AI in Manufacturing

Kudzai Manditereza

AI in Manufacturing is an Industry40.tv podcast hosted by Kudzai Manditereza, bringing together industry leaders, technologists and practitioners to explore how AI is being built and applied across industrial operations.

The podcast covers the architectures and real-world implementations shaping industrial AI, including connectivity, industrial data infrastructure, semantic technologies, data platforms, AI agents and operational applications.
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For manufacturing engineers, architects and technology leaders working to turn industrial data and AI into measurable operational impact.

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20 episodes
Avg 54 min
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#72
May 7 · 55 min
Designing Multi-Agent Systems for Industrial Operations: Kence Anderson - Founder & CEO, AMESA
# AI in Manufacturing Podcast ## Episode: Designing Autonomous AI Agents for Industrial Operations **Podcast Name:** AI in Manufacturing Podcast (Industry 40.tv) **Episode Title:** Designing Autonomous AI Agents for Industrial Operations **Guest:** Kence Anderson, CEO & Founder, AMESA **Host:** Kudzai Manditereza --- ## Episode Summary This episode explores how autonomous AI agents can transform industrial operations through a methodology called machine teaching. Kence Anderson, CEO and founder of AMESA, draws on eight years of experience applying autonomous systems to manufacturing and logistics to explain why more than 95% of what's called "industrial AI" today is really just data storage and connectivity — missing the actual intelligence layer that can perceive and act. Anderson breaks down his machine teaching methodology, which captures expert operator knowledge and structures it into teams of specialized AI agents that learn by practicing in simulation before deploying to the factory floor. The conversation covers multi-agent design patterns, the AMESA platform's three core products (Agent Orchestration Studio, Agent Cloud, and Runtime), and real-world examples from Fortune 500 glass manufacturers, beverage companies, and logistics operations. Listeners will learn why monolithic AI approaches fail in manufacturing, how to avoid pilot purgatory, and how companies can go from data to deployed autonomous agents in approximately 12 weeks. --- ## Key Questions Answered in This Episode - What is machine teaching and how does it differ from traditional machine learning approaches in manufacturing? - Why has manufacturing productivity remained stagnant despite massive investments in IoT and data infrastructure? - What are the four fundamental ways AI systems can make decisions in industrial environments? - How do multi-agent design patterns work for industrial automation, and why do they outperform monolithic AI? - What does it take to scale AI agents across multiple plants, production lines, or product recipes? - How do you bridge the gap between AI training in simulation and real-world deployment on legacy factory systems? - What is pilot purgatory and how can manufacturers avoid it when implementing industrial AI? ---
#71
April 30 · 1 hr 4 min
Scaling Industrial Intelligence with I3X Common API: Matthew Parris - GE Appliances
# AI in Manufacturing Podcast — Show Notes ## Episode: Scaling Industrial Intelligence with the I3X Common API **Podcast Name:** AI in Manufacturing Podcast (Industry40.tv) **Episode Title:** Scaling Industrial Intelligence with the I3X Common API **Guest Name:** Matthew Parris **Guest Title/Role:** Director of Quality Test Systems, GE Appliances; Leading Contributor to the I3X Specification **Host:** Kudzai Manditereza --- ## 1. Episode Summary This episode explores how the Industrial Information Interoperability Exchange (I3X) common API is poised to become the universal interface for accessing manufacturing data across software platforms. Matthew Paris, Director of Quality Test Systems at GE Appliances and a leading contributor to the I3X specification, explains why the manufacturing industry has lacked a standardized way to retrieve information from Level 3 and Level 4 software systems — and how I3X solves this by leveraging simple, proven IT technologies: HTTP and JSON. Paris draws a compelling analogy between I3X and the early web browser revolution, comparing the I3X Explorer tool to Netscape's role in breaking down walled-garden internet portals. The conversation covers how I3X differs from OPC UA and MQTT, why a vanilla MQTT broker is insufficient for a true Unified Namespace, and how standardized interfaces accelerate AI deployment in manufacturing. Listeners will gain a clear understanding of where I3X fits in modern industrial architectures and why now is the time to get involved with the specification while it's in beta. --- ## 2. Key Questions Answered in This Episode - What is I3X and what problem does it solve for manufacturers? - How is I3X different from OPC UA and MQTT? - Why is an MQTT broker alone not sufficient for a Unified Namespace (UNS)? - How does I3X enable manufacturers to scale from data visibility to operational AI? - Where does I3X fit in a modern industrial architecture alongside UNS and MQTT brokers? - Why does I3X support OPC UA Part 5 information models, and how should manufacturers think about data typing? - How will I3X achieve vendor adoption without a chicken-and-egg problem?
