Ox Box achieves greater efficiency and safety

The situation

Ox Box, led by President Guy Ockerlund, specializes in custom industrial-strength packaging solutions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company faced a critical need to ensure employee safety while also seeking ways to streamline and improve its manufacturing processes.

“We needed a way to be sure that our employees were safe. Safety was the driving need,” explains Mr. Ockerlund.

The challenge

The initial challenge was implementing a safety protocol for employees entering the facility given the heightened health risks of COVID-19. Beyond that, Ox Box aimed to optimize its operations — tracking machine performance and operational efficiency in real time — which required an expert in custom industrial automation.

The solution

Ox Box connected with Mr. IIoT, and Chris Misztur became the point person for their challenges. “Chris understood our critical and pressing need to put something in place that would ensure our employee safety during COVID,” Mr. Ockerlund shares.

“They are not just pulling some product off the shelf and plugging it in. The team at Mr. IIoT developed a customized solution for us.”— Guy Ockerlund

To meet the immediate safety need, Mr. IIoT installed scanners at both facility entrances that automatically check employees' temperatures on entry and integrate with a time-clock system for payroll. “The door scanners had an immediate benefit,” notes Mr. Ockerlund.

Following that success, Mr. IIoT deployed SHARC IoT sensors on Ox Box's machinery, connecting them to a custom Grafana dashboard that provided real-time and historical data on machine uptime and productivity. “Our machines gather the data on a program called Grafana, then all of that information translates into a usable format for us to view,” says Mr. Ockerlund.

The result

The results were immediate and impactful. The temperature scanners gave Ox Box a rapid, automated safety solution during the pandemic, while the SHARC IoT sensors empowered the company to make data-driven decisions about machinery and workflow efficiency. The analytics even sparked plans to incentivize productivity improvements among employees on the shop floor. With Mr. IIoT's custom IoT integration, Ox Box is now set up for sustained productivity gains.