Microsoft
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Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing is designed to deliver capabilities that support the core processes and requirements of the industry. These end-to-end manufacturing cloud solutions include released and new capabilities that help securely connect people, assets, workflow, and business processes, empowering organizations to be more resilient.
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Litmus Edge Collaborates with Microsoft Azure IoT Operations to Unleash the Transformative Potential of Industrial Data
Litmus announced the integration of Litmus Edge with Microsoft Azure IoT Operations at the Microsoft Ignite conference, marking a leap forward for industrial companies seeking to leverage data for digital transformation. This collaboration empowers manufacturers to seamlessly integrate industrial data across edge and cloud infrastructures, driving smarter operations and operational improvements at scale.
The integration leverages industry-standard protocols such as OPC UA and MQTT, with Litmus Edge validated for deployment on Azure Arc services natively. This solution addresses key challenges manufacturers face, including poor compatibility among fragmented data sources, cloud services and applications, legacy and heterogenous equipment, and complex data context and flows. By streamlining the management of OT data across edge and cloud environments, the integration allows for accessible real-time manufacturing data and managed workloads at the Edge. This collaboration empowers manufacturing companies with a modern data infrastructure from edge to cloud, driving significant operational improvements and scalable data-driven initiatives to ensure a smoother digital transformation for enhanced business outcomes.
Microsoft introduces new adapted AI models for industry
We’re announcing adapted AI models, expanding our industry capabilities and enabling organizations to address their unique needs more accurately and effectively. In collaboration with industry partner experts like Bayer, Cerence, Rockwell Automation, Saifr, Siemens Digital Industries Software, Sight Machine and more, we’re making these fine-tuned models, pre-trained using industry-specific data, available to address customers’ top use cases.
Underpinning these adapted AI models is the Microsoft Cloud, our platform for industry innovation. By integrating the Microsoft Cloud with our industry-specific capabilities and a robust ecosystem of partners, we provide a secure approach to advancing innovation across industries. This collaboration allows us to create extensive scenarios for customers globally, with embedded AI capabilities — from industry data solutions in Microsoft Fabric to AI agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio to AI models in Azure AI Studio — that enable industries to realize their full potential.
Refining Shopfloor Processes for Mission-Critical Parts
Even a Top Shop can benefit from process refinement, and in the four years since Pacon Mfg, Inc. (also called PACON after founders Paul and Connie) qualified as the 2020 Top Shops Honoree in Shopfloor Practices and Performance, the shop has continued thriving due to its enduring focus on the same ideas that led to it becoming a Top Shop. In addition to its automated five-axis workflow, this has involved the acquisition of a second location to offload operations better suited to other types of machining processes, as well as an increasing investment in software to meet the ever-evolving needs of its customers.
Walking onto the shop floor of PACON’s original location in Livermore, California, the 60-pallet Makino MMC2 flexible machining system (FMS) commands a lot of attention. The system is connected to two Makino a500Z horizontal five-axis machines, each with a 313-tool magazine and tool breakage detection systems. The different pallet slots have different vise configurations for different types of part configurations, with the FMS running “air traffic control for the machine,” as McClure puts it, by keeping track of which program goes to which pallet.
PACON’s other big automation push centers on its quality department and its software. With 75% of parts requiring evidence of quality beyond a certificate of conformance and defense customers wanting full inspection reports on every unit of every part number, the shop has needed to juggle a large paper trail for every one of these parts. Accomplishing this efficiently has required the automation of front office tasks and the digitization of the material chain of custody. To do so, the shop has sought after an ERP to match the lean philosophy of its shop floor.
In 2023, this led PACON to adopt Microsoft Dynamics Business Central as its ERP system. This system has the power to capture part documentation and quality records from their point of origin, connect these documents to the correct shipments and lots, automate basic communications such as advance shipping notices and carry forward the barcode-driven production monitoring the shop began under its previous ERP. McClure also says that Windows 11 and the Microsoft 365 environment are useful for meeting CMMC requirements, with features like built-in support for document encryption and Multi-Factor Authentication access control on user devices.
Beyond ERP, PACON manages its part quality through a Hexagon CMM programmed using customer models and a repeatable program to take critical dimension inspection reports. It also relies on a combination of Mastercam for CNC programming and Vericut for NC program simulation.
AI and Energy for a Sustainable Future POWERING POSSIBLE
At the intersection of three megatrends – rising global energy demand, the shift towards net-zero emissions, and rapid AI development – there is a unique chance to reshape the future of energy. With the right investment in clean energy, smart policies, and AI innovation, we can create a more sustainable, efficient, and equitable energy system for all.
This paper from ADNOC, Masdar and Microsoft outlines seven key areas for collaboration between the energy and technology sectors to accelerate the transition to a net-zero energy system. By harnessing AI’s capabilities, from methane reduction to grid resilience, these industries can address growing energy demands and drive an inclusive transformation.
New autonomous agents scale your team like never before
We’re introducing ten new autonomous agents in Dynamics 365 to build capacity for every sales, service, finance and supply chain team.
New autonomous agents enable customers to move from legacy lines of business applications to AI-first business process. AI is ROI and tomorrow’s competitive edge. These new agents are designed to help every sales, service, finance and supply chain team drive business value — and are just the start. We will create many more agents in the coming year that will give customers the competitive advantage they need to future-proof their organization. We’re introducing ten of these autonomous agents. Here are a few examples:
- Sales Qualification Agent: In a profession where time literally equals money, this agent enables sellers to focus their time on the highest priority sales opportunities while the agent researches leads, helps prioritize opportunities and guides customer outreach with personalized emails and responses.
- Supplier Communications Agent: This agent enables customers to optimize their supply chain and minimize costly disruptions by autonomously tracking supplier performance, detecting delays and responding accordingly — freeing procurement teams from time consuming manual monitoring and firefighting.
- Customer Intent and Customer Knowledge Management Agents: A business gets one chance to make a first impression, and these two agents are game changers for customer care teams facing high call volumes, talent shortages and heightened customer expectations. These agents work hand in hand with a customer service representative by learning how to resolve customer issues and autonomously adding knowledge-based articles to scale best practices across the care team.
Cyclic Materials Secures USD $53M Series B Funding to Accelerate Global Expansion of Rare Earth Recycling Infrastructure
Cyclic Materials, the advanced recycling company creating a circular supply chain for rare earth elements (REEs) and other critical materials, announced it has successfully closed an oversubscribed USD $53 million Series B equity round. The funding round was led by ArcTern Ventures and supported by new investors BDC Capital’s Climate Tech Fund, Hitachi Ventures, Zero Infinity Partners, Climate Investment, and Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund. Existing investors Fifth Wall, BMW i Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, and Planetary Technologies also participated in the round.
This funding brings the company’s total equity raised to over USD $83 million and will enable Cyclic Materials to fast-track its international growth. Cyclic Materials will deploy this capital to build rare earth recycling infrastructure in the US and Europe, and grow its team to support its world-class operations. Importantly, Cyclic Materials’ process of recycling these rare earth materials from magnets achieves significant environmental benefits in comparison to traditional mining processes, including a reduced carbon footprint and unparalleled water efficiency.
