Honeywell Unveils Innovative AI Assistant for Industrial Operators in Honeywell Forge Production Intelligence

Honeywell (NASDAQ: HON) today announced the latest release of Honeywell Forge Production Intelligence, which seamlessly integrates performance monitoring with a new generative AI assistant to help operators and production managers automate tasks and troubleshoot problems.

By leveraging advanced generative AI models, the platform’s new Intelligent Assistant is designed to enhance user experience by allowing engineers, plant managers and business leaders to access key insights through simple, natural language prompts. The tool will also enable industrials to visualize, trend, and troubleshoot production issues from Key Performance Indicator (KPI) deviation contributors and asset relationships.

“As the industry continues to wrestle with the loss of expertise through higher rates of attrition and the challenges of onboarding new talent, it is good to see the incorporation of generative AI copilots, like Honeywell’s Intelligent Assistant, that help to make it easier and faster for users of varying experience to get critical insights about the status of their production operations," said ARC Advisory Group’s Director of Research, Mark Sen Gupta. "Such scalable and replicable solutions are invaluable for companies grappling in a fast-changing business environment.”

The cloud-native platform merges performance monitoring with advanced analytics, enabling rapid root cause analysis of production issues. With the addition of the Intelligent Assistant, users can now summarize deviations and overall insights quicker and more effectively. The capability not only enhances AI insights with greater explainability and usability but also supports closed-loop collaboration workflows with case management integration.

“Honeywell Forge Production Intelligence represents a significant step forward in making data-driven insights accessible to engineers and industrial business leaders globally,” said Pramesh Maheshwari, President of Honeywell Process Solutions. “We understand the challenges faced by our customers and believe that by leveraging generative AI, we can help assets work harder, people work smarter, and systems more efficient.”

Honeywell Forge Production Intelligence is part of Honeywell’s recently announced suite of AI-enabled solutions for industrials which also includes Experion Operations Assistant and Field Process Knowledge System.

For more information on the Honeywell Forge Production Intelligence, visit Honeywell.com.

About Honeywell:

Honeywell is an integrated operating company serving a broad range of industries and geographies around the world. Our business is aligned with three powerful megatrends – automation, the future of aviation and energy transition – underpinned by our Honeywell Accelerator operating system and Honeywell Forge IoT platform. As a trusted partner, we help organizations solve the world's toughest, most complex challenges, providing actionable solutions and innovations through our Aerospace Technologies, Industrial Automation, Building Automation and Energy and Sustainability Solutions business segments that help make the world smarter, safer and more sustainable. For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywell.com/newsroom.

Cisco and Rockwell Partner to Drive Industrial IoT in APAC

Cisco and Rockwell Automation have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on boosting digital transformation in the industrial market across the Asia Pacific, Japan, and Greater China region.

Through this partnership, the two companies aim to provide technologies and services that enable manufacturers to optimize operations, enhance productivity, and ensure the security of their industrial networks.

 

(L-R)：Nicole Denil, vice president, Global Market Access, Rockwell Automation • Ruchika Jain, director, marketing and strategy - Asia Pacific, Rockwell Automation • Shovan Sengupta, regional vice president, market Access - Asia Pacific, Rockwell Automation • Scott Wooldridge, regional president - Asia Pacific, Rockwell Automation • Kartika Prihadi, Vice President, Partner Sales & Routes to Market, Asia Pacific, Japan & Greater China (APJC), Cisco • Simon Young, General Manager, Strategic Industry Partners, Asia Pacific, Japan & Greater China (APJC), Cisco • Yadi Karyadi, Country Solution Architect, Indonesia, Cisco

The collaboration will facilitate the implementation of advanced automation solutions, including connected factories and industrial IoT. Additionally, Cisco and Rockwell Automation will work together to address the digital skills gap in the manufacturing sector by leveraging Cisco's Networking Academy program and Rockwell Automation's university partnerships in the region.

Addressing the digital skills gap in the manufacturing sector

Cisco and Rockwell Automation will also work towards training and building a wider talent pool to address the digital skills gap in the manufacturing sector. This will be done by leveraging Cisco’s Networking Academy program and Rockwell Automation's partnerships with universities across the region.

