The Industrial sector is undergoing its fourth major revolution right now, popularly known as Industry 4.0.

Industry 4.0 aims to leverage the latest technological advancements, including cognitive computing, hybrid cloud and advanced analytics, to deliver information transparency, infuse human expertise with technology, and decentralize decision-making power.

To get there, businesses need to overcome various hurdles, including:

• Analysis of structured and unstructured data at scale: It is difficult for organizations to parse through the volumes of data generated. AI solutions can pre-process and crunch through the vast amount of data to help subject matter experts find their needles in the haystacks and enable them to make decisions quickly.
• Anticipation of product demand and optimization of shipment/order decisions: Demand forecasting and shipment/order optimization at scale are becoming increasingly challenging as consumer spending patterns evolve and shift frequently. Incorporating multiple external factors that drive demand and supply into the solutions is key.
• Predicting behavior more accurately: Whether it’s identifying machines that require maintenance or predicting energy demand, improved accuracy has the potential to save businesses a lot of time and money. Predictive analytics can help monitor behavior over time and identify risk of downtime before it happens so that the challenge can be mitigated in near real-time

Optimize operations, then predict, mitigate and manage risks

Analyze your data against use cases specific to the Industrial sector with IBM Data and AI Industry Accelerators. These insights help you forecast demand, optimize operations, process structured and unstructured data at scale and visualize data in a consumable manner, making the journey from data to actionable outcomes faster.

IBM Data and AI Accelerators can help you build and scale a risk management or supply chain strategy for your business. Each accelerator is designed to help address the most familiar challenges Industrial institutions face.

Predict when equipment or machine will require maintenance using Intelligent Maintenance. Predicting failures via advanced analytics can increase equipment uptime by up to 20% and ensure operations keep running smoothly.

Plan your energy demand and supply more optimally with Energy Demand Planning. Planning for the right amount of energy generation can help prevent energy spillage with over-generation, and widespread blackouts with under-generation. Remember the recent large-scale power outages that Texas faced due to an unexpected snowstorm during February 2021?

Enhance your supply chain management with AI using Supply Chain Forecasting and Optimization. According to the IBM report “Building a Smarter Supply Chain”, less than 10% of today’s supply chain data is effectively used, and most companies are virtually blind to the 80% of data that is dark or unstructured, so there’s a lot that can still be done in this space.

Respond effectively in case an emergency event occurs by leveraging Emergency Response. In times of emergency there is an urgent need to create an actionable plan, and it is nearly impossible to do manually. With the right strategy in place, a state that may need to relocate several snowplows, for example, to tackle high weather alert areas can optimize with factors like population density, highway traffic and amount of snow expected in various regions.

Manage risks in manufacturing effectively with Cognitive Control. Enterprises face risks and hazards in their operations that can cause harm to the business including financial, legal, and security. By using AI solutions on Cloud Pak for data, an enterprise can work to eliminate overlook of tens, or even hundreds of thousands of adopted risks and controls.

Ramp up with the right expertise
Industry Accelerators on IBM Cloud Pak for Data provide tools to help you shorten time-to-value from demonstration to implementation. Learn how these accelerators can help you expedite your business strategy by exploring the new Accelerator Catalog.

For help getting started on your data science project, let our experts assist you. The IBM Data Science and AI Elite (DSE) team works side by side with your team to co-engineer AI solutions and help your business prove value at no cost. Get the skills, methods and tools you need to overcome AI adoption and to solve your business challenges quickly.

Explore the IBM Accelerator Catalog.
Request a consultation to get started.
Learn more about the IBM Data Science and AI Elite.