The Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software provider, IFS Ultimo, has integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) functionalities into its next-generation EAM platform to enhance troubleshooting capabilities and help businesses reduce the Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) of assets. By leveraging AI, EAM tools will become more intuitive, accessible, and predictive, bringing unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness to facility management practices. These new AI features were unveiled on Wednesday, October 16th, at the IFS Unleashed event held in Orlando, Florida.
“AI is going to elevate EAM to a whole new level. Our vision for AI focuses on practical use cases,” said Chris van den Belt, Head of Product Management at IFS Ultimo. “When considering which AI functionalities to integrate into our platform, we only embed those that add significant value to the customer and improve user experience. Infusing AI capabilities into our EAM platform will dramatically boost employee productivity and maximize asset availability.”
Minimizing Downtime
It is estimated that 80% of MTTR time is spent diagnosing issues. The largest portion of wasted time results from insufficient communication and details in fault reports. With the AI functionalities built into Ultimo, businesses can achieve significant value by reducing each percentage point of MTTR. This is not a “small sum”: average downtime costs in manufacturing often exceed $100,000 per hour. Beyond substantial financial stakes, especially in industries where skilled labor is already scarce, the impact on productivity is profound. Additionally, the considerable improvement in overall data quality unlocks numerous novel and exciting possibilities for achieving superior operations.
More Accurate Fault Reporting
Frontline employees spend most of their working hours close to assets they are very familiar with. Any changes in how an asset looks, sounds, smells, or feels do not escape their notice. Using Large Language Models (LLMs), Ultimo can detect relevant assets and provide a range of customized recommendations that reporters can easily add to fault reports without inputting anything themselves. This way, all sensory observations are accurately recorded in the report, providing maintenance teams with complete and accurate information for quick resolution and improvement of asset availability and reliability.
The same approach will be used elsewhere within Ultimo to expedite problem-solving diagnostics and enhance the accuracy of work activities performed within the system. Overall benefits include a significant reduction in time spent on administrative tasks, greatly improved data quality, and increased employee satisfaction. Moreover, Ultimo is developing integrated AI functionalities that will significantly improve user experience, such as photo-based meter readings, automatically generated image and document titles, and multilingual data auto-translation.
Van den Belt concluded, “We are committed to developing products that make it easier for users to do their jobs with our state-of-the-art EAM software. AI has the potential to enhance EAM in a forward-thinking and efficient manner—empowering employees, improving asset performance, and reducing costs. We are excited to bring these new AI functionalities to our customers while ensuring all relevant data protection measures are in place.”
Source: Logistics Business
