Pontis - bridging office and machine
Pontis is a software package to monitor your KRAH machine from almost everywhere, from the view of a production manager or the general manager. It is not showing boring data or screen shots of the control panel but Pontis is nearly sending real-time production data, which are necessary to run a plant. Reports which have been previously made manually are now being produced without any manpower and nearly in real-time. The information can be received everywhere where internet access is available and without any special software but your standard internet browser on your computer, tablet or even your smartphone will provide you with the complete information.
You will know directly the downtime and the reason why the machine is not running (not making pipes and money). Also the numbers of produced pipes and the output in kg/hr will be shown.
Every time a pipe is produced (manually or through a program), your machine will save the collected data with the help of our Pontis server, where you can access the results 24/7. Pontis can handle up to 8 machines for each customer. No high investment is needed, the customer pays the use only.
The following reports will be available:
- Annual report
- Monthly report
- Daily report
- Report per pipe
During the complete development process, Krah Pipes OÜ in Tallin, Estonia was involved. Mr. Peeter Kirtsi (CEO of the company) was interviewed lately by Christopher (programmer of Pontis, Krah AG).
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Peeter Kirtsi, CEO of Krah Pipes OÜ (Estonia) |
Mr. Kirtsi, at the beginning when you agreed to support the development of the Pontis software, you were skeptical about the program. Why?
Sceptical would be a little too much to say. I was hesitant what more could you get from the system that we do not know already. We prepare different statistics every day, week, month and thought we had all we could imagine. So I was just questioning the idea to support us again with the stuff we already know, just in different form and way.
What did your employees and workers say about the program?
At the beginning not much. In the development process only me and our production manager were involved, questioning everything. Today also the employees have the right statistics on what they have done during the past days. Some might not be happy about it, but if you consider it you learn from it and improve yourself.
How often are you using the program at the moment?
Me, every day, usually several times a day. Our production manager with the same intervals. Every day we are posting the printouts with the statistics of the previous day on the bulletin board in the workers restroom. And they always have statistics for 2 days there.
Do you think that you have a cost advantages by using the program?
Yes, definitely. If not now and directly, then indirectly we will have them. Mainly because of two things: we now actually see what happens in the production. We get the real data of stop and run times, unfinished pipes, production statistics basically online. All this helps us to focus on the right processes and also production teams. The statistics we get are honest and uncompromised. All the data we collected ourselves gave us much information, but unfortunately it did not help us to analyze processes operatively and see behind the scenes.
What do you think is the main advantage of the program?
For me it is simply the fact that I can have the operative data on what has been produced and how and it does not matter where I am. No calls, no information from any person – the data comes from the machine itself, so it records what has really been going on. This quick data helps me to react on the problems as soon as they emerge. It also gives me valuable data for the production planning and addressing the issues there – with stoppage times, with shift production capacities etc.
Also, as we present this data openly in our company, it helps our workers to see the same I do. It raises questions and people now understand what I am talking about when asking some “stupid” questions.
What would be a good improvement in the next version?
We do quite a lot of special profiles manually, so it would help to get also the extruder run time separately into the program. Currently it records only program starts and stops. Also for the future the software could be linked to production and quality management – e.g. to plan the production and follow the pipes through the production process including the quality control. In this case this tool would work for everyone as the main tool in planning, controlling, product traceability and also for just understanding your production with its accomplishments and problems.
Thank you very much, Mr. Kirtsi, I hope you will join the next developments of Krah AG too.
Of course, we will, thanks to you!