In recent years there has been a steep decline in the manufacturing industry’s progress and productivity due to the lack of skilled employees in the workplace. A local technology firm aims to be part of the solution to increasing manufacturing awareness, advance training and increase automation for local companies.
After a profound frustration in the lack of skilled workers at every level of his past manufacturing job in automation equipment design and production line support, John Staub and three other founders created Priomatics to help mitigate manufacturing disruptions and help employees with their work, regardless of skill level.
Priomatics is a knowledge management and industrial Internet of Things (IoT) company that helps local manufacturers make their processes and machinery smarter so they can be run by less experienced people. Their kit offerings combine the most useful parts of manufacturing subsets like business intelligence, predictive analysis, overall equipment effectiveness, manufacturing execution software, inventory management, incident management and quality management.
Staub, CEO of Priomatics, said the skills shortage has continued to worsen throughout the pandemic and manufacturers have had to meet increased demand with fewer employees.
He said supply chain disruptions cause frequent changeovers and formula changes which increase stress on equipment and necessary preventive maintenance is postponed. This leads to increased breakdowns and downtime.
Additionally, a revolving door of new employees requires constant retraining. Staub said today there are voids in all levels of roles. With employees working harder to cover gaps, Staub said the result is lower productivity, burnout and more turnover.
“To be successful, a company will have to make sure that their scarce skills are targeted on the things that will truly make an impact,” Staub said. “Companies that don’t will stagnate and struggle to survive.”
Priomatics works to provide manufacturers an easier way to help themselves without depleting their already scarce resources through problem prevention, up-skilling company workforces, and ensuring institutional knowledge is retained.
“Embedded knowledge can be lost at any time,” Staub said. “We have figured out how to help manufacturers store and deliver knowledge in a way that instead of having to go look for it, it comes to them.”
The company currently offers a variety of kits that can be used separately or in conjunction with one another to meet individual needs. Here are some of Priomatic’s current offerings:
- Predictive Monitoring Kit: A cloud-based system that attaches to and watches critical machinery and processes to provide necessary notifications, mitigating steps to prevent significant interruptions from occurring.
- Wiki Knowledge Base: Gathers information specific to individual company machinery that is curated toward specific events such as machines breaking down with failure notices. Enables employees to be self-sufficient and ahead of IT problems. Paired with remote collaboration capabilities so workers don't need to be on site.
- Escalation System: The newest kit which helps resources focus on fast recovery from downtime. The system sets a pace and automatically reacts to interruptions by contacting support help.
- Tracking System: A combination of the knowledge base and productivity tracking with GPS positioning to track assets and notify companies of different issues.
Staub said by making machines smarter, they can be run by inexperienced employees who will learn more about the job as they engage with the machines.
Priomatics recently made a new kit enabling companies to make step-by-step videos to walk employees through and confirm processes are completed properly. This kit is being adapted for additional clients and planned for completion this year.
In 2022, Staub said Priomatics is geared to scale up and help a wider range of manufacturers as it continues to develop their kit portfolio for client adaptation with affordable small cost of entry for smaller companies. Priomatics primarily targets discrete and continuous manufacturing companies rather than tool rooms and machining.
The company is also continuing to seek additional grant and financing opportunities. Its typical clients are manufacturing companies which retain between 50 and 500 employees on site, one of their biggest being the U.S. Air Force.
Priomatics
Founded: 2019
Founders: Adam Nyberg, Erica Waite, James Mainord and John Staub
Employees: 7
Service: Creating and programming kits that adapt to company needs for machinery and employees
Website: https://www.priomatics.com/
