Ecolab improves data use and increases quality and efficiency

Meet Peter Bermingham, senior engineering manager with Ecolab, Inc. Ecolab is a leading global provider of water, hygiene, and infection prevention services at nearly three million customer locations in more than 40 industries.

“For the last 99 years, we’ve been finding innovative solutions to use science to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges, mainly around water, food, health and climate,” Peter explains.

Peter’s role focuses on automation and digital transformation within healthcare, surgical, and manufacturing facilities. That includes implementing new equipment, software, and other technologies that collect and analyze data to improve product quality and identify efficiencies.

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Healthcare Facilities Face Several Challenges

“In healthcare facilities, we faced several challenges, including paper-based documentation with millions of handwritten documents generated every year. It’s time consuming, leading to a lot of inefficiencies and trapped data,” he says. “We also had no real-time visibility into manufacturing facilities. We wanted to be more proactive and get the right information to the right people, at the right time and in the right format.”

Ecolab needed a solution that would take them from ‘paper to glass,’ automating labor-intensive tasks and creating a fail-safe operating environment. After vetting many options, they selected PTC’s ThingWorx Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Platform. PTC is a Rockwell Automation Strategic Alliance Partner.

Connected Data Sources

“We purchased through Rockwell because we wanted to leverage their OT (operational technology) experience and use that to help us,” he says. “We chose ThingWorx IIoT Platform for a few reasons, including we wanted an IoT platform that connects all our different data sources from the manufacturing floor to our ERP systems. We didn’t want data to be siloed or inaccessible.”

Additionally, Peter describes the ThingWorx IIoT Platform as a “future proof solution” that allows Ecolab to scale both the system’s functionality and its use at other manufacturing sites. The ability to customize the platform was also a plus.

“We wanted a modern user interface, centered around the operator, with high-quality data that could be used to make high-quality decisions,” he says.

Real-Time Metrics

With the ThingWorx IIoT Platform, Ecolab has started to operate facilities in real time, accessing important production and quality metrics and delivering that data to operators, supervisors, and leaders.

“We’ve started to uncover some of the hidden issues in our plants, including down times. We understand more about our machine capabilities, spotting data trends, and that’s all been hugely beneficial to us,” Peter says. “We’re improving our processes, as well as our business and our quality.”