#70
April 22 · 39 min
Optimizing AI Inferencing for Agentic Operations in Manufacturing: Calvin Cooper - Neurometric AI
# AI in Manufacturing Podcast: Episode Show Notes ## Episode: Optimizing AI Inference for Agentic Operations in Manufacturing **Podcast Name:** AI in Manufacturing Podcast (Industry40.tv) **Episode Title:** Optimizing AI Inference for Agentic Operations in Manufacturing **Guest:** Kelvin Cooper, Co-Founder & CEO, Neurometric.ai **Host:** Kudzai Manditereza --- ## 1. Episode Summary This episode explores why manufacturing companies struggle to scale AI from pilot to production—and how inference orchestration and small language models (SLMs) offer a practical path forward. Kelvin Cooper, Co-Founder and CEO of Neurometric.ai, joins host Kudzai Manditereza to break down why routing all AI tasks through a single frontier model becomes a cost and reliability liability at scale. Cooper draws on his background in venture capital, private equity AI rollups at Pilot Wave Holdings, and AI policy research at the Milken Institute to argue that the future of industrial AI is not one model that knows everything, but a coordinated system of specialized models that each know their job. The conversation covers Neurometric's AI maturity framework, real customer results showing 10x cost and latency improvements, the concept of catastrophic forgetting, and why manufacturing leaders need to adopt a startup execution mindset rather than over-analyzing use cases. Leaders seeking to cut AI inference costs and accelerate deployment will find actionable strategies throughout. --- ## 2. Key Questions Answered in This Episode - Why do 95% of AI proof-of-concepts in manufacturing never make it to production? - How should manufacturers select their first AI use case instead of getting stuck in analysis paralysis? - What is inference orchestration and why does it matter for scaling AI in manufacturing? - Why is relying on a single large language model a liability for industrial AI at scale? - What are small language models (SLMs) and how do they deliver faster, cheaper, and more accurate AI? - What is catastrophic forgetting and how does it affect AI deployments in manufacturing? - How can manufacturers avoid vendor lock-in when building AI systems? ---
#69
April 1 · 43 min
How to Build AI Solutions That Actually Work on the Factory Floor: Renan Devillieres - OSS Ventures
**Podcast Name:** AI in Manufacturing Podcast **Episode Title:** How to Build AI Solutions That Actually Work on the Factory Floor **Guest:** Renan De Villiers, Founder & CEO, OSS Ventures **Host:** Kudzai Manditereza --- ## 1. Episode Summary This episode explores why only 5% of factories currently operate like tech companies — and what it will take to reach 50% within a decade. Renan De Villiers, founder and CEO of OSS Ventures, a Paris- and Boston-based venture builder with 22 spun-out companies live in 3,800 factories worldwide, shares hard-won lessons from visiting over 900 manufacturing sites and deploying AI across 100+ factories in the past two years. Drawing on his background as a former McKinsey consultant, factory director, and tech startup founder, De Villiers explains why most manufacturing AI initiatives fail, how to industrialize the discovery process, and why designing the human experience of managing AI agents is the most underestimated challenge in scaling industrial AI. Listeners will learn the concrete frameworks OSS Ventures uses to validate problems before building, the "10x test" for deciding what to pursue, and why the factory of the future requires fewer but far better-paid people. This episode is essential for anyone leading AI adoption in manufacturing or building software products for the factory floor. --- ## 2. Key Questions Answered in This Episode - **What does a tech-enabled factory look like compared to a traditional factory?** - **Why do 85% of manufacturing AI projects fail, and how can you beat those odds?** - **How do you identify the right AI use cases on the factory floor?** - **What is the "10x test" for validating manufacturing AI opportunities?** - **Why is tribal knowledge the biggest hidden barrier to AI in manufacturing?** - **How do you scale an AI solution from one factory to hundreds?** - **Should AI be embedded into existing products or built as a new experience layer?** ---
#68
March 25 · 55 min
Scaling Agentic AI Workflows in Manufacturing with Causal AI: Bernhard Kratzwald - EthonAI