Palmer Luckey Is Bringing Anduril Smarts to Microsoft’s Military Headset
While known primarily for drones and air defenses, Anduril’s core offering is Lattice, a suite of software that powers those tools and a platform that can integrate with third-party systems. With today’s announcement, Lattice will be implemented in the Integrated Visual Augmentation System headset. Developed by Microsoft for the US military in 2021 and based on the company’s Hololens system, IVAS is an augmented-reality display that blends virtual information with a user’s view of the real world.
While virtual and augmented reality headsets remain a tough sell for the general public, Luckey says the US Army has been eager to experiment with the technology, primarily as a training tool but also as a way to deliver information more efficiently in critical situations. “The military is different,” Luckey says. “If you have an augmented-reality display that can make you 20 percent more lethal or make someone 10 percent safer, that’s a bigger improvement than just about any piece of gear you could give you.”
Northrop Grumman Uses Augmented Reality to Assemble Satellites
Augmented reality (AR) technology is a key ingredient of Industry 4.0 and digital manufacturing initiatives. It brings components of the digital world into a person’s perception of reality. AR layers computer-generated imagery onto a user’s view of the real world, providing a composite view.
Northrop Grumman Corp. is one of a handful of leading manufacturers that are using wearable devices to empower assemblers. The company recently invested in AR technology to streamline operations at its historic Space Park facility in Redondo Beach, CA.
“Augmented reality is a technology that takes our view of the real world and overlays useful and relevant digital data on top of that view,” says Oscar Castillo, a mechanical engineer who serves as factory modernization and digital transformation project manager at Space Park. “This is usually achieved through a smartphone, or in recent years through an AR headset such as Microsoft’s HoloLens.
“We have found that virtual reality can help our design teams assess a product’s producibility from a human factors or ergonomics perspective,” says Castillo. “Using engineering CAD models, we can spot challenges early enough in the design cycle so that changes can be made without great cost or schedule impact.
According to Castillo, AR technology is ideal for a variety of manufacturing applications. Most of the products built at Space Park have a 3D CAD model associated with them. Northrop Grumman engineers are leveraging those models to create augmented reality work instructions (ARWI).
CruxOCM closes $23.3-million CAD Series A led by Microsoft’s venture fund
Calgary-based startup CruxOCM, which provides software that automates the operations of industrial control rooms in the energy sector, has raised a $23.3-million CAD ($17 million USD) Series A round led by M12, Microsoft’s venture fund. The round saw participation from other new investors, including natural gas company Oneok, Raven Indigenous Capital Partners, and EIC Rose Rock Fund, as well as backing from return investors including Angular Ventures, Bullpen Capital, Root Ventures, Industry Ventures, Cendana Capital, Pipeline Capital Partners, and Golden Ventures.
CruxOCM said the Series A round brings its total capital raised to date up to $37 million CAD ($27 million USD). The investment will enable CruxOCM to bring its co-pilot offering to more control rooms across the energy sector, CEO and co-founder Vicki Knott said in a statement.
Palantir and Microsoft Partner to Deliver Enhanced Analytics and AI Services to Classified Networks for Critical National Security Operations
Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE: PLTR) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) announce a significant advancement in their partnership to bring some of the most sophisticated and secure cloud, AI, and analytics capabilities to the U.S. Defense and Intelligence Community. This is a first-of-its-kind, integrated suite of technology that will allow critical national security missions to operationalize Microsoft’s best-in-class Large Language Models (LLMs) via Azure OpenAI (AOAI) Service within Palantir’s AI Platform (AIP) in Microsoft’s government and classified cloud environments.
This integrated solution of Microsoft’s Azure cloud compute and powerful language models (GPT-4 and others) with Palantir’s Foundry data integration and ontology capabilities, and AIP’s use case building capabilities will help enable operators to safely and responsibly build AI-driven operational workloads across Defense and Intelligence verticals — from logistics, to contracting, to prioritization and action planning, and more. Availability of the services is subject to completion of authorization and accreditation by appropriate government agencies.
Data-driven model improves accuracy in predicting EV battery degradation
Rising carbon emissions have significantly challenged sustainable development in recent years, prompting global efforts to implement carbon reduction policies and achieve long-term carbon neutrality. A crucial step in this transition involves the recycling and reuse of power batteries, which are assessed for their state-of-health (SoH) and then repaired or restructured for reuse in smaller-sized electric vehicles (EVs), energy storage systems, and smart streetlights. This process not only extends battery life but also maximizes their residual value. However, accurately assessing this value is complex. To address this, Microsoft Research collaborated with Nissan Motor Corporation to develop a new machine learning method that predicts battery degradation with an average error rate of just 0.94%, significantly bolstering Nissan’s battery recycling efforts.
Atsushi Ohma, Expert Leader of the EV System Laboratory at Nissan, noted that EVs and their batteries currently have an average lifecycle of about 10 years, contributing to approximately 50% of their CO2 emissions in the material mining and manufacturing process. Nissan aims to extend the lifecycle of EVs and batteries to more than 15 years, reducing CO2 emissions. To achieve this, the company hopes to leverage technologies like AI and big data to drive innovation in battery and electric vehicle development.
LS ELECTRIC uses data to optimize power consumption with Sight Machine and Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing
LS ELECTRIC, in collaboration with Sight Machine and Microsoft, is revolutionizing manufacturing sustainability and productivity through data optimization. By standardizing unstructured data, LS ELECTRIC gleans detailed insights into energy consumption, leading to a 20% reduction in power use on some manufacturing lines and integrating systems for better decision-making. This partnership drives towards a future of sustainable manufacturing, leveraging Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing and Microsoft Copilot to drive efficiency and competitive operation.
LS ELECTRIC has already implemented the new solution in one of their factories and plans to roll it out to multiple facilities. The early results have been impressive: streamlined issue resolution, improved resource optimization, and greater agility in implementing and adapting to new inputs. By monitoring energy usage per production line, Dr. Wook-Dong Cho reports, “LS ELECTRIC has reduced power consumption by about 20% to certain manufacturing lines.”
Parker Aerospace writes innovative safety algorithm on Azure Databricks
Parker Aerospace partnered with its customer Republic Airways to better understand how its parts were performing in flight, but it needed to overcome infrastructure challenges that limited its data processing capacity. The company adopted Azure Databricks, reducing processing time from 14 hours to two. This enhanced operational capacity has paved the way for Parker Aerospace to further improve its ability to support aviation operations.
The company is using Azure Databricks to completely transform its analytics capabilities. Republic Airways sends each day’s aircraft operational data to Parker Aerospace for analysis—a massive and constant influx of raw data. “Now, we can process large new data sets nightly,” explains Lim. By leveraging advanced analytics algorithms, Azure Databricks provides more accurate insights into aircraft performance and maintenance needs, which helps the airline optimize its operations and improve service delivery. Parker Aerospace has also integrated Power BI with Azure Databricks, which enables Parker Aerospace to visualize data in new ways and create report dashboards for Republic Airways.
