_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Industrial AI
business benefits industrial AI can bring to an asset- and project-centric industry.
Examples of industrial AI improvement opportunities are:
• Project financial control: improved project financial control processes include project estimating, project budgeting, and project forecasting. Automation and intelligent forecasting have great potential. Today, most companies manage these processes using non-integrated processes and with the use of many manual Excel spreadsheets.
• Project anomalies: if we have highquality consistent data, AI can help identify project and business process anomalies and, with the use of AI agents, automate the required actions. This will allow management to focus on other tasks instead of spending too much time collecting data and documents and writing reports.
• Document management: AI can use intelligent character recognition to scan and interpret documents, reducing manual data entry and improving accuracy. This is particularly valuable for handling large volumes of documents such as goods received notes( GRNs) on construction sites or perhaps reconciling bids.
• Risk and opportunity management: AI can be used to improve risk management by identifying and evaluating risks and opportunities, helping managers take corrective actions promptly. This enhances the overall control and management of projects.
• Contract and project change management: AI agents can analyze contract and project changes providing recommendations to mitigate potential issues and improve project outcomes. This helps in managing the financial and operational aspects of projects more effectively. AI agents can also analyze effects on the project margin and timeline based on the changes.
• Operational efficiency: by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, AI agents can improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance the overall productivity of construction and engineering companies.
• Non-project-related business processes: construction and engineering companies often have diverse businesses that do more than deliver design and construct projects. For example, their services may include manufacturing, asset management, and rental of equipment and service or facilities management. There are also many AI opportunities that can be implemented for all functional areas of the business: asset management, service management, finance, inventory management and supply chain, human capital management, manufacturing, purchasing, health and safety, and ESG.
Industrial AI and ERP: a platform for construction and engineering success
For construction and engineering organizations, AI will increase overall efficiencies, standardize processes, enable greater project and business control, and build resilience to optimize processes and improve decision-making. Ultimately, for industrial AI to deliver real value, it needs the support of comprehensive ERP that will allow construction and engineering organizations to safely take the first steps on their transformation journey. ■
Kenny Ingram www. ifs. com
Kenny Ingram is VP, Construction & Engineering at IFS. IFS is the world’ s leading provider of industrial AI and enterprise software for hardcore businesses that service, power and protect our planet. IFS. ai is enabling the world’ s most progressive industrial companies to orchestrate complexity and automate workflows with agentic AI so they can deliver when it really matters to their customers- at the Moment of Service.
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