Microsoft technology empowers scalability for
consumer products leader
CINCINNATI and REDMOND, Wash., June 8, 2022
/PRNewswire/ -- On Wednesday, The Procter & Gamble Company
(NYSE: PG) (P&G) and Microsoft Corp. announced a new multiyear
collaboration that will leverage the Microsoft Cloud to help create
the future of digital manufacturing at P&G.
multiyear collaboration that will leverage
the Microsoft Cloud to help create the future of digital
manufacturing at P&G
The two companies will co-innovate to accelerate and expand
P&G's digital manufacturing platform and leverage the
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to bring products to consumers
faster, increase customer satisfaction and improve productivity to
reduce costs.
"Together with Microsoft, P&G intends to make manufacturing
smarter by enabling scalable predictive quality, predictive
maintenance, controlled release, touchless operations and
manufacturing sustainability optimization — which has not been done
at this scale in the manufacturing space to date," said P&G CIO
Vittorio Cretella. "At P&G, data and technology are at the
heart of our business strategy and are helping create superior
consumer experiences. This first-of-its-kind co-innovation
agreement will digitize and integrate data to increase quality,
efficiency and sustainable use of resources to help deliver those
superior experiences."
With Microsoft Azure as the foundation, the new collaboration
marks the first time that P&G can digitize and integrate data
from more than 100 manufacturing sites around the world and enhance
its AI, machine learning and edge computing services for
real-time visibility. This will enable P&G employees to
analyze production data and leverage artificial intelligence to
immediately make decisions that drive improvement and exponential
impact. Accessing this level of data, at scale, is rare within the
consumer goods industry.
P&G selected Microsoft as its preferred cloud provider to
build the future of digital manufacturing based on a four-year
history of successfully working together on data and AI. The
new collaborative effort will:
- Allow for better utilization of data, AI capabilities and
digital twins technology.
- Optimize manufacturing environmental sustainability
efforts.
- Increase workforce efficiency and productivity.
"We are excited to help P&G accelerate its digital
manufacturing platform using Microsoft Azure, AI and IIoT to
accommodate volatility in the consumer products industry with
innovative, agile solutions that can easily scale based on market
conditions," said Judson Althoff, Microsoft's chief commercial
officer. "Our partnership will further P&G's growth and
business transformation through digital technology that seamlessly
connects people, assets, workflow and business processes that
promote resiliency."
Empowering technicians and advancing operations with
IIoT
P&G is already innovating and using Azure IoT Hub and
IoT Edge to help manufacturing technicians analyze
insights with greater speed and efficiency, creating improvements
in the production of its baby care and paper products with pilot
projects happening in Egypt,
India, Japan and the United
States.
Diapers and data: Quality control and process improvements
P&G is making advancements in its diaper manufacturing
process to reduce manufacturing downtime, minimize scrap and lower
maintenance expenses by automatically detecting and resolving the
largest causes of line stops and rework using machine learning. The
production of diapers involves assembling many layers of material
at high speed with great precision to ensure optimal absorbency,
superior leak protection and outstanding comfort. The new IIoT
platform uses machine telemetry and high-speed analytics to
continuously monitor production lines to provide early detection
and prevention of potential issues in the material flow. This
improves cycle time, reduces rework losses and ensures quality,
while simultaneously improving operator productivity.
Pioneering paper towels
In a pilot with Microsoft, P&G can now better predict
finished paper towel sheet lengths, improving the ability to
deliver the right amount of product to the consumer. With the
new IIoT platform, P&G can collect data from sensors on the
manufacturing line and use technologies like advanced algorithms,
machine learning and predictive analytics so it can improve
manufacturing efficiencies.
Increasing sustainability and predicting equipment
failure
To optimize manufacturing sustainability, P&G will use
Microsoft's machine learning and data storage platforms to
improve energy utilization across its paper machines in Family
Care. With the efficiency and speed of cloud computing, P&G
teams can analyze large volumes of holistic data sets and pinpoint
energy efficiency and machine maintenance opportunities across the
manufacturing process. The Azure platform will allow P&G to
easily integrate event summary data — such as production runs,
downtime, changeovers and more — along with historical data.
Co-innovation with a new Digital Enablement Office and
incubator
To accelerate technology integration and support pilot programs,
Microsoft and P&G have co-created a Digital Enablement Office
(DEO) staffed by experts from both organizations. They will
jointly deploy the Azure platform, and the DEO also intends to
serve as an incubator to create high-priority business scenarios in
the areas of product manufacturing and packaging processes that can
be implemented across P&G.
About Procter & Gamble
P&G serves consumers around the world with one of the
strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands,
including Always®, Ambi Pur®, Ariel®, Bounty®, Charmin®, Crest®,
Dawn®, Downy®, Fairy®, Febreze®, Gain®, Gillette®, Head &
Shoulders®, Lenor®, Olay®, Oral-B®, Pampers®, Pantene®, SK-II®,
Tide®, Vicks®, and Whisper®. The P&G community includes
operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide. Please
visit http://www.pg.com for the latest news and
information about P&G and its brands. For other P&G news,
visit us at www.pg.com/new.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) enables
digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and
an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and
every organization on the planet to achieve more.
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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.