Vinay Nathan, Co-Founder & CEO A leading manufacturing company that specializes in the production of packaging films was facing quality assurance (QA) issues. The company usually took its consignments on a made-to-order or configure-to-order basis, because each of its orders had a different set of requirements in terms of product characteristics. To fulfill the specific needs and deliver good quality products, therefore, the manufacturing company needed to adjust the production line settings for each of its consignments. Even then, the packaging films were not meeting the required standards, and the degraded product was inversely impacting the customer experience and generating lower profit margins. For the manufacturing company, the biggest challenge was to identify the root cause of their low-quality output and find a remedy for that. The manufacturing company’s search for a suitable solution led them to Altizon, an industrial IoT company from Scotts Valley, CA.
Altizon implemented its proprietary smart IoT-enabled manufacturing intelligence solution, Datonis MInt to find the sources of the quality degradation problem for the manufacturing company. The IoT solution can process the machine and its historical performance data, and establish a correlation between machine settings and production output. The insights offered by the Datonis MInt gave the manufacturing company’s QA team the ability to monitor critical machine settings parameters, ascertain whether they are in statistical control, and eventually correlate the process and machine data to identify two critical parameters (pressure and tension) that were causing the problem. Based on this insight, a prescriptive quality model was built that aimed to change the machine configuration for every new order. The manufacturing intelligence helped the company in achieving predictable quality goods.
“Right now we have reached the critical point where manufacturers need to either embrace the digital transformation or face the possibility of becoming obsolete,” says Vinay Nathan, co-founder and CEO of Altizon. And this is where Altizon has been able to strike its impact with its Datonis suite of solutions. Altizon’s Datonis is a fully managed IIoT platform that lets the organization securely connect and process IoT data. It provides the ability to analyze and visualize data in real-time, integrates IIoT data into business applications and makes operational decisions to impact business operations and bottom-lines. The platform follows standard connectivity protocols and is supported by all operating systems, including custom real-time operating systems. The second offering of the suite is Datonis MInt, which connects with clients’ heterogeneous plant floor systems and measures key performance indicators. The Datonis MInt module collects data from machines, existing SCADA and DCS systems, enterprise data historians and manufacturing execution systems (MES) to a single repository that provides a holistic view into clients’ manufacturing operations data. Lastly, Datonis Edge, the final solution in the Datonis suite can overcome unstable connectivity issues. The Datonis Edge is a store and forward system and has a built-in cache for storing messages when offline. Additionally, it also uses data batching, compression and various other techniques to ensure that it can deal with limited network data bandwidth.
Right now we have reached the critical point where manufacturers need to either embrace the digital transformation or face the possibility of becoming obsolete
At present, the company is helping drive digital transformation of a leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) company in 11 plants across the globe. ALtizon is also assisting a leading tire manufacturer in determining significant savings on the usage of consumables at a leading tire manufacturer. With a global footprint of over 100 enterprise users, Altizon plans to continue offering its services to help enterprises accelerate smart manufacturing initiatives, modernize asset performance management services, and launch new business models for service delivery, among other processes. Altizon’s proven technology is being used in many industries, including the automotive, steel, chemical, energy and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) markets.
Altizon plans to use the funds to strengthen its international presence and continue its investments in intellectual property (IP) development. Altizon’s Datonis Industrial IoT platform is used in a range of applications from intelligent edge computing to business applications for smart manufacturing.
“We have a strong roster of global industrial majors as our customers and they can now gain further benefit from our global footprints and enhanced technology offerings, with the on-boarding of multi-billion dollar TVS Group,” said Vinay Nathan, CEO of Altizon.
Altizon was founded by Ranjit Nair, Vinay Nathan, and Yogesh Kulkarni in 2013. The company helps enterprises use machine data to drive business decisions with a view to enable digital transformation by accelerating smart manufacturing initiatives, modernising asset performance management, and adopting new business models for service delivery.
The company claims to have built a global ecosystem of over 100 enterprises. Altizon operates in Western Europe, Asia Pacific, and the United States.
Rajesh Narasimhan, Board Member of TVS Motor Company and CEO of TVS Motor (Singapore) said in a media statement, “After detailed assessments around industrial IOT platforms we found Altizon’s technology portfolio of definitive value in driving digital transformation with Industrial IOT. This is amongst our first set of investments in digital start-ups focused on the Automotive and Fintech Industries”.
The funding comes three years after Alitzon’s last round in 2016, when the company raised $4 Mn from Wipro Ventures, the venture capital arm of Wipro, Lumis Partners, The Hive and Infuse Ventures.
In late 2018, a Chennai-based IoT startup DeTect Technologies had raised $3.3 Mnfrom SAIF Partners, Bharat Innovation Fund, Axilor Ventures, and others.
Prior to this, Indian hospitality brand OYO Rooms has made its foray into IoT space with the acquisition of Mumbai-based IoT (Internet of Things) technology company AblePlus.
Altizon was a part of Inc42’s 42Next list released as a part of the flagship annual report, ‘The State Of Indian Startup Ecosystem 2018’.