The partnership between Parker Aerospace and Republic Airways is mutually beneficial. In addition to supplying Parker Aerospace with insights, the Leak Detection Algorithm integrates seamlessly into an interactive predictive maintenance dashboard in Power BI powered via Azure Databricks, providing the airline’s maintenance team with insights into the performance of their fleet. This dashboard allows maintenance personnel to visualize and analyze data trends, enabling them to make informed decisions about maintenance priorities and resource allocation. The dashboard features predictive analytics capabilities through Azure Databricks, which can forecast potential maintenance issues based on historical data and enhance maintenance planning and efficiency. “Microsoft had all the necessary resources we needed to make the collaboration with Republic Airways possible,” says Austin Major, VP of Sales and Business Development at Parker Aerospace.
Introducing Aurora: The first large-scale foundation model of the atmosphere
A recent study by Charlton-Perez et al. (2024) underscored the challenges faced by even the most advanced AI weather-prediction models in capturing the rapid intensification and peak wind speeds of Storm Ciarán. To help address those challenges, a team of Microsoft researchers developed Aurora, a cutting-edge AI foundation model that can extract valuable insights from vast amounts of atmospheric data. Aurora presents a new approach to weather forecasting that could transform our ability to predict and mitigate the impacts of extreme events—including being able to anticipate the dramatic escalation of an event like Storm Ciarán.
Aurora’s effectiveness lies in its training on more than a million hours of diverse weather and climate simulations, which enables it to develop a comprehensive understanding of atmospheric dynamics. This allows the model to excel at a wide range of prediction tasks, even in data-sparse regions or extreme weather scenarios. By operating at a high spatial resolution of 0.1° (roughly 11 km at the equator), Aurora captures intricate details of atmospheric processes, providing more accurate operational forecasts than ever before—and at a fraction of the computational cost of traditional numerical weather-prediction systems. We estimate that the computational speed-up that Aurora can bring over the state-of-the-art numerical forecasting system Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) is ~5,000x.
Announcing Jumpstart Agora for manufacturing
Last year, we released Jumpstart Agora, a new industry-led marketplace for Jumpstart automation, where we shared the story of Contoso Supermarket and illustrated how retailers can explore the art of the possible with Azure. Today, we are thrilled to announce our new Jumpstart Agora scenario, Contoso Motors, an AI-enhanced cloud-to-edge accelerator for manufacturers.
The Contoso Motors scenario showcases how manufacturers can harness the power of Azure and Microsoft AI to streamline operations, improve process efficiency, and support safe work environments. This new scenario provides an end-to-end example of how Azure Arc, Azure IoT Operations, data solutions, and advanced analytics can transform manufacturing processes to create factories of the future/smarter physical operations.
Synopsys and Microsoft: GenAI in Chip Design
Microsoft AI Showcase for Manufacturing: Cognite Data Fusion
Bright Machines Collaborates with Microsoft Azure to Deliver Software-Defined Manufacturing
Bright Machines, an innovator in intelligent, software-defined manufacturing, announced an integration and go-to-market collaboration with Microsoft Azure to deliver a full stack environment for all stages of the manufacturing life cycle, from product design to assembly to disassembly. With this collaboration, Bright Machines will enable an accessible, efficient, and data-driven manufacturing process for electronics manufacturers.
Through this collaboration, Bright Machines is building on Azure and working with Microsoft to directly reach customers and partners, including through the Azure Marketplace. The integration will allow Bright Machines to deliver this transformation in manufacturing to customers across the ecosystem.
SIGMA: An open-source mixed-reality system for research on physical task assistance
What would it take to build an interactive AI system that could assist you with any task in the physical world, just as a real-time expert would? To begin exploring the core competencies that such a system would require, we developed and released the Situated Interactive Guidance, Monitoring, and Assistance (SIGMA) system, an open-source research platform and testbed prototype for studying mixed-reality task assistance. SIGMA provides a basis for researchers to explore, understand, and develop the capabilities required to enable in-stream task assistance in the physical world.
ABB co-launches interoperability initiative to unlock Industrial IoT insights for more efficient and sustainable industry
At the Hannover Messe on April 23, 2024, founding members ABB (including B&R), Capgemini, Microsoft, Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric (including AVEVA) and Siemens announced collaboration on a new initiative to deliver interoperability for Industrial IoT ecosystems.
Hosted by the Linux Foundation and open to further interested parties, the Margo initiative draws its name from the Latin word for ‘edge’ and will define mechanisms for interoperability between applications, devices and orchestration software at the edge1 of industrial ecosystems. In particular, Margo will make it easy to run and combine applications from any ecosystem member on top of the hardware and runtime system of any other member. Margo aims to deliver on its interoperability promise through a modern and agile open-source approach, which will bring industrial companies increased flexibility, simplicity and scalability as they undergo digital transition in complex, multi-vendor environments.
Sight Machine on Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing Brings Contextualized Manufacturing Data into the Data Estate
Sight Machine Inc., provider of the leading platform for manufacturing data and industrial AI, today introduced a manufacturing data solution for integrating contextualized production data into Microsoft Fabric.
Bringing Sight Machine’s data and its analytics tools, including Factory CoPilot, into Microsoft Fabric enables companies to combine and analyze contextualized manufacturing data with financial, supply chain, ERP and MES data, enabling unprecedented levels of knowledge and enterprise-wide insight.
Google, Microsoft, and Nucor announce a new initiative to aggregate demand to scale the adoption of advanced clean electricity technologies
Google LLC, Microsoft Corporation, and Nucor Corporation announced they will work together across the electricity ecosystem to develop new business models and aggregate their demand for advanced clean electricity technologies. These models will be designed to accelerate the development of first-of-a-kind (FOAK) and early commercial projects, including advanced nuclear, next-generation geothermal, clean hydrogen, long-duration energy storage (LDES) and others.
The companies will initially focus on proving out the demand aggregation and procurement model through advanced technology pilot projects in the United States. The companies will pilot a project delivery framework focused on three enabling levers for early commercial projects: signing offtake agreements for technologies that are still early on the cost curve, bringing a clear customer voice to policymakers and other stakeholders on broader long-term ecosystem improvements, and developing new enabling tariff structures in partnership with energy providers and utilities.
🏴 Figure Raises $675M for Its Humanoid Robot Development
Figure is announcing an astonishing US $675 million Series B raise, which values the company at an even more astonishing $2.6 billion. Figure is one of the companies working toward a multipurpose or general-purpose (depending on whom you ask) bipedal or humanoid (depending on whom you ask) robot. The astonishing thing about this valuation is that Figure’s robot is still very much in the development phase—although they’re making rapid progress, which they demonstrate in a new video posted this week.
This round of funding comes from Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia, Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions), Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, and ARK Invest. Figure says that they’re going to use this new capital “for scaling up AI training, robot manufacturing, expanding engineering head count, and advancing commercial deployment efforts.” In addition, Figure and OpenAI will be collaborating on the development of “next-generation AI models for humanoid robots” which will “help accelerate Figure’s commercial timeline by enhancing the capabilities of humanoid robots to process and reason from language.
Microsoft and Cognite extend partnership to build industrial data operations platform on Microsoft Fabric and Azure OpenAI Service
Long-time partners Microsoft and Cognite have successfully delivered digital transformation value to industrial customers in energy, industrial carbon management, manufacturing, and renewables globally. In a landmark new collaboration, Cognite and Microsoft are excited to announce an expansion of their strategic partnership to bring enterprise data operations to the generative AI era, from the shop floor all the way to the top floor. For the first time, enterprise and industrial—information technology (IT), operational technology (OT), and engineering technology (ET)—converge for data operations and AI value.