## Episode: Building and Scaling Agentic AI Workflows in Manufacturing **Podcast Name:** AI in Manufacturing Podcast **Episode Title:** How to Build and Scale Agentic AI Workflows in Manufacturing **Guest:** Bernard Kraswald, Co-Founder & CTO at Ethon AI **Host:** Kudzai Manditereza --- ## Episode Summary This episode explores how manufacturers can build and scale agentic AI workflows to achieve operational excellence across factories. Bernard Kraswald, Co-Founder and CTO at Ethon AI, explains why traditional continuous improvement methods have reached their limits and how purpose-built industrial AI—grounded in process knowledge graphs and causal reasoning—unlocks the next wave of manufacturing optimization. Key insights include why deep data contextualization through knowledge graphs is essential for agentic AI (not just basic tag hierarchies), how causal AI differs from correlation-based analytics by making root cause findings actionable, and why a layered architecture of data infrastructure, specialized model layer, and application layer prevents hallucinated recommendations in safety-critical environments. Bernard also shares real-world results, including a globally scaled deployment at Siemens that generated over $10 million in documented savings. Whether you're evaluating industrial AI platforms or architecting your data stack for agentic workflows, this episode provides a practical roadmap from data ingestion to autonomous process control. --- ## Key Questions Answered in This Episode - What is a process knowledge graph, and why is it essential for agentic AI in manufacturing? - How does causal AI differ from correlation-based analytics in industrial settings? - What architecture layers are needed to run agentic AI workflows reliably in manufacturing? - Why can't general-purpose LLMs like ChatGPT or Claude replace purpose-built industrial AI models? - How do you build a knowledge graph iteratively without delaying ROI? - What does a typical deployment timeline look like for industrial AI platforms? - How should manufacturers handle security and governance when connecting OT systems to cloud-based AI? ---
#67
March 17 · 1 hr 2 min
Unified Namespace is The Essential Foundation for Industrial AI: Walker Reynolds - 4.0 Solutions
## Episode: The State of Industrial AI, Unified Namespace, and Knowledge Graphs After PROVE IT 2025 **Podcast Name:** AI in Manufacturing Podcast **Guest:** Walker Reynolds, President & Solutions Architect at 4.0 Solutions, Founder of the PROVE IT Conference **Host:** Kudzai Manditereza **Target Audience:** Manufacturing data leaders, IT/OT solution architects, and digital transformation professionals --- ## Episode Summary Walker Reynolds, President and Solutions Architect at 4.0 Solutions and founder of the PROVE IT conference, delivers an unfiltered assessment of where industrial AI actually stands in 2025. Drawing from conversations with over 1,000 attendees at this year's PROVE IT conference—70% of whom were end users working in manufacturing—Reynolds identifies three critical industry shifts: AI fatigue is setting in as vendors outpace market readiness, knowledge graphs have emerged as the essential technology for enabling agentic AI in manufacturing, and the gap between digitally mature and immature manufacturers is widening. The conversation covers why most manufacturers still aren't getting value from their unified namespace implementations, the five most practical AI applications seen at PROVE IT, and why autonomous agents are a mathematical impossibility given current LLM reliability. Reynolds closes with his complete recommended technology stack for manufacturers and a prediction that plant floors will see *more* people, not fewer—but they'll be analysts supervising AI agents rather than middle managers managing people. --- ## Key Questions Answered in This Episode - What is the current state of AI adoption in manufacturing in 2025? - Why are some manufacturers failing to get value from unified namespace implementations? - What role do knowledge graphs play in enabling agentic AI for manufacturing? - What are the most practical AI applications for manufacturers right now? - Can AI agents run autonomously in manufacturing operations? - What does the ideal industrial data architecture stack look like for a small to midsize manufacturer? - How does unified namespace serve as the backbone for agentic AI? ---
#66
March 11 · 1 hr 1 min
Causal Models and Agentic AI in Manufacturing: Michael Carroll - LNS Research
