Stratus Technologies, the provider of simplified, protected and autonomous edge computing platforms, recognized two of its customers—Jessica Spurlock (for a project with Rubberlite, Inc.) and Synthomer—have been recognized as winners in the Manufacturing Leadership Awards 2022, in the Individual Digital Transformation Leadership and Operational Excellence categories, respectively. The Manufacturing Leadership Awards, which are selected based on benefit of technology and use in manufacturing, recognize operational and leadership excellence from manufacturing organizations and individual leaders.
The operational edge continues to be critical to industry’s transforming processes and harnessing data for actionable insight and efficiency. Stratus edge computing platforms enable business, operations and IT leaders across industries to quickly modernize IT and OT infrastructure, reduce risk, eliminate application downtime and pursue Industry 4.0 opportunities.
Rubberlite and Synthomer implemented Stratus edge computing platforms as a foundation to simplify IT maintenance, ensure continuous application availability and enable manufacturing visibility to operate more efficiently.
Jessica Spurlock, process automation engineer, was honored for Individual Digital Transformation Leadership, where she designed, configured, implemented and maintained electrical systems, instrumentation, controls and HMIs for the foam rubber products supplier Rubberlite, in Huntington, West Virginia. In support of the company’s commitment to growth and innovation, Spurlock both led and implemented the supervisory control system project that leveraged Stratus ftServer to eliminate downtime and lower IT costs by 50%. Due to the increased availability of data and equipment resources, this project resulted in an 80% reduction of non-sellable material and a 25% increase in sales.
"Stratus provides our process with redundant service to prevent single points of failure in a more cost-effective manner than traditional methods. Additionally, Stratus’ technology prevents application downtime rather than just recovering from it. As a result, Rubberlite’s critical applications have not experienced any unplanned downtime since the implementation of the Stratus server in 2016.” Spurlock said.
Synthomer, headquartered in London, is a supplier of specialty polymers and latex materials. The company digitally transformed its plant in Sant’Albano Stura, Italy, by replacing all existing multi-branded PLCs with Rockwell Automation Allen-Bradley ControlLogix programmable automation controllers (PAC). To protect its modernized operation, Synthomer chose Stratus ftServer to consolidate software workloads with virtualization and to run Rockwell PlantPAx DCS for plant-wide control and operations. With Stratus, Synthomer achieved 99.999% uptime and increased production by 30%. Synthomer leveraged powerful analytics capabilities to streamline operations and real-time data to make decisions. The project was delivered with Rockwell Partner Progecta.
“Edge computing is a foundation for digital transformation and operational excellence across a wide range of industries, notably manufacturing. These achievements by Rubberlite and Synthomer demonstrate the power of automation and zero-touch edge computing. The success and recognition of our customers motivates us to continue innovating, and we thank them for the trust they place in us to support their critical processes and data,” said David Laurello, president and CEO at Stratus.
The 2022 Manufacturing Leadership Awards received a record number of submissions from global companies of various sizes in many different industries. Winners will be recognized at the Manufacturing Leadership Awards Gala, which will take place on June 29, 2022, at the JW Marriott in Marco Island, Florida. Details about the awards are available at https://www.manufacturingleadershipcouncil.com/leadership-awards/.
