A leading specialty chemicals company aimed to transform its operations by enabling real-time data access and enhancing collaborative capabilities to boost operational efficiency. MEPCA discovered how using Cyzag’s no-code platform enabled the company to achieve this, implementing it across eight sites in Asia, Europe, and North America.
The challenge of streamlining operations and enhancing process analytics is a common hurdle many companies face. A leading chemical company was facing the challenges of dismantling entrenched data silos and seamlessly integrating new use cases to boost asset performance and reduce manufacturing costs. Traditionally, these efforts required significant time, money, and change management due to the reliance on fragmented digital tools, Excel spreadsheets, and paper-based processes.
Finding the right partner
The company’s selection criteria for a partner focused on functionality, user experience, IT robustness, integration capabilities, and operator engagement. Cyzag stood out for its adaptable, user-centric platform that consolidates various data streams into one workspace, leveraging a web-based, no-code approach for developing use cases.
The no-code strategy empowers citizen developers, revolutionising operational improvements. It allows plant engineers and improvement experts without coding skills to quickly create, test, and deploy custom solutions, handling them directly to operators. As a result, Cyzag speeds up innovation and simplifies daily operations integration, reducing extensive change management and delivering instant benefits. Process operators can also contribute, further boosting the platform’s value and operational integration.
The company initiated a proof-of-concept project at one of its sites. Within three weeks, the first version of the Cyzag platform was delivered to the shop floor, while the total deployment took eight weeks. Encouraged by the success, the full implementation began across seven sites in six countries.
A sustained impact
The active participation of the central team and plant staff in developing solutions alongside citizen developers and Cyzag’s dual emphasis on work process improvement and process analytics facilitated the transition towards optimised operations. The impacts included the following:
Work processes improvements: Work processes have been streamlined and standardised, boosting better management across plants and key practices like shift logbooks and performance meetings have been integrated. Operators now use an intuitive interface for routine organisation and task management, enhancing efficiency and managerial workflow. This has also improved communication between shifts and encouraged problem-solving.
The pilot showed a notable efficiency gain with two hours saved per shift.
Leveraging process analytics: Citizen developers’ ability to create custom use cases allowed plants to adapt processes for their unique requirements, enhancing efficiency. The no-code platform’s synergy outperformed isolated tools, enabling quick solution prototyping, testing, and integration into daily workflows, facilitating sustainable improvements.
A specific initiative at one site targeting reduced variable costs saved €150k annually on steam, demonstrating the impact of a robust tool paired with a proactive and engaged team.
Motivated by this success, the company plans to roll out a shared variable cost-optimisation use case across all sites, promoting a culture where innovation is routine and improvements are readily adopted and built upon, driving operational excellence.
Conclusion
The Cyzag platform’s implementation transformed the chemical company’s manufacturing, streamlining operations and boosting efficiency. It democratised data, enabling informed decisions and sustainable improvements. Users across disciplines without programming skills could speed up innovation, driving cost savings and enhancing asset performance.
A single, versatile tool supporting operational efficiency and process analytics offers more benefits than two or more separate tools. Having different tools complicates operators’ adoption and sustainability of new use cases. Conversely, consolidating everything into one tool makes new use cases almost transparent to operators, enhancing their engagement and the sustainability of the solutions.
Cyzag’s emphasis on adaptability and people nurtured a continuous improvement and innovation culture, essential for cost reduction and asset optimisation, which are critical pressure points for all manufacturers today.
