Hopefully by now you’ve had some fun playing around with some of the many Generative AI tools available for free across the internet. Whether you’ve asked ChatGPT to write some poetry for Mother’s Day or tested out the powerful image rendering capabilities of Midjourney, or used DeepAI to colorize some old family photos, there are many ways to have fun and waste time playing around with the hottest digital craze.
However, as Claudio Fayad warns in his recent article in Efficient Plant magazine, while there are lots of ways to have fun with AI, don’t be fooled into thinking AI is only good for toys. Technologies once considered toys have frequently evolved into critical, world-changing technologies, and those who saw their potential and stayed ahead of the curve reaped the benefits long before everyone else. If trends continue, the same is likely to happen with AI.
AI will redefine industry
Sure, today AI is in its infancy, and few companies are ready to trust it to completely take over their processes. In fact, it is highly likely we may never trust AI to completely take over manufacturing operations. However, that doesn’t mean it won’t one day be a critical tool driving improved automation, once we work out the bugs. Many of the most experienced engineers think that AI’s role in the future is that of a copilot, working alongside operators and technicians to help them make better, faster decisions, while also keeping them safer and more efficient. We’re seeing it already today with some of the earliest adopters incorporating AI tools into their automation software. As Claudio explains,
“The process manufacturing world is the perfect place for the incubation of generative AI tools, as engineering plants, projects, processes, operations and reliability are often complex, costly and time-consuming.”
AI in action
Forward-thinking companies are already using AI in their capital projects, relying on AI tools to help them more quickly and effectively design plants that suit their unique needs. These tools can quickly offer a wide array of different preliminary plant designs, removing much of the manual effort.
“Such a solution aims first to eliminate the costly, time-intensive, repetitive early steps of plant design by relying on generative AI to complete those steps far more quickly, and using a wider array of variables, than a human engineer could handle.”
Later in project development, AI tools are also being used to develop control system configuration and upgrades much more easily and far faster. Tools like Emerson’s DeltaV Revamp can convert existing code and configuration from legacy control systems—automatically—into new control code for modernized systems.
But the benefits of AI technology are not limited to project planning and execution. Even in plant operations, modern automation technologies are leveraging AI.
“Operators, too, are relying on early AI tools with alarm help solutions that recommend actions and provide decision support based on shared knowledge. With such solutions, experienced operators can share and store their input on what alarms mean and how to remedy them, and generative AI can put that information into natural language, contextualized for any situation.”
Modern control systems like Emerson’s Ovation 4.0 are already implementing AI copilots to guide users via natural language queries and responses, helping ensure that every operator can perform as the plant’s best operator.
Claudio performs an even deeper dive into the possibilities of AI, including exploration of retrieval-augmented generation systems, large language model chaining, and more, in his full article over at Efficient Plant. Check it out for a quick but fascinating glimpse into the future. AI is coming. Are you ready?
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