Blue Phoenix is the world market leader in reprocessing bottom ash from waste incinerators. Normally, this bottom ash is dumped, but Blue Phoenix uses it as a raw material. As much as 90 percent of bottom ash can be transformed into minerals and metals that are used in all kinds of applications, from cars and mobile phones to roads and buildings.
Making new raw materials from bottom ash
Blue Phoenix is a global leader in the reprocessing of bottom ash. In Assendelft there is a large and complex factory where experiments are being carried out with new production methods that can process an even larger part of the bottom ash, that are even more energy-efficient and that lead to even less rejection. "We envision a future where there is no more waste; a future in which all residual flows can be processed into new raw materials, so that our economy becomes fully circular," says Adriaan Gaasbeek, plant manager of the factory in Assendelft.
Removing bad actors
Getting there requires not only a lot of scientific research, but also experiments on the production floor. For this reason, Blue Phoenix has been collecting data from machines for a long time. "Until recently, we had to retrieve that data manually, using USB sticks. Then we manually brought them together in Excel sheets. Of course, that took a lot of time. But the main issue was that we couldn't make real-time adjustments. We could only see afterwards if something went wrong somewhere that led to a disruption in production. But of course you want operators to be able to make adjustments in real-time, immediately when a failure reveals during the process." In other words, you want to remove bad actors the moment they occur.
Ready-made IoT platform
Blue Phoenix therefore went looking for a partner who could help develop real-time dashboards based on the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT). Gaasbeek: "Microsoft introduced us to the conNXT platform of ICT Applied Solutions." This is the part of ICT Group that is specialized in IoT, cloud developments and mobile apps. The conNXT platform is a ready-made IoT platform that you can deploy quickly. "What also really appealed to us is ICT Group's knowledge of industrial processes," says Gaasbeek.
Part of the turnkey solution is the Ewon gateway, which brings together the IoT data that Blue Phoenix previously accessed via USB sticks in real-time. This information is made accessible via dashboards, which ICT Applied Solutions has configured custom-made for Blue Phoenix, but which do not require any programming work. "As a result, we were up and running very quickly," says Gaasbeek.
"conNXT really made significant impact. We see malfunctions coming earlier and can often fix them before they have a major impact; We have increased production capacity through more effective use of our machines and we have been able to reduce our energy consumption without impacting capacity or quality" - Adriaan Gaasbeek | Blue Phoenix
Easy to Scale up
An important advantage of the conNXT platform, which runs in the Microsoft Azure cloud, is that it is extremely scalable. There is no limit to the number of IoT devices you can access, nor to the number of dashboards you want to use. This makes it easy for Blue Phoenix to scale up, says Gaasbeek. "The first idea was to use the dashboards mainly in the context of innovation. If you see the effect of changing a certain machine setting in real-time, you learn much faster."
But of course it would be stupid not to use that data for other applications as well, such as to increase Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), a KPI that almost every industrial company uses to optimize production capacity. Gaasbeek: "It was ICT Group that proposed to develop dashboards in this area as well. Here you can see their years of expertise in improving production processes based on IoT data. Dashboards that they have developed for other industries can be tweaked relatively easily and made suitable for our business." The OEE dashboard now provides real-time insight into bottlenecks that occur and they can manage them on a daily basis.
A few percentage points gain everywhere
Blue Phoenix has gained a few percentage points on many parts by using the conNXT platform. Gaasbeek sums up: "We see malfunctions coming earlier and can often fix them before they have a major impact; We have increased production capacity through more effective use of our machines; We have been able to reduce our energy consumption without impacting capacity or quality. Thanks to the help of ICT Applied Solutions, we are making a little profit on many parts. Added together, that really makes significant impact and progression."
Watch the video below
