Hayward Tyler and Lanner win OR Society’s President’s Award

Predictive Simulation-Powered Smart Factory Project Secures Prestigious Accolade for Leading Manufacturer

Lanner, a provider of predictive simulation software which delivers the certainty to empower smart business, have, in conjunction with Hayward Tyler, a leading manufacturer of motors and pumps for the oil & gas industries, won the OR Society’s President’s Award 2017. This prestigious award recognises excellence in Operational Research (OR) across a number of criteria, and will be presented to Lanner and Hayward Tyler at a ceremony scheduled to take place in November.

Judged by an expert panel at the OR Society, the President’s Award is given to organisations which demonstrate the very best account of OR, focusing specifically on tangible benefits, longevity, intellectual content of the solution and excellence within the OR process. Hayward Tyler’s Smart Factory project, underpinned by Lanner’s predictive simulation solution and WITNESS Horizon software, delivered across each of these areas and beyond to secure this year’s accolade.

The winning project involved a complete redesign of Hayward Tyler’s operations to accommodate a 40% increase in capacity while reducing costs and increasing supply chain performance, specifically On-time, In-full (OTIF) metrics. WITNESS Horizon was pivotal to the project, representing a means of creating a simulated digital twin model to optimise decision-making at every stage of the process.

In creating a factory of the future, the model looked at throughput capacity and resource utilisation, inputting details such as skills, labour, timings and logic – across manufacturing, assembly, test and logistics. The digital twin was able to demonstrate a range of options for consideration and allowed the team to create a design which saved £500k on the original projected crane investments; reduced lead times from 72 weeks to 22 weeks; and boosted original equipment on time delivery from 18% to 100% aftermarket lead time from 32% to 92% of the new demanding targets.

A significant benefit of producing a digital model of the new factory was the ability to create an immersive 3D visualisation to help secure commitment and engagement from all stakeholders. The virtual factory simulation was crucial in demonstrating the business case to investors as they could see the new facility in operation before any ground was broken.

“Achieving the OR President’s Award is a huge accolade and is a real testament to what we have achieved in partnership with Lanner over the last few years,” comments Oliver Buhlinger, Hayward Tyler.. “Simulation really is at the heart of our Smart Factory project, providing a platform to make the very best decisions about every aspect of our factory layout and operational control.

“Such is the power of the technology that we now have the clarity and insight to understand what our business will look like in 5-10 years. In fact we can fast forward an entire year or more in seconds to provide accurate projections and predictions. The model tells us everything we need to do to achieve our plans in the most efficient way possible, and allows us to drive our business transformation confidently, whilst demonstrating diligence to all key stakeholders. This just wouldn’t be possible without WITNESS Horizon.”

“While many are still talking about Industry 4.0 and the concept of the Smart Factory, Hayward Tyler has been leading the charge, embracing digitalisation as a catalyst to redesign and future-proof its business,” comments Hara Papachristou, consultant at Lanner. “At the heart of this transformation is predictive simulation whereby digital twin models have been deployed to harness dynamic process complexity and minimise risk across a major factory redesign. The degree of innovation demonstrated by Hayward Tyler in its transformational journey has not only been recognised in awards such as this one, but has resulted in the company establishing itself as an example of best practice on a global stage.”