From Manual to Automated: How PRTI Transformed Legacy Industrial Processes Through Technology

Transforming physical processes into automated systems presents a unique set of challenges that most software engineers never encounter. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, PRTI’s Chris Hare shared their journey of automating tire recycling processes, revealing crucial insights about the intersection of industrial operations and software automation.

The challenge began with a technology that showed promise but needed transformation. “What we have is an automated, proven and protected technology that takes tires and cooks them, warms them up to the point where they become a gas stream, a liquid oil, a solid fuel, and also we recover all of the steel that goes into tires,” Chris explains. But turning this basic process into a scalable, automated system proved far more complex than initially anticipated.

The fundamental challenge wasn’t just about writing code – it was about understanding the full complexity of physical processes. As Chris notes, “When you’re taking a manual process, you maybe don’t understand everything that the process does or what you are really seeing or hearing from the process. When you turn that into lines of code, you have to understand everything.”

This insight led to a pivotal moment in PRTI’s development. After initially automating their processes, they made a crucial discovery: “We had automated the process and it still wasn’t performing the way we wanted it to, which meant that we hadn’t automated it the right way yet.” Instead of pushing forward with a flawed system, they made the difficult decision to step back and rebuild.

The decision to rebuild wasn’t just about fixing technical issues – it was about building a foundation for scale. “We may now have another year to not just make the algorithm that we’ve already done, but refine it to the point it’s robust,” Chris shares. This methodical approach to automation has proven crucial to their success, with the company now having “processed 50 million pounds of tires” and “run it for literally over 100,000 operating hours.”

PRTI’s experience highlights a critical lesson for founders automating industrial processes: understanding what to measure is just as important as the automation itself. “When you try and grow a business, you have to figure out how to run it, how to measure it, what to measure, and then what to do with the data once you’ve measured it,” Chris explains. “And those actionable insights are really important, and you only get those over after a while of running.”

Their approach to automation wasn’t just about technology – it required building the right team with diverse expertise. “We have very diverse backgrounds, and it’s interesting, after this amount of time, that we are communicating on very disparate topics with very different backgrounds,” Chris notes. This diversity proved crucial in bridging the gap between physical operations and digital automation.

The company’s methodical approach to validation before scale has attracted serious attention from institutional partners. “The traction that we’ve seen, particularly over the last 18 months, is from more institutional partners… larger scale banks, larger scale investors as well as larger scale partners,” Chris shares. This validation has come not just from their technology, but from their proven ability to automate complex industrial processes reliably.

For founders tackling similar challenges in industrial automation, PRTI’s journey offers several key lessons:

• Understanding physical processes completely before attempting automation
• Being willing to step back and rebuild when initial automation attempts fall short
• Building teams with diverse expertise to bridge operational and technical challenges
• Focusing on measurement and data collection from the start
• Taking the time to build robust, scalable systems rather than rushing to market

Their story demonstrates that successful industrial automation isn’t just about writing code – it’s about deeply understanding physical processes, building the right team, and having the courage to rebuild when necessary. As more founders look to transform traditional industries through technology, these lessons become increasingly valuable.