# AI in Manufacturing Podcast — Episode Show Notes ## Episode Details - **Podcast Name:** AI in Manufacturing Podcast (Industry40.tv) - **Episode Title:** Unlocking Productivity With Casual Models and Agentic AI in Manufacturing - **Host:** Kudzai Manditereza - **Guest:** Michael Carroll - **Guest Title/Role:** Strategic Advisor & Fellow COO Council at LNS Research; Chief Strategy Officer at Trek AI - **Target Audience:** Manufacturing data leaders, COOs, VP of Operations, IT/OT solution architects, and digital transformation professionals --- ## 1. EPISODE SUMMARY Agentic AI is not another digital tool to add to the manufacturing technology stack — it is a fundamentally different species of software that treats decisions, not transactions, as the atomic unit of work. In this episode, Michael Carroll, Strategic Advisor at LNS Research and Chief Strategy Officer at Trek AI, explains why US manufacturing productivity has been flat since 2010 despite massive investments in digital tools, and why agentic AI with causal reasoning represents the structural fix. Carroll draws on his 15 years leading digital transformation at Georgia Pacific to reveal how the real productivity killer is not a lack of data or technology, but a cognitive overload crisis combined with organizational permission bottlenecks that drain value from companies in real time. He introduces a practical diagnostic framework — mapping inferencing load and permission load — that any operations leader can apply today to identify where value is leaking from their organization and where agentic AI can deliver immediate impact. --- ## 2. KEY QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE - Why has US manufacturing productivity been flat since 2010 despite massive digital investments? - What is agentic AI, and how is it fundamentally different from traditional manufacturing software like MES and ERP? - What is causal reasoning, and why does it matter more than explainable AI for manufacturing decisions? - How does the permission architecture in manufacturing organizations destroy value and slow decision velocity? - Where should COOs and VPs of Operations start when preparing their organizations for agentic AI? - Why do alignment meetings signal that a company's numbers can't be trusted? - How should IT and OT organizations restructure their relationship to enable competitive advantage? ---
#65
March 5 · 1 hr 12 min
Context Engineering for Building Reliable Industrial AI Agents: Zach Etier - Flow Software
Podcast Name: AI in Manufacturing Podcast (Industry40.tv) Episode Title: Context Engineering Techniques for Building Reliable Industrial AI Agents Guest: Zach Etier, VP of Architecture at Flow Software Host: Kudzai Manditereza Episode Summary This episode explores context engineering — the discipline of curating and managing the information supplied to AI agents — and why it is the key to building reliable industrial AI systems. Zach Etier, VP of Architecture at Flow Software, joins host Kudzai Manditereza to break down why simply pumping more data into an AI agent's context window actually degrades performance through dilution, hallucination, and lost instructions. Zach walks through three core context engineering techniques — persisting context, summarization/compaction, and isolation via sub-agents — and explains how each one maps to real manufacturing use cases like automated shift-handover reports. The conversation also covers the practical differences between skills, MCP servers, and sub-agents, and why deterministic code should handle calculations while agents handle orchestration. Finally, Zach makes the case that knowledge graphs with formal ontologies will become essential data architecture for scaling industrial AI across the enterprise. Whether you are evaluating your first agent pilot or planning multi-site deployment, this episode provides a concrete framework for engineering context that agents can reliably act on. Key Questions Answered in This Episode What is an industrial AI agent, and how does it differ from a chatbot or general-purpose LLM? Why does giving an AI agent more context actually reduce its performance? What is context engineering, and why is it replacing prompt engineering for agentic AI? What are the three core techniques for managing an AI agent's context window in manufacturing? How should you decide when to use skills vs. MCP servers vs. sub-agents? Why should deterministic code handle calculations instead of letting the AI agent compute them? How do knowledge graphs and ontologies enable enterprise-scale industrial AI?
