Honeywell deploys AI to buoy industrial workforce
Honeywell is introducing new artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled solutions designed to help employees work smarter, make systems more efficient and allow plant operations to accelerate the path to autonomy.
By combining decades of industry knowledge and deep domain data with the latest AI technologies, including Honeywell Forge, Honeywell is infusing AI into both new and existing solutions. This provides companies with an end-to-end AI experience for the worker in the field, the process operator in the control room and executives at an enterprise level.
Today’s energy industry faces several challenges, including a widespread shortage of skilled talent to run facilities and a need to enhance efficiency while maintaining accuracy and quality. To address these challenges, Honeywell’s AI solutions can help enhance decision-making speed, operational efficiency and workforce productivity while also upskilling the workforce through enhanced training.
To further expand the solutions available for the energy sector, Honeywell also announced a partnership with Chevron to develop additional advanced AI-enabled solutions focused on enhancing refining operations.
Honeywell’s new AI capabilities include the Experion Operations Assistant, which integrates explainable AI into the industrial process to help operators identify production issues and offer step-by-step guidance to address the issue. With an Experion Operations Assistant running alongside plant operators, companies can optimize operations and less experienced operators can build new expertise more quickly by gaining access to the decades of industry knowledge within their company.
Honeywell recently commissioned a surveyed 1,600 executive AI leaders around the world and found that nearly two-thirds of all respondents said increasing worker efficiency and productivity is the most promising use of AI. The integration of AI to optimize operations to improve efficiency and upskill the workforce supports Honeywell’s alignment of its portfolio to three powerful megatrends, including automation.
“As the industrial workforce experiences a skills and experience gap globally, the worker is still an integral part of the automation journey,” said Lucian Boldea, president and CEO of Honeywell Industrial Automation. “Honeywell’s technologies are enabled by AI to help improve the performance of the industrial workforce – enabling workers to increase efficiency and rapidly accelerate their time to expertise.”
Honeywell is launching a new AI-enabled solution: Honeywell Field Process Knowledge System (PKS) and its “field assistant” with AI powered by Honeywell Forge is designed to make operations and maintenance actions easier, safer and more accurate. It consists of a web-based application for supervisors, and a mobile device for field workers that provides a single pane of glass for all field-related tasks including operations, maintenance, permits, documentation and more.
Honeywell is also adding AI-assisted capabilities to its existing solutions including:
Honeywell Experion PKS, an industry-leading distributed control system, now incorporates comprehensive operations support with predictive advisories, recommendations and troubleshooting. It also offers access to the AI-assisted Experion Operations Assistant to improve production and help keep system operations at optimum levels. Honeywell AI-enabled services and advice can provide predictive notification of issues with recommended actions throughout the entire lifecycle of the facility. The solution provides engineering support for faster project startup and day-one ready operations.
Honeywell Production Intelligence is designed to contextualize Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) data from onsite operations to deliver meaningful insights and analytics- driven recommendations for executives across the business. Additionally, it provides near real-time monitoring, diagnosis, and predictive modules to help address and prevent future production issues.
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The September/October issue of Industrial Supply magazine features an in-depth cover story about Kurz Industrial Solutions. Plus, we're featuring articles by contributing writers Dirk Beveridge, Frank Hurtte, and Mike Hockett, as well as interviews with numerous product and distribution industry experts.