Discoveries in weeks, not years: How AI and high-performance computing are speeding up scientific discovery
Scientists at PNNL are testing a new battery material that was found in a matter of weeks, not years, as part of the collaboration with Microsoft to use advanced AI and high-performance computing (HPC), a type of cloud-based computing that combines large numbers of computers to solve complex scientific and mathematical tasks.
As part of this effort, the Microsoft Quantum team used AI to identify around 500,000 stable materials in the space of a few days. The new battery material came out of a collaboration using Microsoft’s Azure Quantum Elements to winnow 32 million potential inorganic materials to 18 promising candidates that could be used in battery development in just 80 hours. Most importantly, this work breaks ground for a new way of speeding up solutions for urgent sustainability, pharmaceutical and other challenges while giving a glimpse of the advances that will become possible with quantum computing.
Accelerating Industrial Transformation with Azure IoT Operations
Announcing the public preview of Azure IoT Operations, enabled by Azure Arc. Azure IoT Operations expands on our Azure IoT portfolio with a composable set of Arc-enabled services that help organizations onboard assets, capture insights, and take actions to scale the digital transformation of their physical operations.
Azure IoT Operations empowers our customers with a unified, enterprise-wide technology architecture and data plane that supports repeatable solution deployment and comprehensive AI-enhanced decision making. It enables a cloud to edge data plane with local data processing and analytics to transfer clean, useful data to hyperscale cloud services such as Microsoft Fabric for unified data governance and analytics, Azure Event Grid for bi-directional messaging, and Azure Digital Twins for live data contextualization. This common data foundation is essential to democratize data, enable cross-team collaboration and accelerate decision-making.
Rockwell Automation and Microsoft Expand Partnership to Leverage Generative AI Capabilities for Enhanced Productivity and Faster Time-to-Market
Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced an extension of their longstanding relationship to accelerate industrial automation design and development through generative artificial intelligence (AI). The companies are combining technologies to empower the workforce and accelerate time-to-market for customers building industrial automation systems. The first outcome of this collaboration will add Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service into FactoryTalk® Design Studio™ to deliver industry-first capabilities accelerating time-to-market for their customers building industrial automation systems.
AVEVA continues to drive digital transformation and sustainability for industrial customers through collaboration with Microsoft
AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software, driving digital transformation and sustainability, has expanded its strategic collaboration with Microsoft to further strengthen both companies’ data integration platforms to better prepare customers to incorporate AI in key industries across the world.
The agreement will see an even closer synergy between industrial cloud platform AVEVA Connect and data analytics solution Microsoft Fabric, which is currently in public preview. They are designed to streamline the process of collecting, transforming, and unifying data from various sources. They help gather data from different parts of an organization’s operations, including manufacturing processes, supply chains, and other relevant systems. These platforms offer tools for data cleansing, transformation, and enrichment, making the data more consistent and useful for downstream applications and preparing data to power AI capabilities.
Sanofi uses the industrial metaverse to revolutionize training and operational efficiency
Sanofi is a leader in the development and manufacturing of both prescription and over-the-counter medications. To meet an increased demand for Sanofi pharmaceuticals, the Paris-based organization needed to find a way to make its production lines more streamlined while training and onboarding more operators. Sanofi launched a pilot project in it packaging workshop in Lisieux, France to work in the metaverse using Microsoft HoloLens 2 with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist. The aim was to streamline employee training procedures, enhance operator efficiency, and integrate a digital approach within the manufacturing environment. Using HoloLens 2, Sanofi has reduced training time for new operators from eight weeks to six weeks. The organization is also using HoloLens 2 for remote maintenance and troubleshooting, enabling quicker resolution of equipment issues. With the success of the pilot, Sanofi is looking to expand the solution across its value chain, with a specific emphasis on data analysis.
Bringing Scalable AI to the Edge with Databricks and Azure DevOps
The ML-optimized runtime in Databricks contains popular ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, and scikit-learn. In this solution accelerator, we will build a basic Random Forest ML model in Databricks that will later be deployed to edge devices to execute inferences directly on the manufacturing shop floor. The focus will essentially be the deployment of ML Model built on Databricks to edge devices.
Boston Metal Closes $262M Series C Funding Round to Decarbonize Steelmaking and Disrupt the Metals Industry
Boston Metal, a global metals technology solutions company, today announced the close of its Series C fundraising, bringing the series total to $262 million. New investors include Aramco Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Aramco; global investment manager M&G Investments; natural resource investment firm Goehring & Rozencwajg; and investment management firm Baillie Gifford. Existing investor Breakthrough Energy Ventures also joined the round, and several others made additional investments in the Series C, including Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, BHP Ventures and Prelude Ventures.
The metals and mining sectors are under significant pressure to shift to more sustainable production methods while enhancing efficiency and profitability. Boston Metal is developing a scalable technology platform that uses electricity to produce a variety of metals and alloys from a wide range of feedstocks. The company’s Molten Oxide Electrolysis process is simpler, more energy efficient and has a lower environmental impact than traditional methods. With its high-value metals business, Boston Metal is empowering mining companies to create new revenue streams by deploying MOE to extract high-value metals from complex, low-concentration materials that are currently considered waste.
🦾 Doosan Robotics to develop GPT-based collaborative robots
Doosan Robotics, a subsidiary of South Korea’s Doosan Group specializing in robot solutions, is venturing into the development of collaborative robot solutions using AI-based GPT (generative pre-trained transformer) technology to enhance its software capabilities.
Doosan Robotics announced it has entered into a business agreement with Microsoft and Doosan Digital Innovation to develop a GPT-based robot control system” utilizing Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service. Azure OpenAI provides cloud services that include cutting-edge open AI systems, including GPT.
Doosan Robotics plans to apply GPT to its collaborative robots, enabling them to autonomously correct errors and perform tasks. Once the solution is developed, programming time will be reduced, leading to improved operational efficiency and utility.
Why will intelligent digital twins become an industrial manufacturing must-have?
For an illustrative example, look at a large thermal processing equipment manufacturer. With a legacy of serving clients across 40 countries for the past 60 years, the manufacturer faced critical challenges, including expensive and time-consuming diagnostics of on-field equipment and complexity in managing equipment monitoring software for multiple customers.
To address these problems, the company partnered with Saviant Consulting to build a platform to create digital twins on Microsoft Azure for its customers’ melt shops. Saviant designed a multitenant, loosely coupled architecture to create this scalable platform, which helped reduce overheads while also managing multiple equipment for its customers.
IBM Consulting Collaborates with Microsoft to Help Companies Accelerate Adoption of Generative AI
IBM (NYSE: IBM) is expanding its collaboration with Microsoft to help joint clients accelerate the deployment of generative AI - and deliver a new offering that will provide clients with the expertise and technology they need to innovate their business processes and scale generative AI effectively. IBM Consulting, in collaboration with Microsoft, will focus on helping clients to implement and scale Azure OpenAI Service. The new IBM Consulting Azure OpenAI Service offering, which is available on Azure Marketplace, is a fully managed AI service that allows developers and data scientists to apply powerful large language models, including their GPT and Codex series. It aims to help businesses define an adoption strategy and an initial set of specific and value-add generative AI use cases.
