Prospector in Other Process Industries

Prospector’s mass and energy balance ‘engine’ was designed to be portable across any number of manufacturing-based industries. We began serving the pulp and paper industry over 25 years ago; the key characteristics that made that sector a good fit include: high energy intensity; multiple unit operations, each dependent on the other; many ‘work-in-process’ inventories to manage; large mass flows of materials (slurries, powders, wood chips, etc.) that are difficult to measure accurately; and an ongoing focus on productivity and efficiency improvements, to enhance profitability in global, competitive markets.

Most industrial manufacturing plants now have extensive real-time data collection systems. Often, however, the data is either underutilized or used exclusively for ‘looking backwards’; generating Monthly Reports, compiling quality data on products already made and shipped, reconciling raw material purchases and usage for the past month, documenting last month’s energy usage, and so on. Bonanza Associates’ Prospector software makes it possible to use that massive amount of collected data to predict and plan for the future.

Our clients are experiencing a return on investment of less than six months. Making data-driven decisions every day in manufacturing facilities is always important, but it is critical to survival in large plants making products for commodity markets. Predictive modeling leverages the advances companies have made by adopting Lean Six Sigma and other productivity-enhancing tools and techniques, and takes them to a new level.

Here are some ways clients use our software to improve profitability:

Plan and execute Maintenance Outages

Assess the benefits (financial and operational) and potential risks of new processes

Plan and execute chemical trials

Daily planning to optimize run-time and prevent slowdowns

Quickly identify areas of opportunity for process improvements, and quantify the benefits of productivity improvement projects and initiatives

Automate compliance reporting

Manage and track Energy Savings programs

Here is a partial list of the industrial sectors we believe could directly benefit from using Prospector, in addition to the sectors we currently serve:

Breweries, Wineries

Food and Beverage Processing

Textiles

Petrochemical Refineries

Metals Refining

Automobile, Truck Assembly