As part of the Hosokawa Gen4 service, one of the first things we do is to undertake a survey of your plant, where we look at things like Overall Equipment Effectiveness.
In most instances, the majority of improvement solutions do not involve high capital investment and concentrate instead on better utilisation of existing equipment. This makes the Hosokawa Gen4 service a cost-efficient option to capital expenditure – in many instances, the service pays for itself quite quickly with return-on-investment benefits such as increased yield and plant availability, energy savings and waste reduction.
Our highly experienced engineers work with you to deliver clear indicators and defined options at critical decision points where you, the customer, decide what is the best solution for your company at that time, at a pace that takes into account your unique business challenges, as well as opportunities.
Not really. Frequently, many process parameters are already being monitored and sent back to your plc. An inexpensive data logger may be all the hardware that is required. This can be used to retrieve and collate important data for further analysis.
One of the important preliminary questions we seek to quantify is the improvement potential – this allows you to decide if you want to take it further, in light of the potential cost savings, increase in throughout and other commercial advantages.
Improving the knowledge base of any process leads to potential savings in processing costs. A prime example would be energy, where optimisation can lead to significant savings.
A reduction in maintenance costs can be achieved by predicting failures and avoiding costly, unscheduled plant shutdowns. A reduction in the amount of off-spec material can save a lot of time and money; optimisation will ensure you are operating to the most efficient parameters at all times.
Consider Hosokawa Gen4 as an initial step towards ‘smarter’ manufacturing that can make your factory more flexible in its production processes and operate more nimbly in response to customer demands – keeping you ahead of the competition, supplying what your customers want, when they want it.
Hosokawa Gen4 engineers can set up a data collection system for you. The remote monitoring system can be securely accessed 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world via a computer, tablet or mobile phone.
24/7 monitoring could then be hosted outside your company, which means none of your staff are required. Alternatively, monitoring could be shared between several members of your team, who might collaborate to do this work.
Access to the data is very quick and simple. By working with Hosokawa Gen4, you have the added benefit of our experienced plant and processing engineers, who can undertake the UNDERSTAND, MONITOR and CONTROL elements of your performance improvements, on your behalf.
Many remote monitoring services are simply condition monitoring services, which are increasingly popular for providing preventative maintenance information.
The remote monitoring service from Hosokawa Gen4 offers so much more by providing manufacturers with real, practical insights into how its plant processes operate, in addition to preventative maintenance alerts.
For example, we can include on-line diagnostics for improve plant availability, analytics designed for improving product quality and remedial workflow instructions that can minimise downtime. We can also offer remote technical support from our equipment and process experts to deliver a range of benefits including:
• Reduction in unplanned shutdowns
• Fewer site visits
• Improved equipment performance
• Increased visibility of operations with displays of live values, trends and alerts
Preventative maintenance is less costly than corrective maintenance and we offer a range of packages to deliver the best condition monitoring and predictive maintenance solutions.
We start with the Hosokawa Gen4 ReMs App, which remotely monitors the major parameters of the plant and triggers alarms if they are outside of normal operating ranges. Next, we can then add elements such as on-line trending, condition monitoring, online particle sizing, online advice and automatic report generation for quality control records.
Conveniently, there is also an option for direct access to our support services. Our packages are completely tailor-made to the end users’ requirements, but utilise standard building blocks to provide modular, cost-effective solutions.
Hosokawa Micron engineers work with each customer to develop maintenance strategies for the life of the equipment or process system, based on their wide-ranging technical knowledge and the plant maintenance history. Not only can such strategies improve production values, but they also enable companies to meet environmental considerations, improve the efficient use of staff and support Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) guidelines.
Hosokawa Micron was, in fact, the first Hosokawa Gen4 customer! We trialled and perfected our technology constantly over several years through our in-house contract manufacturing and laboratory services.
To date, we have many repeat and first-time customers who are at various stages of the implementation process and the companies that have already integrated and successfully use the Hosokawa Gen4 technology come from a wide variety of process industry sectors, including food and beverage and cosmetics.
Interest in Hosokawa Gen4 is increasing month by month as more and more of our customers are focussing on their digital transformation strategies, business resilience and future growth. Our customers trust us to provide and look after their high-performance equipment and process systems, well aware that we are a world leader in processing technology and can offer them the kind of bespoke digitalisation innovation and expertise they require and have already come to expect from Hosokawa Micron.
Hosokawa Micron has continually been at the forefront of the international processing industry for more than a century. Our parent company, Hosokawa Micron Group, has really been a trailblazer, not only on the design and manufacture of processing equipment and systems, but also the innovations, research and developments that have informed our design and manufacturing expertise. As a true pioneer of processing theory, practice and innovation, you will be in best possible hands transitioning from traditional to intelligent manufacturing with Hosokawa Micron to support and guide you.
Hosokawa Micron works with a huge number of process manufacturing companies, from blue-chip household names to start ups. As a leading supplier of high-performance equipment and process systems for sectors such as pharmaceuticals, nuclear, chemicals and defence – and a provider of high-end contract manufacturing and laboratory services to the food and chemicals industries – we are all too aware of customer confidentiality, privacy and the importance of protecting assets, whether that’s a patent, new product, equipment, a process or critical operational information that, in the wrong hands, can be hugely damaging to a company’s success.
