Tribosonics: Automating ComplexData Validation Processes

Tribosonics uses unique sensing technologies to drive transformation at a large scale. A staggering 23% of the world‘s energy consumption originates from tribological contact, tribology being the science of wear, friction, and lubrication (Holmberg & Erdemir). Their technology tackles this head on.

Tribosonics develops and manufactures novel ultrasonic sensing systems that  monitor the status and wear of machinery and components over time, as well as monitoring process parameters and product quality. Their unique software then collates the data from these sensors to ensure machinery and processes are running with optimal energy efficiency and minimal product waste.

The sensors, many of which go into extreme environments, must be validated through the design, development, production and certification phases to ensure performance to specification before installation at their customers’ premises. This entailed a labour intensive process for Tribosonics’ team of expert Engineers and Data Scientists who were doing this manually via signal generators and oscilloscopes – and that was the challenge!

Thousands of readings = thousands of expert-led validations, done manually.

Automation! We were tasked with developing an automated validation tool to ensure all data was read quickly and accurately. 

We kicked off with a Tech sprint. With tight budget restraints, we applied the Lean principles: “creating needed value with fewer resources and less waste”.  

Over several workshops with the Tribosonics team, we mapped out and defined their minimum viable product (MVP) – improving the speed and efficiency of their validation workflow.

With Tribosonics’ wish list of features in hand, we developed as many as possible. We ensured critical features like drivers and functions were close to production ready, whereas ‘nice to have’ features such as a scheduler, were delivered in an MVP state.

Having proven the value of automation in speeding up their processes, we are now assessing the requirements of the project’s next phase to deliver even greater returns. A job well done!