Machine Thinking, Gen AI and Reliability in Operations
There is a scene in the movie, CONCUSSION where the forensic pathologist Dr. Omalu asks the dead to speak to him about what had transpired before death. He felt that inanimate objects did communicate in their own language. Several times, long term operators at our facilities in Kuwait or Prentiss have walked with me and literally talked to the reactors or distillation columns or pumps and interpreted their noises as being happy or needing help or preventive maintenance. I used to smile at these beliefs of the operators - but now I feel they were prescient.
Machines like the human body churn out data every day. Pressure, temperature, vibrations, noise, are not very different than VO2 or BP or ECGs. Generative AI when deployed correctly can now take this data and make it a self learning tool to communicate with these machines. Comparing data across similar machines or reactors across sites makes them improve each day on what could keep them "happy" or the fixes needed to prevent failure.
I was introduced to the power of Gen AI as a self learning tool to improve reliability of reactors, pumps, distillation columns. When I look at the data that an Aspen or AVIVA or Cognit churn out around an operating asset, I feel like Dr Omalu. The current business model is that Reliability Engineers analyze this data and then make judgement calls on what the next steps would be. But what was needed was a GenAI algorithm that makes the asset talk to us on what it needs.
The prospects for plant reliability is mind boggling when we realize that each day this "asset" will learn more and tell us what she wants - She could be experiencing a leak, a corrosive cancer could be growing or a gasket could be loose. I was exposed to the scale of deploying GEN AI to asset reliability by SPECTOR.AI, a California based start up that is now piloting this algorithm for chemical plants
Just imagine the next time we have the usual debate on whether we should push the "turn around" or not, it would not be a judgement call. Gen AI would literally make the asset tell us if she could run another month or a year or needs the break. Assets will soon speak to us. What a great world to look forward to on plant reliability.
Spector.AI, #RELIABILITY