ABB watson-izes its Ability digital platform
ABB said it plans to tap IBMs artificial intelligence and machine learning expertise and bring it together with its own domain knowledge. Based on this combination, ABB plans to develop services and solutions for several vertical segments. The first two industrial solutions developed on this basis will provide real-time cognitive insights for manufacturing and smart grids. It will extend the capabilities of existing systems that merely collect data, said ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer. The solutions promised will enable machines and production lines that gather data that can then be used to perform analysis and optimizations with the goal of increasing uptime, speed and yield for their respective users. Spiesshofer said his company has an installed base of 70 million connected devices and 70.000 digital control systems.
The new suite of breakthrough solutions developed by ABB and IBM will help companies address some of their biggest industrial challenges, such as improving quality control, reducing downtime and increasing speed and yield of industrial processes. These solutions will move beyond current connected systems that simply gather data, to cognitive industrial machines that use data to understand, sense, reason and take actions supporting industrial workers to help eliminate inefficient processes and redundant tasks, ABB said.
For example, ABB and IBM plan to leverage Watson’s AI capabilities to help find defects via real-time production images that are captured through an ABB system, and then analyzed using IBM Watson IoT for Manufacturing. Previously, these inspections were done manually, which was often a slow and error-prone process. By bringing the power of Watson’s real time cognitive insights directly to the shop floor in combination with ABB’s industrial automation technology, companies will be better equipped to increase the volume flowing through their production lines while improving accuracy and consistency. As parts flow through the manufacturing process, the solution will alert the manufacturer to critical faults – not visible to the human eye – in the quality of assembly. This enables fast intervention from quality control experts. Easier identification of defects impacts all goods on the production line, and helps improve a company’s competitiveness while helping avoid costly recalls and reputational damage.
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