Here at Cumulus, we’re a bit skeptical of splashy new technologies. We’ve often found that they use their “wow factor” to entice new customers without solving any actual problems. This ultimately hinders industrial digitalization efforts with an endless loop of technology pilots that never scale or come close to meeting their ROI expectations.
Recently, you may have been hearing about artificial intelligence, or AI. Actually, we’ll go as far as to say that if you haven’t heard about AI, you may very well be living under a rock.
But here’s the thing. AI is not just some fad that will fade away like the latest crypto craze. In fact, it has already begun transforming the way we work, from writing emails to digital art renditions. It’s all around us. Companies that do not begin exploring how AI can improve their operations and enhance the value they create for their customers will soon be at a severe competitive disadvantage.
That’s why our world-class engineering team has been building new tools that combine our extensive, worker-level data with the latest generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to improve industrial construction and maintenance. This Cumulus AI is trained with data from millions of work activities from around the world to provide revolutionary insights and training experiences. But instead of building these new tools in secret, we are excited to share our progress with you right now.
Getting practical with industrial AI.
AI didn’t write this blog post (we promise). It would, however, be a mistake to think that generative AI and LLMs are only useful for writing marketing copy and software code. The potential applications for industrial facilities are endless. Facility managers can look forward to using AI to optimize robust maintenance schedules in seconds, improve asset reliability with on-demand data analysis, and streamline resource allocation for better overall productivity. Read more about AI’s potential use cases in this article on 5 ways you can start using industrial AI today.
Here are the critical use cases that we’ve been working on.
- Building digital workflows for standard operating procedures.
One of Cumulus’ most popular features is our Workflow Builder, which allows users to build detailed, step-by-step work instructions based on their site’s standard operating procedures. Everything from bolted joints and mechanical connections to pressure testing and welding can have a thoroughly documented process that digitally tracks field compliance using our mobile application.
Digitalizing each of the dozens of SOP’s for your facility may sound like an overwhelming task, but it’s about to get a whole lot easier with AI. Instead of building workflows manually in our Workflow Builder, Cumulus AI will enable you to simply copy and paste your procedures into a prompt, ask your Cumulus AI assistant to turn it into a workflow, and voila. A digital workflow is automatically created to enforce even your most arduous fieldwork.
Cumulus AI will even allow our users to benefit from the combined knowledge of all of the millions of work activities tracked by our system. For example, you will be able to ask our AI assistant: “Build a workflow to install an electrical bus bar that is least likely to result in rework,” or “build a workflow for installing a flanged connection that is compliant with ASME-PCC-1.”
2. Answering questions about what’s happening in the field.
An FMI Study recently found that 95% of all data goes unused in the construction and engineering industry. Data is only valuable if you use it to make a meaningful business impact. Data that is not readily accessible to inform decisions might as well not exist. So we’re making it easier for you to access your data.
Cumulus AI will allow you quickly generate valuable insights from your data with simple natural language prompts. Imagine sitting at your desk and your boss, or maybe a contractor or vendor, storms in and asks you for an immediate status update on a particular work activity on in the field. Maybe they even accuse you and your team of slacking off or not doing the work correctly.
With our new AI tools, you will be able to ask your Cumulus AI assistant natural language questions and get instantaneous answers based on real-time data in our system. Ask questions like: “What is the status of the pressure testing on Unit AA-23-2187?” or “how many QC failures have occurred in the past week, and why did they fail?” and get data-backed answers at your fingertips.
AI will give you a superhuman level of visibility into everything that is happening at your facility, at any given point in time.
Ready to make every worker an expert?
The AI-driven future of industrial work quality is almost here. The more you embrace it now, the more you will stay ahead of the curve in the future.
Sign up for the waitlist for the Cumulus AI Beta Program.
