Last winter I got sucked in by an advertisement from Verizon. My wife was due for a new iPad and could use a new iPhone. I was thinking about upgrading my 2-year-old iPhone. The ad looked like a good deal to trade in a bunch of stuff and walk out with new equipment. In the end, you never get the deal exactly as advertised because of nuances. But we did it.
I bet you’ve traded in a phone or two in your life. Ever wonder what happens to those old traded-in phones? You are about to find out.
A publicist I’ve known for a while who (unlike most these days) knows me and what I like to write about, pitched me a story about an actual user of automation. I said great, I’d like something beyond just a new feature in the software. Except the company was Assurant. I looked them up. An insurance company. In 25 years, I doubt that I’ve written about insurance once.
But she’s trustworthy and the application seemed appropriate, so here we are. A story about how a division of Assurant has built a big business taking in traded-in mobile phones and reinserts most of them back into the supply chain. If you’ve bought a refurbished phone, chances are it went through one of their facilities.
That’s how I wound up on a Microsoft Teams call with Brandon Johnson. He is the Senior Vice President of Engineering and Automation at Assurant, a leading global business services company that supports, protects and connects major consumer purchases. Johnson oversees all engineering and automation initiatives related to the mobile device lifecycle across 20 locations worldwide. His primary responsibility is to lead a team that implements innovative software and robotics technologies to enhance efficiency, safety, quality, and device value.
We’ll walk through the process they have developed for processing 15 million phones per year. Then we’ll look at how automation has improved workforce stability, worker safety, and throughput.
First, Johnson told me his background and education were industrial engineering and operations management. Automation was something he picked up along the way. Before automating anything in the processes at Assurant, though, he emphasized two things:
They don’t automate simply to replace workers
Every automation project must have a business purpose
So, what happens when your used phone hits one of their facilities?
Incoming material is all in boxes. There is no uniformity to the boxes. They must all be opened and the phones removed. The original process used people with razor box knives. These are a safety hazard (I know, I had a job using them once). The job also was not challenging which led to excessive attrition.
After phones are decartoned, they are provided with a QR Code ID. They proceed to a charging station as all need a minimum amount of charge for downstream processes. They go to a cosmetic grading station and then sorting into those who have potential high value and those not so much to those that will just be ground for recycling. Next comes a diagnostic test station where 65 tests are performed. Data cleaning comes next. This is a crucial step and Assurant is certified for data cleaning. They’ll perform and value-added repair if feasible. Then, on to the warehouse to be sold and shipped.
Automation has been added so far:
Machine to slit the incoming boxes and cartons. This changed the job from manual knives to a technician job. That job is more stable and has value-added skills
Cosmetic grading is highly complex and subjective. Assurant has developed a patented automation for inspection and grading the phones. Once again, a high-turnover job turned into technician roles leading to a more stable and trained workforce.
Diagnostics testing has been upgraded from a single workstation where they’d dump a bunch of phones on a person and they’d perform all the tests on a single computer. Now there is a flow to the system easing the bottlenecks.
A robotic feeder brings phones to the charging stations and plugs them in saving yet another rote job.
I asked about recycling the powder from groundup phones. They send to a third party who can extract the various metals from the powder for reinsertion into that supply chain.
A group of academic psychology researchers conducted a longitudinal study of children. It wasn’t long term, but did take place over a time period. They were curious about growth versus static mindset. A task was given to a group of kids. Some kids were given feedback that involved verbs—you worked well, you did your practice consistently, and so forth. Another group was given noun feedback—you are so smart, you are a good athlete, and so forth.
Later, the kids were given a similar task. The ones praised with nouns, did not perform better. The ones praised with verbs continued to improve.
I’m standing on the mezzanine at the FMC Natatorium in Westmont, IL. Soon competition at the Illinois club state finals will commence. I brought my granddaughter who made the 800 meter freestyle relay team for her club that qualified from the regional championships. There must be hundreds of young athletes here who have worked hard all season in order to qualify to be here.
Starting at the beginning of the season when as a younger person in her age group she didn’t think she had a shot at the regionals. I told her every week, just be a little better this week than last. I praised her work. And at the end of the season she swam in eight events at the regionals. I’m sure all of the other swimmers have a similar story.
How do you feel in your professional life or your personal life? How are you treating youth or colleagues?
Maybe you see an opportunity that you can grow a little at a time. Don’t believe the media hype of overnight success. “Overnight success” almost always comes after a period of work—one percent better over time. Are you mentoring someone younger? I hope so. Don’t tell them they are great. Tell them you appreciate their hard work or willingness to learn new things. Work on your relationships at home and at work. One percent better every day.
Practice. 1% better every day. Check in at the end of a month or a year. I can tell you from personal experience—it works.
Parsec Automation Corp. has announced a recapitalization led by BVP Forge. I suppose we all know where this is leading when a founder-led company with a long-time track record takes on a major amount of VC money. I wish them well. Here is the gist of the press release with all the usual marketing terms thrown in.
UPDATED Release 7/19/23
Today, Parsec Automation Corp, a trailblazer in Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) software, announced a major recapitalization led by BVP Forge, designed to fuel future growth.
Parsec forms dynamic partnerships with manufacturing entities worldwide, sparking pivotal transformations to boost efficiency and drive their ongoing enhancement goals. Its TrakSYS software platform demystifies manufacturing operations, providing users with heightened visibility, profound insights, and superior control—indispensable factors for success in their rapidly-evolving industrial landscape.
