In a world with so much uncertainty, being accurate with your supply chain data is essential.
And when it comes to data accuracy, Surgere is second to none. Surgere is an industry pioneer and leverages IoT technology to revolutionise and reshape the supply chain for the world’s leading automotive, manufacturing, logistics and food and beverage companies. The company’s engineering and operations team work with its customers from day one to plan, test and deploy IoT supply chain solutions that deliver data accuracy and reliability to allow for better decision-making across the entire organisation. Via Interius, Surgere’s SaaS platform, supply chain transactions combine with enterprise tools and systems for complete visibility and accuracy to drive real-time, proactive decision-making.
William (Bill) Wappler is the CEO and Executive Chairman at Surgere. In 2004, the company was actually born at his kitchen table in North Canton, Ohio. Initially, Surgere served as a packaging consultant for major companies such as Timken, Alcoa, and Whirlpool. However, after witnessing significant failures taking place throughout supply chains, Wappler began searching for software to support his existing clients’ needs. But he couldn’t seem to identify a solution that worked. “It was then that I took a leap of faith and recreated Surgere,” he says. “We extended our supply chain expertise into software; directing our team to build highly specialised software that could provide absolute visibility throughout supply chains. This was the first critical step in ending the chaos.”
Today, Surgere is on a mission to save the supply chain. By using the Interius platform, its clients can fully identify supply chain weaknesses. Surgere built its foundation on delivering 99.9% accuracy, valuable insights, proven cost reduction and increased productivity. The company’s clients are moving far beyond identity, location, and insight into ML/AI-directed corrective action. More than 15 billion monthly transactions from IoT sensors moving between more than 2,000 client locations, are made visible 24/7, 365 days a year with Surgere’s technology.
Developing partnerships
Over the past couple of years, Surgere and Trane Technologies have formed a key, strategic partnership. David Russler is the Senior Manager at Trane Technologies. With over 27 years of experience in the automation and automotive industries, Russler possesses a strong background in engineering management, having previously worked as a Product Interface Manager and an Engineering Group Manager at General Motors. Today, as part of his role within Trane Technologies, he leads the development and integration of automation solutions.
Reflecting on how the alliance was born, Russler explains that around two years ago his company decided an area of interest was around material tracking.
“We had a number of solution providers in our plants. We have roughly 40 plants around the globe and different plants had tried a range of solutions without much success to be very honest,” he reveals. “Firstly, we began a competitive analysis to try and understand what the technology actually offers today and what was important to us. Then we found that getting the reliability of the data and the solution that we implemented was the key. We went through very extensive analysis on what technologies were available, and which partners were available out in the space, and that really is a key piece of what we were looking for. We were truly looking for a partner, not just a hardware provider or a software provider.”
And so they found Surgere. With an automotive background, Russler believes long-term and mutually beneficial relationships are more common in that industry. However, he reveals the relationship Trane Technologies has built with Surgere is particularly special. “We wanted a partnership that would allow us to work together to develop solutions that were unique to our applications,” he tells us. “We’re really trying to drive that culture and foster that relationship building so that we can have established relationships, develop solutions, and then move much more quickly as we try to implement solutions within our factories.”
Having completed business with a host of multinational companies such as the likes of Caterpillar, Toyota and Honda, Surgere has seen its fair share. But Wappler is keen to outline that the Trane Technologies alliance is unique.
“Trane is unique in that their commitment by the executive team is not momentary – it lasts throughout the partnership,” he discusses. “Secondly, Trane understands the importance of what governance is all about, how to take two teams and make them into one and that increases the success of technology deployment exponentially. Technology deployments, much like ours, in supply chain, fail about 43% of the time. Think about that. You almost have a 50/50 shot on whether or not it’s actually going to work. The trouble isn’t always the technology that’s in play but in many cases it’s the partnership. As we look down the line, one of the things that we’re certain of is that this project’s going to succeed and it’s going to succeed because of David and his team.”