We spent a number of years identifying and choosing the best cutting-edge technology partners to work with; experts and robust leaders in the fields of Industry 4.0, IIoT, control and automation, SaaS and enterprise software and have only collaborated with technology partners who can offer the tightest and most rigorous cyber security options, whether our customers choose to implement Cloud-based or Edge-based digitalisation operations.
Because of the breadth of processing products and services Hosokawa Micron offers, we made the decision to develop our own smart technology and digitalisation strategies especially for process manufacturing. Backed by the visionary support of Hosokawa Micron Group, our parent company, we were in an enviable position to be able to experiment with the UK-based contract manufacturing side of our business, with a view to offering our customers higher levels of service by manipulating and developing our operations to their best commercial advantage.
Integrating Hosokawa Gen4 remote monitoring, optimisation and modelling has allowed us to improve our product consistency and yield, reduce our energy usage and waste, fill gaps in our production capacity and shift employee effort to higher-value tasks by automating some processes. We’ve been able to optimise all aspects of our operations, including significantly reducing machine downtime and accelerating our resumption time when processing materials for our customers.
Our adaptability means we can offer multi-tonne batches to tiny batches of a few kgs using a wide variety of processing equipment to tailor our batches very specifically for customer requirements, so this part of our business was a perfect testing ground for the technology and provided us with a tangible way to give our customers a better product and service that can be translated into workable, adaptable solutions that can benefit a huge and ever-increasing number of process industries, whether traditional sectors or emerging markets.
We have been lucky to enjoy visionary leadership over many decades and are adept at identifying processing innovations that will stand the test of time and be critical to the global advancement of manufacturing for decades to come.
When the concept of Industry 4.0 emerged, we were an early champion of this new digital revolution, realising how important it would be not only to our business, but to our customers’ businesses too, so made the decision early on to immerse ourselves into learning about the world of IIoT and the technology that would inevitably service the requirements of manufacturers in years to come. Of course, being a world-renowned pioneer of process manufacturing principles and technology, this is where our focus began and has remained.
Almost two decades later – and with continual investment and collaboration with ambitious and talented technology partners – we have arrived at Hosokawa Gen4, a range of digitalisation and technology products and services that is right at the sweet spot of where process manufacturing is already heading.
Our reasons for diversifying were definitely two-fold: to facilitate our own commercial growth in terms of our contract manufacturing services, but also to offer an essential new service to our process manufacturing equipment customers in all industry sectors.
We’re passionate at being able to continually improve, adapt and expand our products and services. Digitalisation is a progression of that and will remain so going forward. More than that, our extensive processing experience is wide-ranging and unique, so we are in the enviable position of being able to offer our customers an entirely bespoke service based on in-depth processing and equipment knowledge, completely tailored to what we know their requirements will be.
Of course! Hosokawa Micron has been an expert in powder processing for more than 100 years. We work with a huge range of manufacturers from all over the world, in a variety of interesting sectors, and have mentored and advised SMEs through our close association with thought leaders and data-driven manufacturing associations, including the UK Government-backed Made Smarter initiative.
Digitalisation is a natural progression for our equipment and process systems portfolio, as well as our contract manufacturing service, and we use our first-hand experience to help companies of all sizes realise their business goals. With Hosokawa Gen4 digitalisation services, you can dream big but start small at a pace that suits you and your business.
Our modular, flexible solutions are tailored to each customer’s requirements and we have unique, knowledge of process manufacturing that can really help to start your business off on the right track. So, whether you’re looking for brand-new processing equipment enabled with remote monitoring capabilities, or you’ve bought second-hand Hosokawa Micron equipment that you’d like to digitally connect to your other equipment and systems, we can definitely help.
You’ll be pleased to hear that there are lots of funding options available to all kinds of businesses and academia in the UK who want to start or continue their digital transformation. Hosokawa Micron works really closely with a number of professional business growth agencies and recognised bodies that specialise in manufacturing development, innovation and investment, such as Innovate UK, Made Smarter, Knowledge Transfer Network, CPI and Digital Catalyst, the manufacturing programme created by Autodesk’s Future of British Manufacturing initiative especially for talented young university engineers. We also have close links with leading academic institutions, particularly in the North West region of England, along with Government associations. With the wealth of expertise, shared strategic knowledge, funding, private investment and support that we and our partners can offer, we are confident we can provide you with the most cost-effective solution to solve your digitalisation challenges.
The 2021 budget focussed on the immediate challenges of the Coronavirus pandemic and also covered laying the foundations of recovery. Included in this is private sector manufacturing investment assistance for qualifying plant and machinery.
From 1st April 2021 up to and including 31st March 2023, companies investing in qualifying new plant or machinery will benefit from a 130% first year capital tax allowance (normally 18%). The super deduction for main rate assets means that companies can cut their tax bill by up to 25p for every pound invested. Companies can also benefit from a 50% first-year allowance (normally 6%) for qualifying special rate assets (including long life). Source: gov.uk
This offers a great incentive to invest in Hosokawa Micron equipment and process systems by offering higher rates of tax relief. Please note: the super deduction excludes expenditure incurred on contracts entered into before 3rd March 2021 (Budget Day in the UK)
We have a lot of information about Hosokawa Gen4 intelligent software right here on our website. Alternatively, our dedicated Hosokawa Gen4 Digital Strategy Solutions team would be happy to answer your questions and offer advice on the best way to approach a digital transformation. If you’d like us to set up a remote meeting or a phone call would be better for you at this stage, just email the team at info@hosokawagen4.com and we’ll do the rest.
