Quartic.ai, manufacturing agility with IoT & AI
Born in the Microsoft Cloud in 2016, Quartic.ai is a Canadian AI and Industrial IoT startup on a mission to make manufacturing more productive and flexible through digital transformation. How? Through an innovative application of IoT (Internet of Things), artificial intelligence (AI), industrial domain knowledge, and technical expertise.
Everyday magic
As consumers, we take complex manufacturing for granted. When was the last time you thought about the ingenuity of a pack of gum or the remarkable efficiency of a cold can of soda? Irrelevant as the packaging seems, our global economy depends on the ability of manufacturers to make, package, and ship products efficiently and safely. Above all, manufacturers need agility in their processes to develop and introduce new products.
A history of innovation
With so much at stake, manufacturers have invested in R&D since the days of the industrial revolution. This commitment to continuous improvement manifests itself in modern manufacturing through processes like operational excellence, reliability centered maintenance (RCM), and operator drive reliability (ODR).
“IoT is far from new in manufacturing. It’s just a new name for connecting sensors to software. Before modern IoT, those sensors only worked on isolated, proprietary computers and software controlling each production line. The focus was only on automation. Today, with cloud computing and artificial intelligence, we can at last recover stranded intelligence otherwise left on the factory floor.” – Rajiv Anand, CEO and Co-founder
Integrating legacy systems
Deming®, Quartic.ai’s flagship product, integrates diverse data—like PLCs, DCS systems, plant historians, new sensors, ERP/CMMS systems—quickly and easily. Further, Deming adds context to this data. With all manufacturing data in one place, and in context, operations, maintenance/reliability, and/or engineering teams can use Deming to build and deploy their own custom machine learning applications.
“Recovering stranded intelligence allows manufacturers to broaden their focus from automation alone to operational excellence and value stream optimization. This application of artificial intelligence for predictive analytics defines modern IoT.” – Rajiv Anand, CEO and Co-founder
Transformative benefits
By empowering manufacturing teams to integrate their data and deploy their own machine learning applications, Deming gives manufacturers insights and a platform to transform processes that unlock significant new benefits. For instance, Deming monitors the performance of their industrial assets in real-time to avoid production delays, mitigate waste, and predict throughput accurately.
“AI only becomes valuable once it’s verticalized and you bring domain expertise to it. But Manufacturers certainly cannot afford, nor have the time, to turn their experienced operations, manufacturing, and chemical engineers into data scientists. Deming solves that unmet need with Azure. It empowers domain experts to build AI applications.” – Rajiv Anand, CEO and Co-founder
Behind the scenes
The sheer scale of data demands industrial-strength computational power and airtight security. Quartic.ai relies on the hyperscale power, reliability, and world-class security of Azure cloud services to deliver its solution. Just how much scale? Deming streams 11,000,000 points of data a day at a single facility for just one manufacturer!
“When we consider the many relationships that make Quartic.ai possible, Microsoft comes top-of-mind. On the technology side, we leverage best-in-class cloud IoT and AI services. And as a business, participating in the Microsoft for Startups program was a watershed moment. We got the resources we needed to realize our vision.” – Rajiv Anand, CEO and Co-founder
Meet the founders
Based out of Waterloo, Ontario Quartic.ai was founded by Rajiv Anand and Ash Bhardwaj, veterans of the industrial process control and asset reliability fields. After implementing sensor based process automation and predictive maintenance in hundreds of applications, this team set out to leverage the rich, but stranded, intelligence infrastructure in manufacturing.
A Microsoft for Startups project
Quartic.ai received support from Microsoft’s global startup support program Microsoft for Startups, which provides promising startups with software, service, support, marketing expertise and cloud services—all designed to help them launch successfully. Check out these cool stories of other entrepreneurs who received assistance from Microsoft.
Do you run a startup?
Learn how Microsoft for Startups works. This program provides qualified privately held startups with Microsoft development and testing software, training, phone support, and Microsoft Azure cloud services. To qualify, your startup must be less than five years old and earn less than US $1 million annually.
Deming is a legal trademark of Quartic.ai. All rights reserved 2017.
