Solving industry’s number one problem: IntelliAM

Last week, IntelliAM unveiled its pioneering AI platform, designed to transform industrial performance. As we know, UK manufacturers are facing severe skills shortages and flatlining productivity. The launch of this technology is set to transform manufacturing productivity capability without requiring major capital investment.

IntelliAM’s ethos is about transforming industrial performance: cracking the code of industrial data, remaining technology- and OEM-agnostic and empowering customers to take control of their performance rather than remaining dependent on a fragmented world of OEM systems.

Molly Cooper attended the launch event at the London Stock Exchange amongst manufactures, investors and current customers of IntelliAM to find out more. While there, she sat down with CEO of IntelliAM, Tom Clayton.

IntelliAM is said to solve industry’s number one problem. What is that?

TC: Industry knows AI is the next step, but its biggest challenge is dealing with the variability that exists in manufacturing processes.

Every production line generates huge amounts of data, but no two processes are exactly the same. Manufacturers are constantly dealing with changing product viscosities, different material grades, varying protein levels, machine speeds, wear patterns, motions and pressures. Those variables make it difficult to compare performance accurately and extract meaningful insights.

Manufacturing leaders must bring all of that data together and understand the context behind it. IntelliAM works on an event-driven basis, recognising when a process changes state. Whether that’s a change in machine speed or a switch to a different product, it understands why the change has occurred and accounts for it.

By removing unnecessary variability from the data, the platform ensures manufacturers are comparing like with like, leading to more accurate insights and better decisions. In manufacturing, where mistakes can be costly, that level of accuracy is essential.

AI has been the buzzword for a while, yet why does manufacturing have one of the lowest adoption rates?

It’s ironic because manufacturing engineers are some of the most technology-savvy people in business. They’re automation specialists, control engineers and software experts, so a lack of technical knowledge isn’t what’s holding AI adoption back.

The real challenge is the ever-changing nature of factories. Manufacturing environments are constantly evolving, with equipment from different suppliers generating data in different formats. Bringing all of that together into something meaningful is incredibly complex.

In manufacturing, generic AI tools are not good enough. Factory floor decisions affect production, quality and in some cases, people’s safety, so manufacturers need AI they can trust.

That’s why the biggest hurdle is about creating a reliable method to unify and interpret industrial data. That’s what we’ve focused on with our intelligent namespace, which brings together data from across the factory and translates it into plain English so people can confidently act on it.

When comparing generic AI models and IntelliAM, what’s the key differentiator?

Generic models slightly hallucinate. As busy people, we prompt the model with some information to provide us an answer and we want to add our own context to find it. The model will assume that it knows what you want, and therefore scourers the internet for the answer.

Yet, it may not be perfect and you’ll have to continue providing context until it gives you what you need.

But with IntelliAM, it is using live streams of data from the factory to produce its answers, so it cannot hallucinate. This means what it produces is straight to the point, prescribed in an effective manner.

There is a huge skills gap within manufacturing, but there is a fear from people who are currently working in the sector that AI is going to take jobs. How is IntelliAM working with businesses on this?

There won’t be replacement of people but unfortunately, there won’t be as much employment. The skills gap within the UK sector has already reached 55,000 and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to encourage people to work on the shop floor.

For us at IntelliAM, it’s less about taking humans out of the loop and more about putting expertise in.

It gives business a competitive advantage yet, operatives and engineers will still be vital as it will require a human to react to the insights. That level of craftmanship is not something we are able to provide quickly with AI.

For a manufacturer looking for an AI solution, how does IntelliAM compare to others on the market?

There’s currently a lot of ‘AI washing’ in the market, so manufacturers need to look beyond the label. We’ve been connecting industrial systems to the cloud for years, but we never called it artificial intelligence. Now, suddenly, everything seems to have an AI badge.

One of the biggest differences is that many AI solutions are tied to a specific piece of hardware or equipment. That’s understandable from a supplier’s perspective, but manufacturers don’t operate a factory with just one vendor. They need a platform that can sit above every OEM, sensor and system to provide a complete view of operations.

The other issue is context. Many solutions use algorithms to analyse data from an individual sensor, but they’re not connected to what’s actually happening on the production line. If a system doesn’t know what product is running, the line speed or the operating conditions, it can’t truly understand the environment it’s analysing.

Our platform is different because it brings together data from across the factory, understands the operational context and continuously learns as conditions change. That allows manufacturers to make decisions based on the full picture rather than isolated data points.

We heard from some of IntelliAM’s existing customers today. Can you talk about your approach and process with new customers?

There are two parts to our customer journey. We’ve now developed a platform that’s scalable and, to a large extent, off the shelf, but there’s always an element of consultancy involved.

The first stage is connecting a manufacturer’s data. Most businesses have information spread across multiple systems and silos, so we work with them to bring it all into one place. Our platform is completely agnostic, meaning it can take data from any source, whether that’s sensors, PLCs or historians, while also fitting within each customer’s IT and cyber security requirements. Our automation team is involved from the very start to make sure the platform integrates with their existing infrastructure.

Once the data is in place, the IntelliAM platform can be deployed quickly. There is still some light customisation because every manufacturer measures performance slightly differently, whether that’s OEE, machine efficiency or other operational KPIs. We build our dashboards in Grafana, which makes those changes straightforward without altering the core platform.

We’re not asking manufacturers to replace their existing ERP or SCADA systems, which is important as they’ve often invested millions of pounds in those technologies. Instead, we take the data that’s already there, enrich it with additional intelligence and insights, and fit it seamlessly into the workflows they already use.

Today marked the launch of the new IntelliAM platform, including its Decipher and Enigma layers, but what’s next for IntelliAM over the next five years?

In the first two years of development we’ve bought 86 customers onto our platform, serving half of the worlds top 12 FMCGs.

The next step is to scale the business. We’ve established operations in the US, where many of our existing customers – including ADM, Mars and Baxter – already have a presence, giving us the opportunity to grow those relationships internationally.

We’ve also recently appointed Joel Crawford as Chief Revenue Officer, based in the US, to lead that expansion. At the same time, we’ve announced our intention to move from the Aquis Stock Exchange to AIM, which is already in the public domain.

We’re preparing for another funding round which will give us the investment needed to accelerate our growth.

We believe our offering is unique, but we also recognise that competitors will look to replicate what we’ve built. That gives us a window of opportunity, and our focus over the next 12 months is to make the most of it by growing our existing customer base while expanding across the US market.