Swiss electrification and automation outfit ABB has launched a generative AI solution to preserve domain knowledge within industrial enterprises, which is vanishing from them as technicians retire and go unreplaced, and to contribute to new digital operations that drive efficiencies and attract younger workers. The new product, called Industrial Knowledge Vault, will “safeguard expertise and empower workforces”, the firm said.
It was developed by ABB with Microsoft. It uses ABB’s Genix CoPilot and Microsoft’s OpenAI platform, integrated for enterprises to code and train sundry of its AI models (o3-mini, o1, o1-mini, GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini, GPT-4 Turbo, Vision) via a REST interface on its Azure cloud stack (as Azure OpenAI Service). It can store, analyze, synthesize and transform industrial knowledge into “conversational” step-by-step assisted workflows, offering “actionable procedures” – so businesses can also “run leaner while preserving safe operations”, it said.
A statement said: “As experienced employees retire, the loss of decades of collective knowledge threatens operational continuity, efficiency and innovation if not properly addressed. Traditional documentation methods are often fragmented, requiring significant manual efforts to compile, interpret, and apply. [This] addresses the challenge by capturing and structuring expertise in a centralised, secure repository that is easily accessible through natural language conversations.”
It said: “The solution enables effortless workflow generation using natural language input to create structured procedures in seconds, eliminating the need for manual document parsing. Additionally, its policy and procedure management capabilities ensure up-to-date, role-based access to critical operational knowledge, streamlining compliance and version control. It also provides real-time guidance and decision support, empowering workers with in-the-moment insights, reducing the learning curve, and enhancing operational performance.”
The solution can be deployed across cloud, on premise or ABB SaaS. It integrates with existing industrial systems, said ABB. The other advantage of the system, it suggested, is to enhance collaboration between rookie field workers and experts in control rooms, via automated generative-AI querying of industrial knowledge, and to further provide visibility into job statuses and operational procedures to reduce bottlenecks and improve overall process functions.
Sanjit Shewale, global head of digital for process industries at ABB, said: “Industries everywhere are facing a critical knowledge gap as a generation of experienced workers retire and take their invaluable expertise with them. Our [product] tackles this challenge by providing a secure and accessible platform to enable businesses to do more with digital. By capturing, preserving, and sharing this vital knowledge, businesses can ensure operational continuity and empower workforces with in-the-moment information to perform their jobs smarter, faster, and more sustainable.”
Sonja Meindl, enterprise commercial director for Microsoft in Switzerland, said: “Our collaboration enables industrial organisations to unlock the full potential of AI-driven knowledge management. By combining AI with deep industrial expertise, we are helping businesses bridge the knowledge gap and build more resilient, efficient operations.”