#64
February 26 · 48 min
Multi-Agent Based Quality Control in Manufacturing: Wilhelm Klein - Zetamotion
# AI in Manufacturing Podcast — Show Notes ## Episode: How to Reduce Waste and Improve Efficiency with AI-Powered Quality Control **Podcast Name:** AI in Manufacturing Podcast (Industry 4.0 TV) **Episode Title:** How to Reduce Waste and Improve Efficiency with AI-Powered Quality Control **Guest:** Willem Klein, CEO & Co-Founder, Zetamotion **Host:** Kudzai Manditereza **Target Audience:** Manufacturing data leaders, IT/OT solution architects, quality control professionals, and digital transformation leaders implementing AI in industrial operations --- ## 1. Episode Summary This episode explores how AI-powered quality control can reduce waste and improve efficiency in manufacturing, featuring Willem Klein, CEO and co-founder of Zetamotion. Willem shares why over 90% of industrial AI pilots fail and explains that the real competitive advantage lies not in building bigger AI models, but in designing better end-to-end systems that integrate seamlessly into existing production environments. He introduces Zelia, Zetamotion's AI-powered inspection assistant that reduces model training from weeks of manual data labeling to under an hour using synthetic data and as few as five sample images. The conversation covers the tension between governance and grassroots innovation ("shadow AI"), why manufacturers overwhelmingly prefer edge deployment for quality control data, and why scaling AI across plants is far harder than leadership expects. Willem also shares his vision for fully autonomous inspection systems that configure both software and hardware. Listeners will gain practical insight into what separates successful AI quality control deployments from the 90% that fail. --- ## 2. Key Questions Answered in This Episode - Why do over 90% of industrial AI pilots fail, and what do the successful ones have in common? - What is the difference between a model-centric and system-level approach to AI quality control? - How can manufacturers deploy AI-powered visual inspection without needing an in-house data science team? - What is synthetic data, and how does it reduce the time and cost of training machine vision models? - How should manufacturing leaders balance AI governance with grassroots innovation on the shop floor? - Why do manufacturers prefer edge deployment over cloud for AI-based quality control? - What makes scaling AI quality control across multiple plants and production lines so difficult?
#63
February 19 · 58 min
A Guide to Implementing AI Agents in Factories: James Zhang - Co-Founder & CPO , OpsMate AI
Episode Title:** Practical Guidance for Implementing Industrial AI Agents in Manufacturing Guest:** James Zheng, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Optimate AI Host:** Kudzai Manditereza --- ## 1. Episode Summary This episode explores how agentic AI is creating a new category of digital skilled workers for manufacturing, addressing the industry's deepening productivity plateau and skilled labor crisis. James Zheng, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Optimate AI, draws on over a decade of experience building and deploying manufacturing software — from SAP's cloud ERP to PTC's ThingWorx IoT platform — to explain why traditional digital transformation investments have failed to move the productivity needle. Zheng introduces the concept of a "decision intelligence and execution layer" that sits on top of existing systems of record (MES, ERP, CMMS, SCADA) to orchestrate AI agents that augment engineers, technicians, and frontline leaders. The conversation covers practical adoption patterns, the critical role of knowledge graphs and context graphs, why perfect data isn't a prerequisite for getting started, and real-world use cases in automotive and discrete manufacturing. Listeners will walk away with a clear framework for identifying, prioritizing, and scaling agentic AI use cases on the shop floor. --- ## 2. Key Questions Answered in This Episode - What is agentic AI and why should manufacturers care about it now? - What is the skilled labor crisis in manufacturing and how does agentic AI address it? - What is the difference between a knowledge graph and a context graph in industrial AI? - How should manufacturers approach data readiness for AI agent deployment — do you need perfect data? - What are the best first use cases for AI agents on the factory floor? - How does a decision intelligence layer differ from adding a copilot to existing manufacturing software? - How should manufacturing leaders balance top-down AI governance with bottom-up frontline innovation?
#62
February 3 · 56 min
Building a Data Foundation for AI-Native Industrial Intelligence: Craig Scott - Founder & CEO , Fuuz
1. EPISODE SUMMARY This episode explores why most manufacturing AI initiatives fail and what companies must do to build a foundation for AI-native industrial intelligence. Craig Scott, Founder and CEO of Fuuz, an industrial intelligence platform, shares insights from nearly a decade of bridging the gap between shop floor data and enterprise systems. The conversation reveals why the missing "shim" between operational technology and enterprise systems is the root cause of unreliable data in manufacturing, and why model-driven approaches are essential for scaling AI across industrial operations. Craig explains how organizations can achieve a single source of truth by implementing a persistent contextualization layer that governs data before AI ever touches it. Whether you're struggling with fragmented point solutions, evaluating industrial data platforms, or preparing your data infrastructure for AI, this episode provides a practical framework for building scalable industrial intelligence. 2. KEY QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE What is fundamentally broken with current manufacturing data infrastructure and how does it impact AI initiatives? Why do most AI pilots fail to scale in manufacturing environments? What is a model-driven approach to industrial data, and why is it superior to in-line data transformation? How do you balance enterprise governance with plant-level flexibility in industrial data architectures? Should manufacturers adopt industry-standard data models like ISA-95 or build custom models? What is the difference between a data lake and an operational intelligence platform? How can manufacturers prepare their data foundation before investing in AI technologies?
