KEMINCONNECT Podcast

Can you tell us a bit more about the Kemin Applications Solutions (KAS) team and the services they offer?

Raf Snoekx: First of all, it's important to understand that our systems are installed at feed mills, crushing facilities, pet food plants, rendering facilities and that, in fact, every facility is different. That's why we install tailor-made solutions through our Kemin Application Solution team. Whether it’s an antioxidant, a mould inhibitor, or a nutrient absorption enhancer, the effective use of the application strongly depends on its application and distribution. So a dedicated application system will allow you to get the maximum out of the Kemin ingredient.

The application system will help you in reducing the cost of application, maximizing the efficacy of the product, and also reducing the variation and the application error. That's why we offer a total solution. It's not only the product, but also the application expertise. Basically, the KAS team offers a unique application technology, expertise and services to make sure that the customer has the maximum benefit of the Kemin ingredients. We will make sure that the Kemin products are always optimally applied in the production process.

So you provide equipment, products, expertise and service, all custom made for each customer. How do you manage to do all that?

Raf: Let's say that the KAS team is a well-oiled machine. It's important to understand that every production facility is different, and every customer has different goals. That's why the Kemin engineer and the experts need to stay close to our customers to develop an actual tailor-made solution.

Then it's also important to understand that the KAS team consists of experienced engineers and technicians who help our customers with the installation and maintenance. They also make sure that the system is always running in optimum conditions to assure that the Kemin ingredient is meeting the customer’s performance goals.

We just launched KEMINCONNECT. What was the trigger for Kemin to create such a platform?

Raf: Today, the Kemin application systems apply our products into different types of processes, like feed mills, crushing plants, rendering facilities and pet food facilities. We all know that the digital revolution offers tremendous opportunities. That's why we've translated ideas such as industry 4.0 into tangible benefits for our customers. We strive to use digital transformation to provide the customers with all data and insights at hand, enabling them to make data-driven decisions to optimize their processes and operations. We do this through KEMINCONNECT, our digital application management platform created in-house and tailored to the needs of our customers.

What exactly will this do? And how will it impact our customers?

Raf: The KEMINCONNECT digital platform pioneers a range of extended services. More in particular, it supports three key pillars with each a different objective and level of complexity.

The first pillar is the monitoring pillar, which focuses on collecting data and analyzing remote locations. Based on the collected data, we optimize your inventory, supply chain and service level, therefore, decreasing the operations cost and helping you to improve the overall data management experience.

The second pillar is the assisting pillar, which describes the data collected from the different touchpoints by aggregating the data and analyzing it to provide new process insights. Besides that, it allows you to have predictive analytics. The main objective is to reduce the overall costs, but also to increase the productivity and to make sure that we can integrate more easily our products and services at our customer.

Do you have a more practical example?

Raf: A practical example of the assisting pillar is the millSMART Online application. The iBox online is the application system of the millSMART Online program. This system pushes a lot of information into KEMINCONNECT through an IoT gateway in an end-to-end secured environment. Once it's in the KEMINCONNECT platform, this data will be validated, aggregated and safely stored into the platform. The smart dashboard visualizes the millSMART KPIs, for example: the yield gain or the potential gain of two financial KPIs. But nowadays, it's also important in terms of sustainability that we visualize and monitor what is the exact impact of millSMART on our customers' process.

Earlier you mentioned that a typical assisting application reduces overall costs and increases productivity. Can you explain a bit more on this?

Raf: Visualizing the KPIs is one thing, but the assisting aspect here is looking towards the potential gain. This is also a financial parameter where you can get more out of the system by just fine-tuning and tweaking a few of these system parameters. It's maybe a bit too detailed and too technical, but practically the millSMART Online application will guide and assist you in this process so the customer can unlock the full potential of the program. Actually, you can compare this with the park assist of your car. It’s an automated parking aid that helps drivers to park with greater precision or avoid accidents.

That is indeed a practical day-to-day example of how technology can make our life easier. So that leaves us with the third pillar.

Raf: In the near future, we'll go one step further by adding the final service pillar, which we call the transforming pillar. With the transforming pillar, we will use prescriptive insights, including artificial intelligence, machine learning and self-optimizing loops. This will help us improve the quality, safety, productivity, and then also the profitability in all processes of our customers.

A lot of data is needed to develop and train these algorithms. Regarding security and data privacy, are the customers willing to share their data?

Raf: Let me start with data security. KEMINCONNECT carries great security features and is developed with the highest level of end-to-end security in mind, ensuring that all data is safely stored at rest and in motion. For example, we have the multi-tenancy feature, which means that all the customer data is 100% isolated, ensuring that data privacy and data integrity is guaranteed at any time.

The second important aspect is the APIs, so there's no direct access to the internal code or functions. The only way to integrate and to communicate, for example, with a sensor in the field towards the platform or from another platform towards KEMINCONNECT is through secured public-facing APIs.

One of the reasons why we've chosen for this platform, is that we have a certified cloud, a certified security feature as well. Next, to make sure that the right people see the right data, we have two-factor authentication and also route-based access.

What if something goes wrong?

Raf: Let's hope not, but there's always a chance that something goes wrong. The question is: how well prepared are we for such a situation? The KEMINCONNECT platform is 24/7 monitored, and in case something goes wrong, we always have an escalation system that defines when an escalation should happen and who should handle the incident at each level of the escalation. Clear and transparent communication to our customers is essential: the customers will be notified through the platform, but also through email in case that the platform is down at that particular moment.

The second question is related to data privacy. Everything related to data privacy is well-described in the data license agreement. This kind of agreement is required for each location and for each system. So with the data license agreement, we would like to obtain approval from the customer to collect, store and use the applicator data.

What about personal information?

Raf: For each user, we need an email address, this will be used to grant that particular user access to the platform. We'll use that email address to inform the customer about certain notifications or system alerts.

In the data license agreement, we also define which data exactly will be monitored and who owns data. In fact, at any point in time, the customer will own the data. So it is very important that in that data license agreement the customer allows the Kemin application system to access the internet. Without data, KEMINCONNECT will not work so that's fundamental here. Besides that, we grant the customer access to the KEMINCONNECT platform in a kind of a license.

Overall, protection of your process data and personal information is very important at any step of our business here. It's in the heart of our promise to our customers, our values, our principles, and it's essential to gain and to maintain trust.

How do you see the future of KEMINCONNECT?

Raf: Over the past few months, we've been expanding our KEMINCONNECT development team significantly, and they have done a fantastic job in developing the platform, working out several use cases together with the application solutions team across the globe. The digital revolution offers us a tremendous opportunity, especially now that raw material prices and energy costs are rising significantly. How you optimize your raw materials and how efficiently you produce is the key to the success of any business today. So our key focus for the upcoming years is expanding our products and services with digital solutions to provide our customers with data-driven insights, helping them to become more profitable and more sustainable.