Alfa Laval unlocks green business value with Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform – and builds a sustainable future faster

“We can’t know what to prioritize, or how to drive change, if we don’t have the numbers to show how we make an impact.”

Anna Celsing, Head of Sustainability at Alfa Laval, is explaining why the leading manufacturing organization has embarked on a journey to try to put data and AI at the center of everything they do, particularly their environmental activities

With operations across the globe, it’s vital that Alfa Laval continually improves efficiency to better manage every aspect of the business. “We have so many suppliers, so many departments and so many value streams and supply chains that we need to ensure we drive down emissions across our entire value chain,” says Celsing.

“But as a business it should pay off to do the right thing,” Celsing adds, “and it’s only going to be possible if we leverage data.”

“It's very important to achieve a steady and reliable performance from our heat exchangers over many years because our products have a long-life span. AI helps us make that happen. In cooperation with Microsoft, we have partnered to develop tools that enable customers to make self-assessments and to identify any necessary maintenance services. We use special software that works on a typical mobile phone and adds a thermal recognition function to the device's camera,” she continues.

“Our customers or service engineers simply upload a picture of the heat exchanger. Our Al is then able to calculate the optimal performance based on the image. That eliminates replacements of components that are still delivering optimal performance, while also increasing functionality and performance in general. That makes it possible to maximize the efficiency of the heat exchanger throughout its extended lifespan.”

In turn, these efficiencies drive green value creation, opening up new business opportunities and allowing the company to move one step closer to hitting its ambitious net zero targets.

Making the most of the resources at hand

Alfa Laval is a global leader in heat transfer, separation and fluid handling products. These technologies are vital for every aspect of energy transition, from separating rare metals in EV batteries, to recycling textiles for the fashion industry.

With over 20,000 employees worldwide, the company helps enhance the productivity and competitiveness of its customers through a portfolio of innovative products and solutions.

“We are present in many different countries and serve many different customer types,” begins Celsing, “so we have tailored our business to be decentralized, allowing multiple business units and companies in our group to drive the agenda. But it means our IT landscape is highly complex.”

“We’ve been around for over 140 years,” Celsing continues, “and we’ve made it our goal to make use of less, by becoming more efficient, thinking outside the box and embracing innovative technology.”

Alfa Laval believes that green value creation must be connected to the flow of money within a business. The company featured in Longevity Key for Business, a research paper that’s a result of a joint effort and collaboration between PwC Germany, Microsoft and the Environmental Change Institute at University of Oxford. This whitepaper suggests that investing resources into leveraging unified ESG data as a strategic asset not only transforms the business but also unlocks new AI-driven revenue streams.   

“You can make money talk,” says Celsing, “but to do it, you need data to prove that what we do serves both the business and the world. By leveraging AI-powered technology and data, we have become an important facilitator for change.

Reducing costs while reducing emissions 

“Exploring different solutions and taking part in training initiatives has been instrumental in helping us find ways to optimize processes and secure better data quality to improve the services we provide to customers,” says Celsing.

Approximately 2.5% of the total CO2 emissions worldwide are due to non-optimal heat exchanger maintenance. But using AI and Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform has the potential to cut emissions, while increasing product performance, extending optimal functionality and reducing costs. For Alfa Laval, this was an opportunity to innovate and gain a competitive edge. It collaborated with global leaders in stainless steel, to build a new innovative product – the first heat exchanger on the market that uses near fossil-free steel.

“Alongside Microsoft, we’ve also developed an AI tool to better service our heat exchangers,” explains Celsing. “Employees use an infrared camera on their mobile phone to take a photograph of a heat exchanger and then an AI tool analyzes it and suggests the best way to service it. When serviced in the most efficient way, the world’s heat exchangers have the potential to not only bring cost savings for customers but also reduce CO2 emissions globally by 2.5%, saving enough power to heat 10 million European homes annually.”

“We are now looking to implement Microsoft Sustainability Manager to better equip us to explore opportunities to scale what we already have and innovate,” says Celsing. “Initiatives like this also serve to prove that we need data to be able to prioritize the right things because that drives money in the right direction – towards green investments.”

Sharing knowledge on the power of data 

Alfa Laval’s initiatives have been so successful that Celsing has wanted to share her experience and learnings with more companies – and recently had the opportunity to do so at the Microsoft Enablement Program on ‘AI data-driven green value creation’.

The Microsoft Enablement Program on “AI Data-driven green value creation”, led in collaboration with PwC and University of Oxford, aims to prepare leaders from organizations across Microsoft EMEA for the inevitable shift towards AI data-driven green value creation. Having reached 1,369 leaders so far, the training helps everyone “speak the same language” on how data and AI can help unlock a positive business case for sustainability, empowering sustainability professionals to become more data savvy while helping data-scientists become more fluent in of sustainability.

“I wanted to participate in the training because I think it’s important that companies understand and help each other,” Celsing  explains. “This helps foster better partnerships and provides strategic opportunities for everyone to share knowledge and advance data and AI value creation.”

“When we all understand how vital data is,” adds Celsing, “we can all do a much better job together. It’s a win-win for everyone."

Fueling green value creation through collaboration

Looking ahead, many of Alfa Laval’s future projects and initiatives will be driven by any new EU legislation, such as the upcoming Digital Product Passport and compliance with EU standards like the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR).

The company also aims to focus on improving product-level data and transferring data across value chains instantly every second of every day using AI tools, including Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform. “Data plays a huge role in helping us reach sustainability targets,” says Celsing. “We are aiming to reach net zero and that will require a lot of change throughout the entire company as we integrate green value creation into everything we do.”

“Success depends on the strength of our partnerships” says Celsing. “For us it’s a two-way relationship: we have the ambition, and our partners, like Microsoft, are key to making this change happen. We will only succeed together."

“We are showing the world what is possible with data and AI, and rather than back away when progress seems impossible, we’re leaning in.”