#61
January 22 · 44 min
Driving Operational Excellence in Manufacturing with Practical AI: Mickey Shaposhnik - Next Plus
Traditional MES platforms were built for a manufacturing world that no longer exists. They assume stable product lines. They assume you have time for lengthy implementations, tolerance for complexity, and operators who can navigate digital forms while running production. But here's the challenge. Today's manufacturing reality is different: ⇨ Markets demand the flexibility to shift from 1.5-liter bottles to 1-liter bottles overnight ⇨ Low volume, high mix production is now the norm ⇨ Tribal knowledge is retiring faster than it's being captured ⇨ Workers stay 2-3 years, not 20, making traditional training models obsolete The cost of this disconnect? ❌ Frontline workforce unable to contribute operational intelligence at scale ❌ ROI delayed by complexity, not capability ❌ Two-year deployment cycles for basic systems ❌ Digital initiatives stuck in pilot purgatory That's why leading manufacturers are rethinking execution from the ground up, shifting from monolithic systems to AI-native, human-centric platforms built for today's workforce reality. This new approach is effective because it’s built with an AI-native mindset, not a digitized version of paper-based processes ✅ AI-generated SOPs from video, cutting engineering time by 80% ✅ Learning systems that surface troubleshooting guidance from historical fault data ✅ Human-centric design that captures operational intelligence without disrupting workflows ✅ AI-powered interfaces that enable natural interaction; think voice, not dropdowns ✅ Rapid deployment measured in weeks ✅ Scalable without complexity; connect thousands of machines without lengthy integrations The companies winning today aren’t planning more; they’re executing faster and adapting continuously. In this episode of the AI in Manufacturing podcast, I speak with Mickey Shaposhnik, Founder and CEO of Next Plus, about how practical, AI-powered frontline execution is redefining operational excellence. Watch/Listen now
#60
Oct 22, 2025 · 1 hr 1 min
Agentic AI Framework for Manufacturing Operations: Gilad Langer - Tulip Interfaces
Agentic AI Framework for Manufacturing Operations AI in Manufacturing Podcast Show Notes Episode Guest: Gilad Langer, Head of Digital Transformation Practice at Tulip Interfaces Host: Kudzai Manditereza Publication Date: [Insert Date] Episode Summary Manufacturing systems are complex adaptive systems that require a fundamentally different approach to AI implementation than traditional monolithic architectures. In this episode, Gilad Langer draws on 30 years of manufacturing experience—including PhD research that laid the groundwork for Industry 4.0—to introduce a composable agentic framework specifically designed for frontline operations. He explains why adaptability has become a competitive necessity in today's disrupted markets and how multi-agent systems can transform innate factory equipment into intelligent, communicating entities. The conversation covers practical implementation strategies, the artifact model for structuring manufacturing data, and why cultural change remains the biggest obstacle to agentic AI adoption. Key Questions Answered in This Episode What is an agentic AI framework for manufacturing and why do factories need one? How do complex adaptive systems apply to manufacturing operations? What are the five pillars of composability in manufacturing? How should manufacturers structure their data for AI agents using the artifact model? What is the difference between staff agents, builder agents, and artifact agents? How do you implement agentic AI in a brownfield manufacturing facility? Why do traditional MES systems fail to deliver the adaptability modern manufacturing requires?