TrakSYS enjoys a trusted position in thousands of facilities in more than 100 countries. It serves a variety of sectors, from automotive and chemical to food & beverage, life sciences, and packaged goods. Among Parsec’s globally-esteemed customers are industry heavyweights such as AB InBev, Akzo Nobel, AstraZeneca, Beiersdorf, DuPont, Johnson & Johnson, and Eli Lilly. Parsec doesn’t just help businesses reach their goals; it helps them redefine what’s possible, carving out a path to a more efficient, productive, and sustainable future.
In the recently published Gartner 2023 Critical Capabilities for Manufacturing Execution Systems, Parsec Automation ranked the highest amongst all included MES vendors in 3 of 4 Gartner Use Cases—Continuous Process Manufacturing, Batch/Repetitive Flow Manufacturing, and Highly Regulated Industries.
Eddy Azad, founder & CEO of Parsec, shared, “TrakSYS’s unparalleled functionality and user experience have allowed us to disrupt legacy market products. As an innovation-focused and profitable company, we realized the vast potential of an alliance with BVP Forge to expedite our vision and enhance customer impact. The synergy of Parsec’s deep-rooted manufacturing operations management expertise with BVP Forge’s considerable resources ignites great excitement for our future.”
BVP Forge will bring its business building program, ForgeEdge, to help Parsec scale its platform, accelerate growth, and maximize customer impact. BVP Forge will also provide Parsec access to the renowned growth IP, talent network, and roadmap insights of Bessemer Venture Partners, which has decades of experience scaling enterprise companies into market leaders.
“We are very impressed with Parsec’s unique technology, customer impact, and track-record of profitable growth” said Brian Cramer, BVP Forge Operating Partner. “We see a clear and compelling opportunity to help accelerate the company’s success and build on its vision.”
“Manufacturers are increasingly embracing digitalization, which relies on high-quality data produced and synthesized on a plant floor,” said Rob Arditi, BVP Forge Partner. “Parsec’s mission criticality and core value proposition are evidenced by the company’s high customer satisfaction, strong retention, and superior product platform. We are thrilled to partner with the Parsec team and help the company reach its vision.”
Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Manufacturing Execution Systems, By Rick Franzosa, Christian Hestermann, Published 10 July 2023
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
If you’ve been around automation for the past 20 years, you’ve no doubt experienced how the job changed from isolated control connected to I/O to one or more field buses to one or more variety of Ethernet. We’ve now experienced the Internet of Things explosion (at least in hype). That latter is mostly Ethernet-based using IP (Internet Protocol).
If you’ve not been careful, you could be working with a mess of networks right now. I received this document of networking tips from networking infrastructure supplier Moxa. I thought it useful to pass along.
Tip One: Achieve Greater Integration with Unified Infrastructure
Over the years, various devices using different protocols have been deployed on industrial networks to provide diverse services. Under these circumstances, network integration usually costs more than expected or becomes more difficult to achieve. Manufacturers can either choose the status quo, that is, maintain their pre-existing isolated automation networks with numerous purpose-built protocols of the past, or seek solutions to deterministic services and that can integrate these “islands of automation” into one unified network.
If the goal is to be ready for future demands, the choice is obviously the latter. The rule of thumb is to take potential industrial protocols into consideration and ensure you can redesign networks in case any new demands arise in the market. One approach is Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN), a set of new standards introduced by the IEEE 802.1 TSN Task Group as an advanced toolbox. With TSN, you can build open, unified networks with standard Ethernet technologies that reserve flexibility for the future.
Tip Two: Enable Anywhere Access with Hassle-free Cloud Services
Cloud-based remote access offers many benefits to IIoT customers, such as reducing the travel time and expenses of sending maintenance engineers to multiple remote sites. Furthermore, cloud-based secure remote access can offer flexible and scalable connections to meet dynamic, fast-changing requirements. However, operational technology (OT) engineers may find it cumbersome to set up and maintain their own cloud servers for new services and applications. Indeed, there is considerable effort associated with setting up new infrastructure, even in the cloud. Fortunately, OEMs and machine builders can now deliver secure cloud-based services and remote access to their customers, therefore eliminating the need to maintain in-house cloud servers.
One key issue that definitely demands scrutiny is the cloud server license scheme. Often, upfront costs may seem low for limited server hosts. Yet these apparent cost savings on server hosts may actually make a project uneconomical due to a limited scale of connections. Second, you may also need to consider central management capabilities in order to flexibly expand remote connections as your needs change. With this said, carefully weigh the costs and benefits of incorporating secure remote access to industrial networks. Always select solutions that minimize hassles and will help deliver more value to customers.
Tip Three: Use Management Software for Better Visibility of Network Status
When complexity increases due to greater connectivity on industrial networks, it can become very difficult to identify the root cause of problems and maintain sufficient network visibility. Control engineers often have to revert to trial and error to get the system back to normal, which is time-consuming and troublesome.
In order to facilitate and manage growing industrial networks, network operators need integrated network management software to make informed decisions throughout network deployment, maintenance, and diagnostics. In addition, as systems continue to grow, it is important that you pay attention to a number of network integration concerns. First, only managing industrial networks in local control centers may not be feasible three or five years from now, especially when existing systems need to be integrated with new ones. It is therefore important to use network management software with integration interfaces, such as OPC DA tags for SCADA system integration or RESTful APIs for external web services. Furthermore, an interface to facilitate third-party software integration is also a key criterion for ensuring future flexibility.
