An experienced engineer in charge of a process plant or manufacturing operation will walk through and just by listening and watching will get a measure of its health. A grinding noise in a gearbox, excessive vibration in a fan or pump, a leaking cylinder, lights dimming … all are indications of trouble to come, and in the worst case, a production stoppage or a dangerous situation. But how many times can the engineer perform a walk-through? Once a day? Less often? What if, instead, the machinery could be monitored around the clock? And not just by sight and sound, but by infrared, line voltage, temperature and humidity? What if it could raise an alarm, alerting personnel of an impending failure or dangerous condition? Or better yet, know in advance about a distant failure from a faint irregularity detected in a sensor’s signal, long before it is heard by, or far from, human ears?
That grinding noise from a wind turbine, a hundred feet in the air, for example, can be matched to a similar noise and alert maintenance to check the oil in the gearbox, the pump, if early enough, or to replace the gearbox, if detected later. Either case is better than having the giant blades grinding to a halt.
Unlike the engineer doing a daily walk-through, Falkonry works around the clock and has no limits on the amount of data it can process.
The ability to intelligently pinpoint causes from irregularities in signals is a result of machine learning and depends on having a decent library of irregular signals tagged as to their eventual failure, of course. Should that be the case, any company with asset-intensive operations (think process plants, energy production stations, manufacturing facilities, heavy machinery, transportation, etc.) should clearly benefit.
IFS, which specializes in software for service organizations, plus asset-intensive operations, recognized Falkonry’s potential in the market it is serving—and in a recent announcement, committed to acquiring the company.
The financial terms were not disclosed. If acquisition costs are “immaterial” (generally considered to be less than 5% of the acquiring company’s revenue), they don’t have to be disclosed. Given that 5% of IFS's annual revenue of $1.52 billion for the fiscal year ending in June 2023 is $76 million, we may have a limit on what IFS could have paid for Falkonry.
IFS plans to add Falkonry self-learning anomaly detection algorithms to its existing IFS enterprise service applications.
About Falkonry
Falkonry, which is headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., a 10-minute drive from Apple’s headquarters, has its roots in Mumbai, India, home of its founder (more on that in a minute). The company makes AI-based software that, if its claims are to be believed, is capable of devouring the terabytes of data emanating from sensors.
Falkonry was founded in 2012 by Nikunj Mehta, who has a PhD in computer science from the University of Southern California. Falkonry’s customers include the U.S. Navy and Air Force, Ternium, North American Stainless, Harbour Energy and SSAB.
Mehta, CEO of Falkonry, expressed a “thrill to join forces with IFS” but said nothing about his new position.
IFS CEO, Darren Roos, sees Falkonry’s ease of use as worth the price of admission. “Falkonry is unique in the market because its technology is agnostic and also it does not require data scientists.”
Roos also senses that the acquisition will lead to more customers. “Falkonry’s technology can be applied in all industries, and whilst the team has some hugely impressive references in IFS’s focus markets on asset performance management, manufacturing execution systems, servitization, and configurable workflows, we see a really broad addressable market to capitalize on.”
IFS’s previous acquisition was Poka, known for connected worker technology used for factories and field personnel. The company may be done acquiring for the time being, saying the combination of Falkonry and Poka with IFS Cloud already makes IFS a compelling favorite.
Falkonry has been funded to the tune of $13.3 million, according to Crunchbase.
Find out more at falkonry.com
IFS, All About Service
Headquartered in Sweden, IFS has 5,500 employees and is headed by Darren Roos, who has written the book on service, Moment of Service, a self-published 200-page quick read that is at once a definition of differentiating service and a rallying point for his troops. We have been all about the product since the Industrial Age started, he says. But now, with companies competing, often with products that are more alike than different, it becomes all about service. Rental cars, airlines and restaurants are some of the examples Roos uses to remind us that it is service that makes for a good experience.
The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, another example cited, has to maintain 2,800 to 30,000 different versions of aircraft and 250 types of ships, from landing craft to aircraft carriers. While service with a smile may not make for a good experience for a serviceman or woman, mission success does.
Getting a passenger aircraft to land after takeoff is a statistical guarantee, says a Roll Royce employee in Moment of Service. There’s little to interfere with an aircraft once it is up in the air. On land, it’s a different story. That’s where all the complex preparation and maintenance operations happen. Ensuring their clock-work orchestration ensures a timely takeoff.
“Bringing it all together for takeoff determines whether we have delighted or disappointed in the eyes of the customer,” says Nick Ward of Rolls-Royce.
IFS makes cloud and on-premises software for manufacturers, distributors and equipment managers. The company competes with enterprise resource planning (ERP) companies like SAP and service software companies like PTC, among others.
More about IFS here: www.ifs.com