The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to present unique challenges this past year for Predictronics, our customers, the greater economy, and the world. In the face of new obstacles, such as the current supply chain shortages and production delays across numerous industries, Predictronics was fortunate to have many successful and impactful engagements with our customers, both current and new. We were also honored to have been recognized this year for delivering proven impact and ROI to our customers through our machine learning and AI-driven solutions for industrial applications.

In 2020, Predictronics was the recipient of a phase two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the U.S. Navy, which gave us the ability this past year to complete a demonstration-ready prototype solution for identifying, labelling, diagnosing, and predicting failures in critical aircraft systems. During this phase we worked to expand the overall capabilities of our approach by leveraging maintenance and inspection records for labelling anomalous patterns. We also optimized the settings and parameters used in our analysis methodology and further automated fault identification and labelling.

Our prototype solution has the ability to identify and predict faults with a high degree of precision. When deployed in an aerospace application, this solution can deliver quicker and more accurate diagnosis, lower maintenance costs, higher fleet availability, and greater operational efficiency. The functionality of this solution can also be applied to a wide range of industries beyond government and commercial aircraft, including manufacturing, ground transportation, energy, and more.

In March 2021, Predictronics was awarded another SBIR grant from the U.S. Air Force in the focus area of smart manufacturing solutions for high-mix low volume applications. Upon completion of this planned development, the solution will be made commercially available to other customers.

Predictronics also developed and deployed new solutions this past year in the areas of machine tool health monitoring, as well as image analysis for predictive quality.

In May 2021, the National Association of Manufacturers awarded Predictronics the 2021 Manufacturing Leadership Partner Award and our solutions developed for MacLean-Fogg and Maxion Wheels were the recipients of the 2021 Artificial Intelligence and Analytics Leadership Award and the 2021 Industrial Internet of Things Leadership Award, respectively.

The Artificial Intelligence and Analytics Leadership Award was based on our predictive maintenance solution for MacLean-Fogg, powered by our end-to-end software platform PDX. This solution focuses on hot forming machines—critical assets for this customer. The machines are ideal to monitor, as issues with these systems can significantly affect uptime and efficiency. The reduction in downtime provided by this solution improved productivity and diminished costs related to unnecessary maintenance. This solution is highly scalable and our roadmap plan projects a plant-level rollout in the next two years.

The industrial IoT solution and predictive health monitoring systems for Maxion Wheels Germany were awarded the Internet of Things Leadership Award. Our work prevented multiple asset issues and addressed unplanned downtime within the first three months for three key steel wheel manufacturing processes.

In 2021, Predictronics also played host to two webinars, demonstrating the benefits of our predictive solutions, as well as showcasing how these solutions are configured and deployed.

Our first webinar of the year, Predictive Solutions for Addressing Key Challenges in Industrial Applications, examined the challenges facing industries today, the current market trends, and the value of AI-based predictive solutions. It also featured two real-world case studies highlighting Predictronics’ successful project engagements with Maxion Wheels and Nippon Steel.

Our second webinar of the year, A Day in the Life of a Predictive Maintenance Team, delved into our work deploying a predictive maintenance solution for hot forming machines for MacLean-Fogg. As our first ever joint webinar with a customer, we explored our award-winning software platform from the perspective of an end user and shared best practices for adopting predictive solutions and deriving real-world value.

Predictronics has proven our industry impact through numerous projects over the years. In 2021, we not only released four new case studies, including our Predictive Solutions for Freight and Cargo series, but we also published two case study articles in Pumps and Systems Magazine, highlighting Predictive Maintenance for Industrial Vehicle Applications and Predictive Maintenance for Industrial Pump Applications.

To learn more about getting started with predictive solutions and choosing the right software, check out our popular educational blog series from this past year, Preparing for Predictive.