#59
Sep 17, 2025 · 54 min
Building a Knowledge Graph Context Layer for Industrial A: Bob van de Kuilen - Director, Thred
Context isn't static. It's a living layer of knowledge built through problem-solving, conversation, and understanding the complex relationships on the factory floor. This simple truth is often overlooked in industrial data strategies. We’ve been conditioned to believe that context can be predefined; baked into standards, taxonomies, and hierarchies. But in real-world manufacturing, things change, people think differently, and use cases evolve. So how can we build this dynamic layer of understanding for industrial AI? In our latest AI in Manufacturing episode, I spoke with Bob van de Kuilen, Director at Thred, about a more human-centric approach to industrial data contextualisation using Knowledge Graphs. Thred is a tool that plugs into Ignition Platform, enabling users to visualize their factory assets in a knowledge graph, link related data points, embed domain expertise, and deliver structured, contextualized data to AI and analytics tools. We discuss: ✅ Why traditional approaches to data context often fail ✅ Knowledge Graphs act as a mind map for data ✅ The practical steps to building context ✅ How this new context layer serves as the perfect foundation for AI agents.
#58
Sep 10, 2025 · 54 min
Standardizing Industrial Data Architecture with ISA-95: Jeroen Janssen - MES/MOM Consultant, Rhize
SA-95 is a standard that’s often misunderstood, but incredibly powerful. While many think ISA-95 is rigid or overly complex, it actually enables flexibility by: ⇨ 𝐃𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐯𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐲 for manufacturing concepts, creating a true ontology for your data. ⇨ 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 for every type of data, so you can start small and add new use cases later without rebuilding everything. ⇨ 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐰𝐡𝐲" 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, not just the "what," giving crucial context to your analytics and AI models. But how do you move from theory to a practical, modern implementation? In our latest AI in Manufacturing podcast episode, we explore exactly that with ISA-95 expert Jeroen Janssen, who is an MES/MOM Consultant at Rhize Manufacturing Data Hub. In the episode, you’ll learn: ✅ How to overcome a data culture that creates so many silos. ✅ The "use case stacking" method for a phased, value-driven implementation. ✅ What a native ISA-95 data hub looks like and how a graph database can bring it to life. ✅ Why this standardized approach is the key to unlo
#57
Sep 3, 2025 · 1 hr 5 min
Information Management and AI in Modern Manufacturing: Jeff Knepper - President, Flow Software
Is the Timebase free historian getting an AI-Native DataOps component with Knowledge Graphs capability? You’ll hear it here first. In the latest episode of the AI in Manufacturing podcast, I sit down with Jeff Knepper, President at Flow Software Inc., to discuss the intersection of Information Management and AI in modern manufacturing, plus the exciting announcement of Timebase Atlas launch. Here’s some of what we cover in this episode: ✅ Why manufacturers struggle to make use of their data ✅ Building reliable pipelines for AI-driven use cases ✅ AI Agents in Manufacturing – Where they fit and what they need ✅ Unified Analytics Framework vs. Unified Namespace ✅ Historization Strategies – Best practices from edge to cloud ✅ Timebase Atlas Launch Announcement: Data Modeling, Pipelines, Knowledge Graphs, and AI interfaces ✅ MCP and Flow AI Gateway: Beyond APIs to Context-Aware Agent Interfaces
#56
Aug 27, 2025 · 52 min
Time-Series Data Quality and Reliability for Manufacturing AI: Bert Baeck - Timeseer.AI
Most data-quality initiatives focus on things like freshness or schema. That works for IT data, but not for sensor data. Sensor data is different. It reflects physics. To trust it, you need contextual, physics-aware checks. That means spotting: → Impossible jumps → Flatlines (long quiet periods) → Oscillations → Broken causal patterns (e.g., valve opens → flow should increase) It’s no surprise that poor data quality is one of the biggest reasons manufacturers struggle to scale AI initiatives. This isn’t just data science, it’s operations science. Think of data quality as infrastructure: a trust layer between your OT data sources and your AI tools. Making that real requires four building blocks: 1. 𝐒𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 – Physics-aware anomaly rules, baselines 2. 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 – Continuous validation at the right cadence (real-time or daily) 3. 𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 – Auto-fix what you can; escalate what you can’t 4. 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 & 𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐬 – Define “good enough” and enforce it before data is consumed Why it matters: ✅ Data teams – Less cleansing, faster delivery ✅ AI models – Reliable inputs = repeatable results ✅ Ops teams – Catch failing sensors before downtime ✅ Business – Avoid safety incidents, billing errors, bad decisions In the latest episode of the AI in Manufacturing podcast, I sat down with Bert Baeck, Co-Founder of Timeseer.AI, to discuss time-series data quality and reliability strategies for AI in manufacturing applications.
