Case Study: 3M achieves greater manufacturing efficiency and cost savings with Microsoft Azure SQL Edge

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3M, a global manufacturing company with more than 60,000 products, needed a better way to predict anomalies and reduce downtime at one of its U.S. plants. Because the plant had limited network connectivity and data was arriving from two production systems at different times, 3M turned to Microsoft Azure, using Azure SQL Edge and Azure IoT Edge to process and analyze data locally.

Microsoft Azure implemented an edge-based solution that correlated sensor and product data, ran analytics and machine learning at the plant, and synced results to the cloud for further use. The change cut data transfer time from weeks to minutes, enabled offline operation, and improved efficiency and cost savings by letting 3M detect manufacturing issues hours earlier.

3M

Oscar Naim

Lead Software Architecture Specialist