Sappi successfully scales enterprise data solutions globally

Challenge

Sappi’s digital transformation journey started small, with different geographies tackling projects separately and every plant team utilizing its own set of data tools. 

As part of their sustainability journey, Sappi needed an enterprise-wide solution that enabled them to set data governance standards at the enterprise level. They also wanted to equip their domain experts with data science tools. 

According to Boyd, one of the things Sappi discovered was that digital twin build-outs were “80% of the entire digitalization effort, and it really hampered our progress.” 

Sappi’s teams also discovered that the “domain knowledge transfer between the main experts and the data scientists was slow,” according to Boyd. Yet, if Sappi’s domain experts could use powerful analytics tools, this would shorten the time to make valuable discoveries that move the entire organization forward. 

Solution

The Sappi team selected Braincube because its data structuration and visualization capabilities complemented the company’s existing data science platform.

“We were certain that connecting Braincube’s Digital Twin data into RapidMiner [our data science platform] would expedite our advanced analytics program,” said Boyd.

Sure enough, Braincube enabled teams at Sappi to go from idea to model to execution faster than before. Furthermore, they can now close the production loop by integrating SME expertise, models, and structured data.

Braincube’s templatized Digital Twin framework also makes it easier for Sappi to capture and distill knowledge from internal teams in a fraction of the time. 

Braincube held dedicated training sessions to teach Sappi’s teams how to build and maintain digital twins. As a result, Sappi’s teams are incredibly autonomous: they help maintain their data tags, keep data current and valid, and loop in their local Braincube team on-demand.

Sappi’s Braincube implementation has rapidly advanced data enablement across the organization. Sappi set an ambitious goal to build ~165 Digital Twins across 18 mills within three years and they’re currently on track to meet this goal.