Rondo Energy Secures $60 Million from Global Giants and Leading Climate Investors to Speed Industrial Decarbonization
Rondo Energy, a leading provider of zero-carbon industrial heat and power, has raised $60 million in a new financing planned to speed the rollout of Rondo Heat Batteries (RHBs) worldwide and to transform the global energy storage market. Rio Tinto, Aramco Ventures, SABIC, SCG, TITAN, and SEEIT have joined Rondo’s Strategic Investor Advisory Board (SIAB).
Ansys Accelerates Innovation by Expanding AI Offerings with New Virtual Assistant
Expanding artificial intelligence (AI) integration across its simulation portfolio and customer community, Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) announced the limited beta release of AnsysGPT, a multilingual, conversational, AI virtual assistant set to revolutionize the way Ansys customers receive support. Developed using state-of-the-art ChatGPT technology available via the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, AnsysGPT uses well-sourced Ansys public data to answer technical questions concerning Ansys products, relevant physics, and engineering topics within one comprehensive tool.
Expected in early 2024, AnsysGPT will optimize technical support for customers — delivering information and solutions more efficiently, furthering the democratization of simulation. While currently in beta testing with select customers and channel partners, upon its full release next year AnsysGPT will provide easily accessible 24/7 technical support through the Ansys website. Unlike general AI virtual assistants that use unsupported information, AnsysGPT is trained using Ansys data to generate tailored, applicable responses drawn from reliable Ansys resources including, but not limited to, Ansys Innovation Courses, technical documentation, blog articles, and how-to-videos. Strong controls were put in place to ensure that no proprietary information of any kind was used during the training process, and that customer inputs are not stored or used to train the system in any way.
Sight Machine Factory CoPilot Democratizes Industrial Data With Generative AI
Sight Machine Inc. today announced the release of Factory CoPilot, democratizing industrial data through the power of generative artificial intelligence. By integrating Sight Machine’s Manufacturing Data Platform with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Factory CoPilot brings unprecedented ease of access to manufacturing problem solving, analysis and reporting.
Using a natural language user interface similar to ChatGPT, Factory CoPilot offers an intuitive, “ask the expert” experience for all manufacturing stakeholders, regardless of data proficiency. In response to a single question, Factory CoPilot can automatically summarize all relevant data and information about production in real-time (e.g., for daily meetings) and generate user-friendly reports, emails, charts and other content (in any language) about the performance of any machine, line or plant across the manufacturing enterprise, based on contextualized data in the Sight Machine platform.
Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing: Tackling data accessibility in manufacturing alongside partners
I’m very excited about all the updates being shared at Microsoft Inspire 2023, particularly about the announcement of the new AI Cloud Partner Program (MACPP) and the additional offerings and benefits this brings for partners. Under the MACPP, I’m thrilled to announce that we will be including manufacturing partner solutions through new independent software vendor (ISV) designations.
This designation represents our commitment to bringing the best partner solutions to our customers and provides a way for customers to identify proven partner solutions aligned with the Microsoft Cloud and our industry clouds. The designation validates that our partners’ solutions meet the high standards of data accessibility specific to the manufacturing industry.
📊 Accelerating Innovation at JetBlue Using Databricks
The role of data and in particular analytics, AI and ML is key for airlines to provide a seamless experience for customers while maintaining efficient operations for optimum business goals. For a single flight, for example, from New York to London, hundreds of decisions have to be made based on factors encompassing customers, flight crews, aircraft sensors, live weather and live air traffic control (ATC) data. A large disruption such as a brutal winter storm can impact thousands of flights across the U.S. Therefore it is vital for airlines to depend on real-time data and AI & ML to make proactive real time decisions.
JetBlue has sped AI and ML deployments across a wide range of use cases spanning four lines of business, each with its own AI and ML team. The following are the fundamental functions of the business lines:
- Commercial Data Science (CDS) - Revenue growth
- Operations Data Science (ODS) - Cost reduction
- AI & ML engineering – Go-to-market product deployment optimization
- Business Intelligence – Reporting enterprise scaling and support
Each business line supports multiple strategic products that are prioritized regularly by JetBlue leadership to establish KPIs that lead to effective strategic outcomes.
Transition from Preventive to Predictive Maintenance Using Time Series Data with MAJiK Visual Factory and InfluxDB
Microsoft Azure IoT Edge and Azure IoT Hub enhance the data transport capabilities of MAJiK’s Visual Factory systems. These Azure services send data from the edge to the cloud through an encrypted connection, ensuring secure data transfer. Once the data reaches the cloud, Azure’s Event Grid, Event Hub, and Service Bus services manage different aspects of data transport. InfluxDB plays a crucial role in observability and training of machine learning models. Given the high volume of data needed for training, this process takes place in the cloud.
As soon as a model training is successful, the Microsoft cloud ecosystem sends the model back down to the edge via a containerized application. There, it works against real-time data in the plant.
Baker Hughes, C3 ai, and Microsoft Partnership
☢️ Helion announces world’s first fusion energy purchase agreement with Microsoft
Helion Energy (Helion) today announced an agreement to provide Microsoft electricity from its first fusion power plant. Constellation will serve as the power marketer and will manage transmission for the project. The plant is expected to be online by 2028 and will target power generation of 50 MW or greater after a 1-year ramp up period. The planned operational date for this first of its kind facility is significantly sooner than typical projections for deployment of commercial fusion power. The development of a commercial fusion power facility is a crucial step in the transition to a sustainable energy future and will not only help Microsoft to achieve its goal of being carbon negative by 2030, but will also support the development of a new clean energy source for the world.
♻️ AMP Robotics Raises Additional Series C Investment From Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund
AMP Robotics Corp. (“AMP”), a pioneer in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and infrastructure for the waste and recycling industry, has received financing from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund. This latest investment brings AMP’s Series C round, led by Congruent Ventures and Wellington Management, to a total of more than $99 million.
LS Electric, Microsoft to jointly develop smart factory
LS Electric Co., South Korean manufacturer of power and industrial automation equipment, has signed a partnership agreement with Microsoft to develop intelligent and autonomous factory solutions.
Both companies will focus on improving data connectivity in intelligent factories, generating data insights for production facilities, and conducting power efficiency analysis in production lines. LS Electric and MS will also explore the use of Azure Synapse Analytics and Azure Machine Learning services for advanced manufacturing environments and the development of new business models based on smart energy and power data. The collaboration will extend beyond smart factories to encompass digital transformation (DX) businesses.
Last year, LS Electric worked with Microsoft to enhance inspection and noise analysis in the production line of the Cheongju plant, which was recognized as a “lighthouse factory” by the World Economic Forum. The partnership resulted in reduced defect rates and increased productivity through the use of deep learning technology on the Azure platform.
