Sanimax Industries Inc. has selected Ekhosoft to deliver and integrate its leading Ekho Operational Performance Management (OPM) platform in a landmark move, which will offer Sanimax’s American and Canadian teams enhanced insight, accurate tracking and a robust digitalized OPM solution across all plants, supporting the company’s vision for future success. 

Sanimax, an established provider of agriculture and animal nutrition products in the agri-food industry, operates manufacturing plants across Canada and the United States, reclaiming and transforming organic material into high-quality ingredients for several industries. In recent years, the company identified a growing need to reduce downtime, cut waste, improve data insight with accurate data reporting and increase collaboration across teams. 

With no existing system in place that met or served those critical needs, Sanimax sought a solution that allowed them to concentrate their operational objectives in a unified platform that was easily and quickly integrated, well-supported and could be scaled to meet future goals.  

Montreal-based Ekhosoft, a Power Factors company, offered its flagship Ekho OPM solution, a unified product for OPM that allows manufacturing team members to share production issues in real-time, drive improvement initiatives, uncover and measure performance losses and reductions and promote a culture of continuous improvement via enhanced visibility and accurate data portrayals. 

After a three-month proof-of-concept (POC) period that saw the integration of Ekho on a Sanimax production line, Ekho was further integrated across all five Montreal-based production lines after meeting and exceeding Sanimax's OPM goals.  

At the conclusion of the POC, Sanimax's adoption and utilization of Ekho had grown to the point where over 90% of Sanimax’s production line team were conversant with the solution’s user-friendly interface and were able to glean more insight into their processes, including in relation to other production lines. 

Ekho was selected as the winning all-in-one application solution, offering Sanimax’s team members the ability to simultaneously monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), downtime tracking, production operations, efficiency matching and more while offering improved data insight and a better understanding of how to position manufacturing processes while drastically scaling down on waste. 

“Sanimax is excited to launch Ekho in its plants,” says Martin Lortie, manager of automation and electrical at Sanimax. “This solution answers the needs we were looking for. With its user-friendly dashboard, we are certain that it will allow our team to be more effective and improve our production.” 

Some of the many benefits Ekho offers Sanimax include documenting events and logging varying data values on a daily basis, accurate reporting and data aggregation through digital forms, measuring and tracking returns to full operational capacity after shutdowns and planned/unplanned downtime, and more. 

“Simply put, we’re delighted that Sanimax chose Ekhosoft to assist with meeting their goals for success,” said Patrick Ramsey, vice president of Power Factors. “Our OPM solution empowers their skilled teams of operators to make better decisions and undertake informed courses of actions to improve efficiency and cut waste.” 

Sanimax will further completely integrate Ekho across all production lines and plants, in both Canada and the United States, in 2023.

Sources: Ekhosoft; Power Factors