Russler reveals that when he looks at what Trane had out in its facilities today, the company actually had a much worse than 50/50 chance of the technology succeeding on the legacy equipment that it possessed. “One of the things that was really appealing to us about working with Surgere is a 99.9% reliability rate in ensuring that the data is being read accurately and shared appropriately to the individuals who need it to get the data and make good decisions.”
Introducing Sophia
At Manifest Vegas 2025, Surgere introduced a new agentic AI assistant called Sophia. The technology is an intelligent supply chain companion fully integrated into Surgere’s Interius platform. The benefit of Sophia is to make supply chain professionals’ lives easier by delivering real-time analysis and action based on their unique supply chain data.
“Everything is based on accuracy and fidelity. I can’t help David and his team much if I’m not at nearly 100% accurate and that’s at all points across the supply chain,” reveals Wappler. “What built our company is accuracy. That requires a confluence of different technologies. By the time we’re finished, we will have probably deployed anywhere between five and seven different technologies that can give him that accurate data throughout his entire enterprise. That’s a very unique thing. As an example, we’re currently providing our software about 15 billion transactions a month in data relative to ‘Where’s my stuff?’ Our software ingests that. Then we provide that data to people who are running the supply chain operations they begin to synthesise, analyse and think about how to react. And that’s been traditional in the world of software forever.
“However, with 15 billion transactions, David and his team cannot possibly keep up with that kind of transaction volume, let alone synthesise, analyse, and direct their team. It’s overwhelming. So when we started looking at AI, we didn’t look at AI in a large language model to do someone’s homework. What we really needed was a digital coworker that could stand next to our clients and analyse that data for them, prioritise what they should pay attention to, and then tell them how to react. Across their supply chain, billions of transactions are being made gathered by software fed to Sophia and she is standing next to David saying, ‘Here’s what you need to think about and here’s what I would suggest that you do’. She’s a game-changer.”
According to Russler, the introduction of Sophia is a critical piece of the puzzle to ensure the right data at the right time to make the right decisions. “What’s been missing for us is not knowing where our components or finished goods were and that was what was driving waste in our systems that we needed to eliminate. Where Sophia really comes in is helping us to eliminate that waste and to help us to get to the decisions that we need to make more quickly.”
2025 Vision
Russler calls 2025 “the year of execution” for Trane Technologies. Over the past year, his team has dedicated significant time to developing standards and establishing a foundation to streamline its 40+ manufacturing facilities worldwide.
“2025 is about implementing those plans and putting those plans into action. We’ve got a number of projects that we’ve brought online in the last couple of months alone,” he says. “We have a number of other plans that we’re in the process of bringing online this year, and our challenge was to have Bill and his team try to get to as many of our facilities around the globe this year as possible so we can then begin executing those plans more efficiently into our sites. This year and the next couple of years are really going to be exciting for us because now we’re going to start reaping the rewards for all of the technologies that we are actually developing and bringing those efficiencies into our operations.”
With an eye on the future, Wappler is in no uncertain terms optimistic about what lies ahead for his company, the industry and beyond.
“The future is so interesting,” he stresses. “We are under a transformation that has never been seen by technology, much less manufacturing, and that is happening right now. I believe that AI is going to unleash power that we can only begin to imagine. Part of that will knock down the old silos that exist within our clients and it will turn away single point solutions. If you can’t exist in a solution set that embraces an entire enterprise and supports what everyone wants to do at one time, then I think that you’re a dinosaur. We’re being told that we’re just trying to understand it as a society and we are now starting to get a glimpse of what that might mean. I wish that I wasn’t just my children, I wish I was my grandchildren because they’re going to be able to see unimaginable things.
“AI is going to supplant human intervention with data and it’s going to be able to act and think for us in a way that supports this transformation in ways we’re just imagining. I think that if anything, we should all be living in a world of optimism and I’m quite excited by it. I just can’t wait because we’re just getting a glimpse, but it’s coming and it’s coming quicker than we think.”
Find out more about Surgere here.
- AI in Supply Chain
- Digital Supply Chain
