Microsoft and Jabil Collaborate to Create Quality Assurance Platform

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Monday at the Hannover Messe industrial fair, Microsoft Corp. announced that Jabil, one of the world's leading design and manufacturing solution providers, has built its predictive analytics solution on Microsoft Azure Machine Learning. The new platform predicts errors or failures on the assembly floor before they occur, saving its customers time and money while delivering superior quality and shortened product lead times throughout the entire supply chain. Jabil has rolled out the platform in two of its megasites in Penang, Malaysia, and Guadalajara, Mexico, and plans to deploy the solution to its facilities worldwide.

In digital manufacturing, quality assurance across the assembly line is imperative. Identifying errors, slowdowns and potential failures before they occur rather than after they happen can help companies be more proactive and improve productivity.

Through a collaboration with Microsoft, Jabil is using Microsoft Azure services to analyze millions of data points from machines running dozens of steps throughout the manufacturing process. Through Azure Machine Learning, Jabil can help predict failures earlier in the process, for example, at step two in a 32-step process instead of step 15.

"Since deploying the Microsoft predictive analytics solutions we have seen at least an 80 percent accuracy rate in the prediction of machine processes that will slow down or fail, contributing to a scrap and rework savings of 17 percent," said Clint Belinsky, vice president, Global Quality, Jabil. "As our customers constantly look for ways to innovate, it is very impactful to show them a predictive solution that will ensure quality and increase their speed to market."

"Jabil's digital transformation on the factory floor will reshape its industry," said Jason Zander, corporate vice president of Microsoft Azure at Microsoft. "As product cycle times shorten and products get smarter, Jabil understands how the intelligent cloud combined with predictive analytics will help it support the needs of its customers."

In addition to time and cost savings through the reduction of waste, Jabil's operators and engineers can also proactively make adjustments to equipment based on predictions, eliminating the need for unnecessary inspections that cause downtime.

A demonstration of the collaboration is on display at the Microsoft Booth at Hannover Messe 2016 in Hall 7, Booth C40.

About Jabil 

Jabil is an electronic product solutions company providing comprehensive electronics design, production and product management services to global electronics and technology companies. Offering complete product supply chain management from facilities in 28 countries, Jabil provides comprehensive, individualized-focused solutions to customers in a broad range of industries. Jabil common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol, "JBL". Further information is available on Jabil's website: jabil.com.

About Microsoft

Microsoft is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.