BAE Systems and Microsoft join forces to equip defence programmes with innovative cloud technology
BAE Systems and Microsoft have signed a strategic agreement aiming to support faster and easier development, deployment and management of digital defence capabilities in an increasingly data centric world. The collaboration brings together BAE Systems’ knowledge of building complex digital systems for militaries and governments with Microsoft’s approach to developing applications using its Azure Cloud platform.
Since starting the collaboration, BAE Systems and Microsoft have worked on three successful initiatives, highlighting the benefits of modern cloud software in the defence sector. These projects included enhancing real-time tactical naval intelligence through access to more dynamic data sources; development of secure software to deliver real-time updates to air platforms; and the creation of a digital thread to support the maintenance of maritime platforms from concept to disposal.
Siemens and Microsoft drive industrial productivity with generative artificial intelligence
Siemens and Microsoft are harnessing the collaborative power of generative artificial intelligence (AI) to help industrial companies drive innovation and efficiency across the design, engineering, manufacturing and operational lifecycle of products. To enhance cross-functional collaboration, the companies are integrating Siemens’ Teamcenter® software for product lifecycle management (PLM) with Microsoft’s collaboration platform Teams and the language models in Azure OpenAI Service as well as other Azure AI capabilities. At Hannover Messe, the two technology leaders will demonstrate how generative AI can enhance factory automation and operations through AI-powered software development, problem reporting and visual quality inspection.
NVIDIA Expands Omniverse Cloud to Power Industrial Digitalization
NVIDIA today announced that NVIDIA Omniverse™ Cloud, a platform-as-a-service that enables companies to unify digitalization across their core product and business processes, is now available to select enterprises. NVIDIA has selected Microsoft Azure as the first cloud service provider for Omniverse Cloud, giving enterprises access to the full-stack suite of Omniverse software applications and NVIDIA OVX™ infrastructure, with the scale and security of Azure cloud services.
Microsoft and Rockwell Automation collaborate on digital solutions for manufacturers
Microsoft and Rockwell Automation believe well-designed digital solutions can address operational, system, workforce, and scale needs at the same time. That’s why we have partnered to build digital solutions that deliver transformational outcomes with immediate value and long-term scale, resilience, and agility. By working together, we can leverage our respective strengths and expertise to develop solutions that meet the needs of manufacturers.
Microsoft and Rockwell Automation are jointly delivering edge-to-cloud products that help you manage and make sense of the data in your factory. The result is actionable insights that can improve your business operations.
ChatGPT for Robotics: Design Principles and Model Abilities
ChatGPT unlocks a new robotics paradigm, and allows a (potentially non-technical) user to sit on the loop, providing high-level feedback to the large language model (LLM) while monitoring the robot’s performance. By following our set of design principles, ChatGPT can generate code for robotics scenarios. Without any fine-tuning we leverage the LLM’s knowledge to control different robots form factors for a variety of tasks. In our work we show multiple examples of ChatGPT solving robotics puzzles, along with complex robot deployments in the manipulation, aerial, and navigation domains.
Ansys Expands Cloud-Based Simulation Solutions Through Extended Collaboration with Microsoft
Ansys (NASDAQ: ANSS) is extending its long-term strategic collaboration with Microsoft to accelerate virtual product design through expanded cloud-based access to Ansys’ simulation solutions and computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools. As a next step, Ansys will develop a new offering that will enable customers to launch Ansys products using their Azure enrollment and connect third-party tools more easily.
Green Steel Technology Company Boston Metal Announces $120M Series C Financing Led by ArcelorMittal
Boston Metal, a company developing technology to fully decarbonize steel production, today announced the $120 million first close of Series C fundraising led by multinational steel company, ArcelorMittal S.A. (NYSE: MT). Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund and SiteGround Capital also joined as new investors in this round, alongside current investors.
Boston Metal’s patented Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MOE) process is being commercialized to produce both green steel and high-value metals, such as tin and niobium. The Series C funds will expand the production of green steel at the company’s pilot facility outside Boston and will support the site selection and preliminary design of its first green steel plant. The new resources will also support the construction and commissioning of a manufacturing facility for high-value metals at the company’s Brazilian subsidiary, Boston Metal do Brasil.
Maersk embraces edge computing to revolutionize supply chain
Gavin Laybourne, global CIO of Maersk’s APM Terminals business, is embracing cutting-edge technologies to accelerate and fortify the global supply chain, working with technology giants to implement edge computing, private 5G networks, and thousands of IoT devices at its terminals to elevate the efficiency, quality, and visibility of the container ships Maersk uses to transport cargo across the oceans.
“Two to three years ago, we put everything on the cloud, but what we’re doing now is different,” Laybourne says. “The cloud, for me, is not the North Star. We must have the edge. We need real-time instruction sets for machines [container handling equipment at container terminals in ports] and then we’ll use cloud technologies where the data is not time-sensitive.”
Laybourne’s IT team is working with Microsoft to move cloud data to the edge, where containers are removed from ships by automated cranes and transferred to predefined locations in the port. To date, Laybourne and his team have migrated about 40% of APM Terminals’ cloud data to the edge, with a target to hit 80% by the end of 2023 at all operated terminals. Maersk has also been working with AI pioneer Databricks to develop algorithms to make its IoT devices and automated processes smarter. The company’s data scientists have built machine learning models in-house to improve safety and identify cargo. Data scientists will some day up the ante with advanced models to make all processes autonomous.
Carhartt turns to data under new CIO
Like many CIOs, Carhartt’s top digital leader is aware that data is the key to making advanced technologies work. Carhartt opted to build its own enterprise data warehouse even as it built a data lake with Microsoft and Databricks to ensure that its handful of data scientists have both engines with which to manipulate structured and unstructured data sets.
At first, during the pandemic, many essential workers needed to be equipped with Carhartt work gear for extra protection. As a result, the company’s revenue stream grew in the double digits, even when certain business segments were curtailed due to widespread work stoppages.
Once work stoppages started taking hold, Carhartt gained a rare glimpse into its supply chain, enabling its data analysts to view the steps of the supply chain in exquisite detail, like the individual frames in a film.
Lockheed Martin, Microsoft announce landmark agreement on classified cloud, advanced technologies for Department of Defense
Lockheed Martin is the first defense industrial base member to use Microsoft’s newest National Industrial Security Program (NISP) framework for air-gapped clouds after a year-long pilot. Work on developing the classified and unclassified cloud environments is already underway, with expectations for the project to be operational in 2023.
Microsoft’s first-of-its-kind technology will allow Lockheed Martin to dynamically scale IT demands under authorized guidance and directly operate mission workloads inside Azure Government Secret, including highly restricted special programs.
Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft collaborate to boost efficiency, resilience and sustainability in car production
Mercedes-Benz production staff gets access to the MO360 Data Platform via a self-service portal available on any company device including tablets, smartphones and laptops. Its visualization with Microsoft Power BI provides a what-you-see-is-what-you-get experience, allowing employees to become data workers with the ability to model and correlate data. The Teams Walkie Talkie app provides workers with an instant push-to-talk (PTT) communication on their business phones — no extra device needed.
With the MO360 Data Platform, teams at Factory 56 have shortened their daily shop floor meeting by 30%. In addition, they identify priority tasks to optimize production workflows within two minutes, which took up to four hours prior to the introduction of the platform. From team leads and process engineers to shop and plant managers, employees are encouraged to contribute new use cases to drive process innovation with Microsoft Power Platform.
