Andritz has announced a new collaboration with Microsoft to combine the capabilities of the Metris digital platform and Microsoft’s Cloud for Manufacturing.

The aim is to enable fully autonomous factories via a trusted data ecosystem and also foster modern working methods within Andritz to speed up internal processes for prompt and seamless customer support.

“This collaboration represents a milestone in our digital transformation,” said Andritz president and CEO Joachim Schönbeck. “By combining our industry knowledge with Microsoft’s digital solutions, we will elevate our Metris digital platform and provide our employees with an optimised working environment.”

The Metris digital platform provides full support for industrial plants throughout their entire lifecycle, addressing the main challenges for customers such as operating costs, process stability, plant reliability and sustainability.

Andritz has integrated a Copilot solution based on Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service into Metris which simplifies anomaly detection and streamlines communication between operators and machines. Operators will gain real-time machine insights via a chat interface for informed decision-making to boost plant efficiency, product quality and resource utilisation in manufacturing.

“Andritz is helping to shape the future by using Microsoft Azure to further enhance its autonomous factory solutions,” said Ralph Haupter, Pesident of Microsoft EMEA. “The deep integration of their products with Azure cloud services is the type of technological innovation that drives sustainable and efficient change in the industry.”

www.andritz.com