Data Mining in the Process Industries

Knowledge Process Software, the specialists in data mining for the energy and process industries, have signed an alliance with Hosokawa Micron UK to enable Hosokawa to market process optimisation tools to their customers world-wide.

Hosokawa Micron Limited UK is part of the Hosokawa Micron Group, a world leader specialising in the development, manufacture and installation of machines and systems for Powder & Particle Processing, Environmental Emission Control, Product Recovery, Confectionery and Plastics Processing Industries. With over 2600 employees in over 40 group companies, Hosokawa encompasses such well known names as Nauta & Vrieco, MikroPul, Alpine and Bepex.

Hosokawa has been applying advanced software techniques in-house to improve the yields, emissions, quality and energy usage of their machinery. In one project alone, they achieved energy cost savings of £100,000 per year on a single process. Working with Knowledge Process Software, who are specialists in data mining software, resource optimisation and knowledge based systems, Hosokawa has now produced complete solution toolkits to enable the process optimisation of their customer's production plants and processes. Hosokawa's customers in Europe and the USA are already starting to apply these toolkits.

One example application area is the production of Laser Toner Cartridges. With typical Laser Toner production machinery costing from £4M to £6M, and annual running costs in the order of £1M per year, even a small percentage improvement in running costs or production has a major impact. Optimising yields or reducing energy consumption on such highly sophisticated machinery requires both expert knowledge and the best utilisation of computer software techniques. Such improvements also impact new plant designs by Hosokawa. New knowledge that Data Mining can discover about a process can also feed back to the intelligent on-line monitoring and control systems.

Knowledge Process Software's software and process industry expertise matched Hosokawa's requirements to incorporate embedded data mining within their existing systems. The company used the modular XpertRule® Miner ActiveX components from XpertRule Software to help Hosokawa produce customized solutions that reduce the complexity of applying state of the art software technology to state of the art process machinery.

Visit the web site of Knowledge Process Solutions for more data mining stories in the Energy and Process Industries.