Capgemini and Microsoft collaborate to offer Digital Twin Solutions
Capgemini today announced that it is collaborating with Microsoft to deliver a first-of-its kind, cloud-native, serverless Azure-based digital twin platform, called ReflectIoD. This secure, highly scalable platform will leverage best-in-class architecture and technological components from the Azure suite to help transform an organization’s operations and maintenance efficiency, enabling intelligent industry and driving sustainable business value. It will also enable enterprises to meet the ever-growing needs of standardized brownfields management[1] throughout their life cycle and across ecosystems.
Sight Machine Blueprint Enables Automated Data Labeling and Comprehensive Analysis of All Manufacturing Data
Sight Machine, creator of the data foundation for manufacturing, today announced that it has released Sight Machine Blueprint, a tool developed in collaboration with NVIDIA and Microsoft that provides manufacturers with high-speed, automated data labeling, mapping data tags to plant assets and the context they need to interpret their plant data. Blueprint makes it possible, for the first time, for manufacturers to analyze all their plant data, leading to improved outcomes in throughput, quality and sustainability.
“Microsoft Azure Machine Learning, combined with Sight Machine and advanced technology from NVIDIA, provides the infrastructure to easily scale GPU-based machine learning pipelines,” said Indranil Sircar, CTO, Manufacturing at Microsoft. “This combination in Sight Machine Blueprint will help eliminate manufacturers’ massive time drain from manually labeling data, and enable them to tap into the full wealth of data at their fingertips for business impact through true analytics-driven decision-making.”
Microsoft open sources its ‘farm of the future’ toolkit
Fifth-generation farmer Andrew Nelson is adding a new bumper crop to that bounty: Data. He gathers it from sensors in the soil, drones in the sky and satellites in space. They feed Nelson information about his farm at distinct points, every day, all year long — temperature variations, soil moisture and nutrient levels, plant health and more.
Nelson in turn feeds that data into Project FarmVibes, a new suite of farm-focused technologies from Microsoft Research. Starting today, Microsoft will open source these tools so researchers and data scientists — and the rare farmer like Nelson, who is also a software engineer — can build upon them to turn agricultural data into action that can help boost yields and cut costs. The first open-source release is FarmVibes.AI. It is a sample set of algorithms aimed at inspiring the research and data science community to advance data-driven agriculture. Nelson is using this AI-powered toolkit to help guide decisions at every phase of farming, from before seeds go into the ground until well after harvest.
Novo Nordisk and Microsoft collaborate to accelerate drug discovery and development using big data and artificial intelligence
Novo Nordisk and Microsoft have entered a new strategic collaboration to combine Microsoft’s computational services, cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) with Novo Nordisk’s drug discovery, development and data science capabilities.
Through the partnership, Microsoft is providing AI technology, foundational science models and expertise and is working alongside Novo Nordisk’s data scientists and domain experts from early research and development areas to accelerate Novo Nordisk’s R&D.
CommScope Collaborates with Microsoft to Advance Industrial Manufacturing with Private Wireless Network Solution
CommScope (NASDAQ: COMM) announced today that it has collaborated with Microsoft to create a converged private wireless network solution, enabling new low-latency and mobile applications to transform industrial manufacturing.
CommScope successfully deployed the combined solution—using Microsoft Azure private MEC and CommScope CBRS access points—in its own manufacturing innovation center in Shakopee, Minnesota. Through this cloud-connected, low-latency private wireless network, CommScope is already improving both the operational efficiency and manufacturing agility of its facilities.
Cosmo Tech collaborates with Microsoft to drive strategic sustainability outcomes with Simulation Digital Twins
Cosmo Tech is collaborating with Microsoft to integrate Microsoft Azure Digital Twins capabilities with the addition of its strategic 360° Simulation Digital Twin technology. The combined technologies enable Microsoft’s enterprise customers to monitor systems in near real-time and to simulate the evolution of complex organization in uncertain environments over time. This will allow strategic optimizations at all levels of enterprise planning, decision making and financial functions; enabling outcomes that are robust, resilient, and sustainable.
Connecting Factories Seamlessly with Azure and MQTT
HoloLens 2 helps Novo Nordisk employees see work in new ways
The pharmaceutical giant, a leader in the global production of diabetes medicine, has been pioneering the use of emerging digital technologies for everything from simplifying floor operations in their manufacturing facilities across the globe to conducting virtual site visits from thousands of miles away. Some of those solutions include Microsoft HoloLens 2, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides and Microsoft Power Platform. This includes introducing what is known as augmented instructions, via HoloLens 2, to shop floor employees, providing them with new possibilities to support both process performance and getting onboarded for new procedures.
Albemarle's Digital Transformation
Lithium Data Science is a pure Azure deployment. Data sets moved for analysis to Azure DataBricks from Hana. Power BI w/ no restrictions on use.
Industrial dataOps capabilities to truly scale Simulation Digital Twins
For some time, the notion of digital twins has been ubiquitous in exemplifying the potential of digital technology for heavy-asset industries. With a digital representation of a real-world system of assets or processes, we can apply simulation and optimization techniques to deliver prescriptive decision support to end-users.
Simulation Digital Twins help industries to make decisions in an increasingly complex & uncertain environment, to balance competing constraints (revenue, cost, efficiency, resiliency, carbon footprint, ++), and to react quickly and adapt with agility to real-world changes.
In this article we are describing solutions that combine the capabilities of Microsoft Azure Digital Twins, Cognite Data Fusion and Cosmotech Simulation Digital Twins. In an integrated solution, Azure Digital Twins provides a digital twin model that reflects real time state from sensors and other real time source and orchestrates event processing. Cognite Data Fusion (CDF) delivers integration of schemas and metadata from IT, OT and ET data sources, including the generation of models and twin graphs for Azure Digital Twins. The Cosmotech Simulation Digital Twin platform adds deep simulation capabilities in a scalable, open framework.
Nokia strengthens partnership with Microsoft to enhance performance at the mission critical industrial edge
Nokia today announced plans to integrate Microsoft Azure Arc capabilities into the Nokia MX Industrial Edge (MXIE) platform, unlocking the potential of mission critical applications for Industry 4.0 use cases. Through the integration, Nokia MXIE and private wireless solution customers have seamless access to the full Azure ecosystem offering on MXIE.
Aimed to support industries including automotive, manufacturing, energy, logistics and government, the powerful combination will enable use cases by allowing customers to run applications in the traditional cloud, as well as directly on their premises. Collaboration in these areas will provide numerous benefits such as increasing worker safety through AI and automation, while decreasing the amount of needed backhaul with local data processing.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries (Satya Nadella 2022 Build Keynote)
Building digital twins, mixed reality and metaverse apps for businesses
Seeq Announces Expanded Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Support
Seeq Corporation, a leader in manufacturing and Industrial Internet of Things advanced analytics software, announced today additional integration support for Microsoft Azure Machine Learning. This new Seeq Azure Add-on, announced at Microsoft Ignite 2021, an annual conference for developers and IT professionals hosted by Microsoft, enables process manufacturing organizations to deploy machine learning models from Azure Machine Learning as Add-ons in Seeq Workbench. The result is machine learning algorithms and innovations developed by IT departments can be operationalized so frontline OT employees can enhance their decision making and improve production, sustainability indicators, and business outcomes.
