Discover how the EY-Microsoft alliance generates value for clients by unlocking the power of data and AI

Discover how an American manufacturer overcame operational constraints and streamlined production processes through partnership with the EY team. Leveraging Microsoft Azure technologies and the Power Platform, they achieved significant reductions in downtime and improved maintenance predictions, resulting in recovered sales revenue. This scalable framework provided by EY expertise in deploying Microsoft technology offers flexibility for future enhancements.

▉ The challenge

A publicly traded American manufacturer faced challenges due to operational constraints and complexities in its production processes. Demand for many of the company’s products outstripped production due to the building boom in 2021 and the necessity of personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical packaging during the pandemic.

Complicating matters, the client’s specialty product requires a complex, three-step manufacturing process, which resulted in production bottlenecks and downtime, and slowed production significantly. In a fast-paced manufacturing environment, each hour of downtime results in major losses. The client recognized that it could lose market share and its reputation for reliability if it did not get to the root of the issues and engineer a solution.

▉ The breakthrough

The organization engaged EY services given the organization’s understanding of how to apply Microsoft technology to address core operational challenges through streamlining planning and scheduling processes. To meet the client’s requirements, the EY teams started by assessing existing operational processes and reviewed the plant floor to identify operations or steps that could be automated or improved. By employing Microsoft Azure technologies and the Microsoft Power Platform, EY teams were able to build a complex scheduling improvement model that balanced both operational and performance indicators.

▉ The result

Over the course of a few months, a tailored approach was implemented that improved the client’s technology investments in Microsoft and EY Supply Chain & Intelligent Operations.

New technologies and greater efficiencies created a more manageable production schedule by reducing downtime and predicting needed maintenance.

For a manufacturer this large, each eliminated day of downtime per month from improved operations equates to about $1 million in recovered sales revenue. The new production schedule also produces less deterioration on the production machines and creates a predictive maintenance schedule to reduce expensive repairs going forward. This modern scheduling and planning framework provided by EY is scalable for future iterations. Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power Platform deliver at speed with the flexibility to add incremental enhancements over time.

▉ Microsoft technologies leveraged:

• Microsoft Azure Databricks
• Microsoft Power Platform