The Liveline advantage

Liveline’s product suite enables rapid and cost-effective automation at the factory system level. This means controlling an entire production line or cell consisting of multiple processing stages.

Historically, advanced process control (APC) has been costly to implement and difficult to maintain as plants experience natural changes to equipment, products, and raw materials. Consequently, APC has not been adopted widely beyond refineries, petrochemicals, and chemical production, which together encompass more than 90% of all APC applications in industry [1].

Our proprietary artificial intelligence is not an add-on to help manage legacy APC systems. Those systems are based on technical approaches from the last century. Rather, our unique approach is purely AI-based from the ground up. This gives us several advantages:

• Software-based

  Our solution is 100% software-based and runs on generic computers. We don’t sell automation equipment or large MES systems. This makes our solutions affordable and easy to implement in any environment.

• Highly automated deployment and maintenance

  From spinning up a secure instance of our tech stack for your plant, to the hard-core data science, our process is highly automated. This allows us to get your solution up and running quickly and to keep the controls up-to-date as conditions change in the plant.

• Rapid scalability

  Our automated deployment and maintenance allows us to move quickly from pilots to plant-wide rollouts, which shortens the time to delivering significant value. Read more about how we are built to scale.

• Demonstrable ROI

  Because we can implement quickly, it’s easy to run our controls in two validation modes: (1) Backtest, which simulates performance using historical data; or (2) Ghost mode, which runs in parallel with live production so you can see what changes the AI controllers would make and how they would improve plant performance.

• No expertise required

  Our solution does not require customers to have any expertise in simulation, controls, or artificial intelligence.

APC or MPC?

The terms Advanced Process Control (APC) and Model Predictive Control (MPC) are often used interchangeably. This is because APC software uses some sort of predictive model to anticipate how the production process will evolve. Based on these predictions, appropriate control actions can be calculated. We use the term APC, but our controls are indeed an advanced form of MPC based entirely on our proprietary and automated machine learning.

There was a peak of activity in the late 1990s and early 2000s as proven APC technologies plateaued and the segment underwent significant consolidation, often driven by large vendors of control systems and hardware. But beyond those major applications, adoption has been slow. Even worse, the majority of APC applications are no longer running after 5 years.

Automation of building systems such as lighting and HVAC used to be limited to large facilities like skyscrapers and sports stadiums. Technology brought the cost and complexity down to a point where consumers can easily automate their own homes today. In an analogous way, Liveline Technologies utilizes the power of advanced AI to make factory-wide automation practical for small and medium-sized manufacturers in a wide variety of industries.

Contact us today to discuss your needs.

[1]

Based on user surveys and trends from Qin and Badgwell (2003), “A survey of industrial model predictive control technology”, Control Engineering Practice, Download; and proprietary research from ARC Advisory Group (2022), Link.