The Marsden Group: How a Small Tech Company You Have Never Heard Of Just Transformed the Manufacturing Industry

HOUSTON, July 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- At the opening corenote of the Microsoft Inspire 2019 conference in Las Vegas yesterday, The Marsden Group President Andrew Pratt joined Microsoft's executive vice-president of Worldwide Commercial Business, Judson Althoff and Dave Penrith, Chief Engineer at Unilever PLC to share how The Marsden Group is playing a critical part in leading the digital transformation of global manufacturing giant Unilever.

The Marsden Group, whose background is in technology for heavy asset industries, rose to the challenge to deliver a custom-built digital twin solution for the first of Unilever's factories in just 6 weeks.

The solution, that was developed and tested at Unilever's factory in Valinhos, Brazil, uses the latest technologies to build a next-generation digital model/twin of a Unilever factory.  Through the application of IoT (Internet of Things) and intelligent edge services in the Azure IoT platform, The Marsden Group, in collaboration with Unilever and Microsoft were able to create this digital representation of every machine and process within the factory and to connect every single piece of equipment so that huge volumes of data (from productive cycle times to temperatures) can be sent into the model. The data is then collected and using advanced analytics and machine learning, it's possible to predict outcomes and inform operations to make massive improvements in efficiency levels.

The pilot site alone has already saved Unilever almost $3million and has driven a 1% - 3% increase in productivity.

For a company with just 100 employees, the question everyone wanted to hear the answer to at the Microsoft Inspire conference was how did The Marsden Group make such a difference to Unilever's bottom line in only 6 weeks.

"The most important thing was building on what the factory teams are already doing," says Andrew Pratt, President of The Marsden Group. "Our job is to use our expertise to unlock the art of the possible around what the latest technology is capable of and to demonstrate how fast this can actually be done - we literally designed and manufactured a sensor pack at our R&D facility in Houston and put in on a piece of equipment in that 6 week window. Being then able to show Unilever's team of subject matter experts and engineers how we can bring their data to life and use it to control their equipment. This is where the real magic happens."

"When your ambition is as great as ours, you need partners who can help you positively disrupt your operations," explains Dave Penrith, Chief Engineer at Unilever. "The team at The Marsden Group have shown us new possibilities to improve our supply chain. Their speed, amazing energy, and diversity of thinking have been second-to-none."

Commenting on the work that The Marsden Group and Unilever have done on the digital twin project during the corenote speech, Judson Althoff of Microsoft says "The work that you have done is really something special here. The outcomes driving the digital capability are best in class. I am humbled to have the opportunity to travel the world to see a lot of solutions and this is one of the most impressive I've seen. And the most impressive part is how you've engaged people. It's a winning formula."

Unilever is currently operating eight digital twins across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia and is streaming data from 15 of its' 300 global plants. With the help of The Marsden Group, the plan is to connect 70 factories by the end of 2019 and an additional 100 or more by 2020.

Watch the full opening Corenote presentation with Unilever and The Marsden Group here: https://www.themarsdengroup.com//msinspire19

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