and optimized. It is also a great way to save time to be able to learn how the productions have been running before talking with the local plant managers.
The company is still in the process of rolling out more Factbirds in additional plants. They have even installed the system without seeing anyone from the Blackbird team in person. The Blackbird team simply ships the Factbird to each factory and the local team takes care of the plug and play, easy installation. Within minutes the corporate overview is there to see, crossing borders immediately.