#55
Aug 20, 2025 · 37 min
Building Effective Data and AI Innovation Teams in Manufacturing: Van Tucker - Harbor Lockers.
What really makes data and AI innovation teams succeed in manufacturing? In this episode of the AI in Manufacturing Podcast, I speak with Van Tucker, VP of Harbor Lockers by Luxer One, a company that develops and manufactures smart public lockers. We discuss the challenges and strategies for building effective innovation teams in manufacturing. Here are some of the insights that Van shared: 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Innovation thrives when people, from the boardroom to the factory floor, believe in the mission. Core values must be lived daily, not just written on posters. 𝐀𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Instead of waiting months for a polished rollout, start simple. Test small ideas quickly, gather feedback, and iterate. Even in hardware manufacturing, lightweight R&D “sandboxes” allow experimentation without disrupting core production. 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐭 Burnout shows up in declining quality and disengagement. The best leaders don’t wait, they stay close to their teams, recognize early warning signs, and act before problems escalate. 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐓 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐎𝐓 The old silos are gone. Effective leaders create environments where engineers from IT and OT collaborate, not compete. Quick collaborative wins build trust and momentum across functions.
#54
Aug 13, 2025 · 44 min
Reinforcement Learning Agents for Industrial Plant Optimization: Kyrill Schmid - MaibornWolff GmbH
Most industrial processes still run on the same foundation: - Hard-coded logic in PLCs that follows predefined rules. - The intuition of process and plant engineers, built from years of experience. This combination has powered industry for decades, but it has limits. When the challenge involves many interacting variables, unknown relationships, and non-linear effects, traditional control starts to strain. Why? Because fixed rules can’t adapt fast enough to changing conditions, and even the best human intuition can only process so much complexity at once. Instead of relying on fixed instructions, RL agents learn directly from real-time feedback. They can: ✅ Adapt continuously to new conditions. ✅ Handle high-dimensional problems with countless variables. ✅ Uncover novel, more efficient strategies that humans might overlook. The result? An optimization layer that works alongside your existing control system, making it smarter, more adaptive, and capable of delivering gains where complexity used to be a roadblock In the latest episode of the AI in Manufacturing podcast, I sat down with Dr. Kyrill Schmid, the Lead AI Engineer at MaibornWolff GmbH, to discuss the application of reinforcement learning agents for optimizing industrial plants.
#53
Aug 6, 2025 · 59 min
Autonomous AI Agents for Industrial Process Optimization: Bryan DeBois - RoviSys
Can AI agents really make decisions in high-stakes industrial environments? Generative AI agents, on their own, do not have a robust understanding of cause-and-effect for real-world decision-making. However, when combined with Deep Reinforcement Learning, AI agents gain the ability to reason, learn from interaction, and make decisions that solve operational problems in complex, real-world environments, like the plant floor. Case in point. Bryan DeBois and his team at RoviSys developed an Autonomous AI agent to manage a notoriously difficult glass bottle production process, where small disruptions like temperature fluctuations can quickly push the process out of specification. Here’s how they approached it: ✅ 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 1 - 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 They captured the knowledge and decision-making strategies of expert human operators and used this to train the AI agent, essentially teaching it how to respond to different operating conditions. ✅ 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 2 - 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞 Initially, the agent didn’t control the process directly. It simply made recommendations. Operators reviewed the suggestions and gave feedback using a simple green/red button system. This built trust and allowed the team to validate the AI’s decisions without risk. ✅ 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 3 - 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐨𝐨𝐩 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 Only after months of successful operation in support mode did they enable full automation. Even then, strict safety measures were in place: ⇨ Limited control authority ⇨ Clearly defined operating boundaries ⇨ Automatic handover to human operators if conditions exceeded the agent’s training The Results: ⇨ Human operators typically needed 7–20 minutes to bring the process back into spec ⇨ The AI agent consistently did it in under 5 minutes ⇨ And it maintained safety by operating strictly within validated limits In the latest episode of the AI in Manufacturing podcast, I sat down with Bryan, Director of Industrial AI at RoviSys, to dive deeper into how manufacturers can leverage AI and autonomous agents to optimize manufacturing operations and improve efficiency

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