Announcing the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing preview
The Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing brings the best outcome-driven solutions and capabilities from Microsoft and our partners to accelerate time-to-value for our customers in an end-to-end, holistic, and scalable way. By connecting intelligent, integrated cloud, and edge capabilities of the Microsoft stack to the highest value manufacturing scenarios, we are creating a flywheel of innovation that helps businesses increase asset and frontline worker productivity in safe and secure factories, enable remote selling and always-on service, and unlock cloud-based innovation—all with the utmost trust, compliance, privacy, and transparency.
I am particularly excited about how we are integrating Microsoft Teams frontline workers and mixed reality across these capabilities. This will increase productivity in hybrid work scenarios, and allow insights from securely connected IoT assets and products to be integrated into workflows and business processes in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Applications and partner solutions.
AWS, Google, Microsoft apply expertise in data, software to manufacturing
As manufacturing becomes digitized, Google’s methodologies that were developed for the consumer market are becoming relevant for industry, said Wee, who previously worked in the semiconductor industry as an industrial engineer. “We believe we’re at a point in time where these technologies—primarily the analytics and AI area—that have been very difficult to use for the typical industrial engineer are becoming so easy to use on the shop floor,” he said. “That’s where we believe our competitive differentiation lies.”
Meanwhile, Ford is also selectively favoring human brain power over software to analyze data and turning more and more to in-house coders than applications vendors. “The solution will be dependent upon the application,” Mikula said. “Sometimes it will be software, and sometimes it’ll be a data analyst who crunches the data sources. We would like to move to solutions that are more autonomous and driven by machine learning and artificial intelligence. The goal is to be less reliant on purchased SaaS.”
A Digital Factory Approach to Data-driven Management in Factories
Yokogawa’s solutions and know-how play an important role in accelerating digital transformation (DX) of operational technology (OT) in the manufacturing industry. When proposing these solutions and know-how to customers, it is persuasive to be able to show that Yokogawa has actually improved productivity in its own factories using its OT operations data. This specific example will help customers to understand the effectiveness of the proposal. To achieve data-driven management with OT operation data, three requirements must be satisfied: (1) OT Data Lake, which is a framework for gathering operational data from Yokogawa’s factories worldwide into a single database and improving productivity on a global scale, (2) AI optimization and automation that use operational data and images, and (3) remote operation that ensures the continuity of business even when people’s access is restricted, for example, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yokogawa defines a factory that satisfies these three items as a Digital Factory and is working hard to make its own factories as such. Although this approach is one of Yokogawa’s Internal DX measures, the results can be used to develop know-how for External DX, which will increase value for customers, expedite DX in existing businesses, create new DX businesses, and strengthen Yokogawa’s presence in DX. This paper introduces Yokogawa’s approach to Internal DX, its roadmap, and progress toward external DX.
PLCs improve predictive maintenance
There is no doubt PLC technology is already strongly established on the plant floor. However, by embedding IT protocols, Cloud connectivity, and security features into today’s PLCs, it is possible to gather data that may have existed idly and use it to provide a much stronger idea as to what condition devices and machines are in to prevent unplanned downtime.
Integrating Falkonry with Azure IoT
Falkonry Clue applies advanced analytics to multivariate time-series data to discover meaningful patterns. This valuable operational data is supplied to Clue’s powerful AI engine by leveraging Microsoft Azure’s IoT infrastructure. Clue is designed to fit seamlessly into Azure’s reference architecture thereby easing the integration process.
Connecting the plant to the cloud, the Azure IoT Hub acts as a bi-directional communications brain for all connected IoT devices – managing data transfers, updates, setting up credentials for every device, and defining access control policies. These connected devices include OPC UA enabled sources such as most SCADA systems that support the MQTT protocol for data transfer.
How Honeywell's CEO is turning the legacy manufacturer into a SaaS player
Cumulatively, it marked a significant step forward in Adamczyk’s vision to turn Honeywell from a legacy industrial manufacturer into a top software provider for sectors like real estate, life sciences and aviation.
“The one common fiber across all our businesses is we are a controls company,” he told Protocol at an event on Tuesday. “When you’re a controls company, you’re connected to everything, you’re connected to all the systems in that building, in that aircraft. We use that data to drive controls, but we could use that data to drive energy savings, to drive efficiency.”
Introducing Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing
What makes the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing unique is our commitment to industry-specific standards and communities, such as the Open Manufacturing Platform, the OPC Foundation, and the Digital Twins Consortium, as well as the co-innovation with our rich ecosystem of partners.
Evolution of control systems with artificial intelligence
Control systems have continuously evolved over decades, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are helping advance the next generation of some control systems.
The proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller can be interpreted as a layering of capabilities: the proportional term points toward the signal, the integral term homes in on the setpoint and the derivative term can minimize overshoot.
Although the controls ecosystem may present a complex web of interrelated technologies, it can also be simplified by viewing it as ever-evolving branches of a family tree. Each control system technology offers its own characteristics not available in prior technologies. For example, feed forward improves PID control by predicting controller output, and then uses the predictions to separate disturbance errors from noise occurrences. Model predictive control (MPC) adds further capabilities to this by layering predictions of future control action results and controlling multiple correlated inputs and outputs. The latest evolution of control strategies is the adoption of AI technologies to develop industrial controls.
Augmented Reality Gets Pandemic Boost
Augmented reality, which superimposes digital content onto a user’s view of the real world, became more valuable for some companies such as Mercedes-Benz USA and L’Oréal SA last year amid social distancing requirements and lockdowns. The companies are using the technology to provide assistance for employees and consumers in real-time, without needing to be physically present.
Intel Problems
The misplaced optimism is twofold: first there is the fact that eight years later Intel has again appointed a new CEO (Pat Gelsinger), not to replace the one I was writing about (Brian Krzanich), but rather his successor (Bob Swan). Clearly the opportunity was not seized. What is more concerning is that the question is no longer about seizing an opportunity but about survival, and it is the United States that has the most to lose.
Cognite Collaborates With Microsoft to Transform Industry Through Digitalization and Becomes Global Independent Software Vendor (ISV)
Cognite announced it is working with Microsoft to catalyze the full-scale digital transformation of heavy-asset industries. The Cognite Data Fusion platform, hosted on Microsoft Azure, will deliver industrial data operations and OT/IT data contextualization for hybrid AI development, combining human and Artificial Intelligence to collectively achieve superior results and create faster time to value.
This collaboration builds on the common goal to create transformation through digitalization as demonstrated by Microsoft’s recent commitment to The Center for Fourth Industrial Revolution for the Ocean (C4IR), and the Ocean Data Platform (ODP), which is also powered by Cognite technology. ODP is the open and collaborative platform that harnesses the power of data liberation and contextualization connecting data, people and technology for a healthy ocean and is run on Cognite Data Fusion. ODP is a cornerstone of Microsoft’s water sustainability commitment. Both companies are committed to technology-based systems to improve ocean health.