Meteor Helps Azumuta Digitize Shop Floor Activities Across the Manufacturing Industry
Azumuta digitizes shop floor operations & eliminates paperwork with an integrated SaaS platform & mobile app built with Meteor.
Here’s why they became #1:
[image source: Azumuta]
The digital revolution in shop floor operations is rapidly boosting factory productivity and production quality across the board. And we’re here for it!
Today’s ever-advancing software and connected digital tools eliminate the use of paperwork, collect and report real-time data, and provide actionable insights into shop floor performance.
Azumuta is a fully-integrated SaaS platform for shop floor digitization and the leading no-code software provider in this space. Their web and mobile apps connect operators, supervisors, and managers to every single manufacturing aspect and support a culture of constant improvement.
Even better? The Azumuta team uses Meteor for its seamless, modular online platform.
So in this case study, we’ll explore how Azumuta leverages Meteor’s streamlined code once, deploy everywhere approach like they help streamline factory operations.
Meet Azumuta, Manufacturing’s Best Friend
Azumuta was founded in Belgium by CEO Batist Leman and investor Dirk Vermunicht. Their team of less than 20 describe themselves as highly passionate, enthusiastic, and unique people who align in the mission of making the world more productive.
[image source: Azumuta]
Azumuta is the most complete software tool that helps manufacturing companies eliminate paperwork and digitize shop floor operations. Over 125,000 operators from companies like General Electric, Duvel, Nitto, Ashland Global, etc., trust Azumuta.
From digital work instructions to frontline communication, data analysis, and IoT connection, everything lives on the centralized Azumuta platform. This integrated ecosystem transforms operations for organizations of all sizes and empowers factory workers to grow and thrive.
How Does Azumuta Work?
Azumuta believes every shop floor can be completely under control and improved with the right knowledge available at the right station.
[image source: Azumuta]
So the Azumuta platform is based on three main pillars:
1. The Paperless Factory
Azumuta helps create a 99% paperless culture.
Gone are the days of printing, disseminating, and updating Word documents, Excel files, and sloppy training binders. Azumuta’s connected worker platform enables paperless processes of all manufacturing activity, including:
- Visual work instructions
- Integrated product quality management
- Training and competence matrices
- Issue and improvement tracking
- Audits and digital checklists
Replacing all that paper with one central tool means essential information can live directly on the shop floor. The latest data is immediately available to all workers and departments in the company. Workforces can access these necessary documents by scanning a QR code on the spot. They can also receive procedures in the languages they prefer.
[image source: Azumuta]
A paperless floor saves money, keeps activities organized, ensures protocol adherence, and benefits the environment. More importantly, digitizing key, real-time data like this creates insights organizations can leverage for improvements.
2. IoT Connectivity and Data Collection Integrations
Azumuta helps move manufacturers forward and develop software that makes the factories of tomorrow better than today. IoT data collection is the smartest way for manufacturers to increase machine uptime, reduce costs, and enhance worker safety.
With the Azumuta IoT Connectivity, organizations glean data from different Collector Protocols like OPC UA, MQTT, and REST API. They can also capture critical IoT machine sensor data and analyze production processes.
[image source: Azumuta]
As real-time data about shop floor activities flow to the centralized Azumuta platform from several different sources, leaders capture a high-level overview of the end-to-end manufacturing activities.
A highly automated process shrinks data collection time and reduces data entry errors. Collecting critical data during the procedures also ensures the quality of every work order. Leaders can then identify problems in production before they occur on the floor.
3. Data Analytics and Insights
To build a culture of continuous improvement, you have to become an insights-driven company.
Azumuta’s digitization and data collection allow organizations to leverage their real-time intelligent insights to increase productivity and efficiency by an average of 20% — in as early as three months!
[image source: Azumuta]
Users can build their own interactive dashboards to quickly identify, visualize, and monitor KPIs like production order statuses, defect rates, machine data, manufacturing targets, audit reports, training statuses, and more.
AI-driven insights enable leaders and factory workers to participate in an evolving feedback loop. They can work on identified issues, offer information progressively on the floor, or report problems directly.
This real-time visibility and follow-up may be why Azumuta improves output quality by 60%, on average.
[image source: Azumuta]
Overall, the three-pronged Azumuta approach digitizes everything from engineering to quality, so process engineers, quality engineers, production leaders, manufacturers, and the operations team can use their data to thrive.
What’s in the Azumuta Tech Stack?
Azumuta’s SaaS app runs on the web, Android (Google Play), and iOS (App Store) devices. The team uses Meteor in the back-end (woo!). And the rest of the tech stack includes:
- Digital Ocean, AWS, and Azure for cloud computing
- S3 for file management
- Mongo Atlas for database storage
- DDP by default for the app
Azumuta utilizes React and React Native in the front-end. They do this in one codebase so they can share code between both applications.
The team also uses Webpack for very light endpoints. These bundles are then served by Meteor.
Heavy data loads call for REST API with Express. Azumuta says it was “very easy to create,” so they can use off-the-shelf connectors.
Azumuta’s Journey With Meteor
Meteor’s streamlined code once, deploy everywhere framework saves small teams like Azumuta time and resources. It allows developers to use the same code, whether developing for the web, iOS, Android, or desktop. And it provides a seamless user and update experience across all devices.
[image source: Azumuta]
Azumuta started on Meteor 0.8.3 back in 2014 and “never regretted the choice!” Over the years, the Azumuta stack got lighter because Meteor became more modular.
According to the Azumuta team, “every Meteor upgrade was painless, which is something you can’t say for many other frameworks.”
“We’ve never had reliability problems with Meteor, and we’ve never had crashes. Everything runs super smooth.”
Scaling the easy way
Meteor’s mature open-source framework allows teams to build and scale efficiently, so they can serve millions of users.
Azumuta revealed that scaling “has never been a problem” for the team. They can scale horizontally because every customer is isolated from the other. If the DDP/Oplog was too heavy, they just turned off reactivity and pulled it towards an API.
This allowed Azumuta to move very fast in the beginning without being locked in if speed was required.
CSS challenges, solved
In the “olden days,” Azumuta used Blaze and general CSS styling with Bootstrap. It took the team a while to move away from that because it was difficult to figure out where the CSS was being applied.
However, now the Azumuta team is “completely on React, and everything is scoped.”
What’s Next for Azumuta?
First launched in Belgium, Azumuta says they’re proud to be “expanding very fast and internationally.” They decided 2023 will mark the year of their US expansion.
If you want to try Azumuta and see their hard work in action, you can score a free 14-day trial. You’ll have access to all their features (i.e., work instructions, quality control, improvement boards, learning, and development, etc.).
If you’re interested in becoming an Azumuteer, they’re currently hiring enthusiastic people (with a good sense of humor) who are passionate about their work.
Ready To See How Meteor Can Help Your Team?
Meteor is an open-source framework for seamlessly building and deploying web, mobile, and desktop applications in JavaScript. It assembles all the pieces you need to develop and maintain modern apps with a single JavaScript codebase.
Just like Azumuta, we believe in streamlining processes to boost productivity and efficiency while reducing errors, costs, and downtime. So how can Meteor support your company’s goals?
