SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Guidewheel, the leading AI-powered FactoryOps platform, today announced the launch of Scout, a new product to help manufacturers predict maintenance needs and detect early warning signals of issues before they lead to machine downtime or failure. This new AI-driven solution continuously analyzes data about machine performance to detect anomalies and alert the team to issues they need to know about.
Issues that begin as small changes in machine performance often develop into quality problems, preventable downtime, and even catastrophic failure. Too many manufacturers only detect these issues when it’s too late, driving lost production and unforeseen maintenance costs, and shortening the lifespan of critical equipment. Until now, most solutions designed to address these issues have relied on highly invasive vibration sensors, cost tens of thousands of dollars, or have been siloed from the systems plant floor teams use day-to-day, limiting their adoption and effectiveness.
“Managing change on the plant floor is challenging,” said Lauren Dunford, CEO and Co-Founder of Guidewheel. “That’s why Scout uses the same features and functionality that teams using Guidewheel are already using in their daily workflow. And we’re leveraging advanced AI to detect the signals that even the most experienced teams would miss. A predictive maintenance solution that can be turned on without any additional hardware, requires no additional training, and is powered by the most advanced AI available—that’s what we thought was missing from the market.”
Key capabilities of Scout include:
- Predictive AI - Advanced AI models evaluate minute-level data about machine performance. By evaluating a number of power variables simultaneously, Scout detects the small, imperceptible changes that are early warnings of a potential issue or failure.
- Early warning system - When a deviation from standard is detected, Scout sends an alert so your team can take action. Scout uses the same alerting functionality as the core Guidewheel platform, making it seamless for manufacturers to integrate into their daily workflow.
- Self-learning - The events, actions taken, and full context surrounding them are logged in Guidewheel, providing a full audit trail. This equips teams to perform detailed root-cause analysis, and enables Scout to learn, getting smarter and more predictive over time.
“Scout has already prevented significant issues for a number of manufacturers,” said Kevin Earabino, Head of Customer Experience at Guidewheel. “One of our customers is a Fortune 500 automotive manufacturer. Every minute of downtime costs them thousands of dollars. Scout quickly paid for itself by alerting the team to some abnormal conditions with one of their machines. The team investigated and found that a critical motor was slowly failing. If they hadn’t caught it when they did, the entire line would have gone down or worse, that critical piece of equipment would have failed. But Scout protected them from these outcomes, saving them tens of thousands of dollars in the process.”
Scout is available for Guidewheel customers today. To learn more, visit https://guidewheel.com/scout.
About Guidewheel
Guidewheel is on a mission to empower all the world's factories to reach sustainable peak performance. Its AI-powered FactoryOps platform makes the power of the cloud accessible to any factory. Guidewheel clips onto any machine to turn its real-time “heartbeat” into a connected, active learning system that empowers teams to reduce lost production time, increase efficiency, and perform better and better over time. A global software company founded out of Stanford, Guidewheel is backed by top investors including Greycroft and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, was named a Tech Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, and works with hundreds of manufacturers across the globe.