Cisco Networking Academy is one of the longest-standing IT skills-to-jobs programs in the world. Cisco Networking Academy provides high-quality IT and cybersecurity courses, learning simulators, and hands-on learning opportunities via a learning platform to support instructors and engage learners in 190 countries. To date, over 20 million global learners have taken Cisco Networking Academy courses to gain digital skills. Additionally, 95% of students that have taken Cisco certification aligned courses have attributed obtaining a job or education opportunity to Cisco Networking Academy.

Accenture and Japan's Mujin Setup JV 'Accenture Alpha Automation' To Bring AI, Robotics to Manufacturing and Logistics

New joint venture will use AI and machine learning to connect operational and management data and accelerate data-driven management

Accenture and Mujin, a Japan based company engaged in intelligent robotics for manufacturing, logistics and supply chain operations, have established Accenture Alpha Automation, a joint venture for the manufacturing and logistics industries. Accenture Alpha Automation will help companies automate their management infrastructure with data-driven solutions that seamlessly combine data from manufacturing and logistics operations with management data. The joint venture is owned 70% by Accenture and 30% by Mujin.

Mujin provides intelligent automation solutions for industrial sites. Its intelligent robotics platform enables companies to deploy industrial robotics systems without the typical complex advance settings and integration, including motion settings and peripheral equipment, often required for other robotics systems.

The joint venture will combine Mujin’s experience in industrial robotics and automation with expertise from Accenture’s digital engineering and manufacturing service, Industry X. Accenture Alpha Automation’s solutions will integrate previously disconnected operational data from manufacturing and logistics sites with business management data, such as the company-wide supply chain status, financial information and market information. Accenture and Mujin will bring these solutions to clients to help them make faster, better decisions and hyper-automate their manufacturing and logistics processes.

Atsushi Egawa, who leads Accenture’s business in Japan, said: “Manufacturing is the cornerstone of Japanese industry. Driving sophistication and efficiency in manufacturing and the logistics that support manufacturing is essential for Japan's further growth. By teaming with Mujin, a leader in robotics technology, Accenture will be able to help our clients take advantage of AI and robotics to connect data throughout the manufacturing and logistics value chain, further contributing to the data-driven transformation of Japan’s important manufacturing and logistics industries.”

Mujin Inc. CEO, Issei Takino adds: “Our mission is to make industrial robots intelligent and easy to use so they can improve productivity and quality and help create new value in an aging society. The new joint venture, which builds on our agreement with Accenture, will utilize our robot automation technology to drive a paradigm shift in the manufacturing and logistics industry and bring new value to customers first in Japan, then around the world.”

Accenture has also invested directly in Mujin through Accenture Ventures, marking its first Project Spotlight investment in Asia. Project Spotlight is an engagement and investment program focused on companies that create or apply disruptive enterprise technologies. The program offers extensive access to Accenture’s domain expertise and its enterprise clients, helping technology companies adapt their solutions to the enterprise market and scale faster and more effectively.

About the Joint Venture

Company name: Accenture Alpha Automation
Location: Sumitomo Fudosan Azabu Juban Building, 1-4-1 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Operation starts: January 15, 2024
Scope of Operation:

• Consult and develop automation concepts in the manufacturing and logistics industries
• System integration in the manufacturing and logistics industries
• All businesses incidental to the preceding items

Share: Accenture 70%, Mujin 30%


Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 743,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. We are uniquely able to deliver tangible outcomes because of our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song. These capabilities, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities.

GreyOrange Closes on $135 Mn Growth Financing

• Blume backed AI-Driven Warehouse and Retail Automation Leader GreyOrange Closes on $135M Growth Financing
• Funding will further accelerate GreyOrange’s growth and industry defining leadership in automation within the warehouse fulfillment and retail markets

Blume Ventures today announced its Fund I portfolio company GreyOrange Inc., a leader in AI-driven fulfillment automation, announced the first close of its Series D funding, securing $135 million. Led by Anthelion Capital (formerly Cowen Sustainable Investments) this investment reinforces GreyOrange’s innovative approach to transforming warehouse and retail store operations through a hardware-agnostic software platform and a dynamic range of certified robotic and sensing technologies. The company’s growth and adoption rates with market leading Fortune 500 customers validates GreyOrange’s capability to lead tech transformation in the global supply chain automation space.

GreyOrange's latest funding round also reflects a strong vote of confidence from existing investors such as Mithril, 3State Ventures, and Blume Ventures. Their continued support, coupled with significant capital from previous rounds, underscores their unwavering commitment to GreyOrange.

"GreyOrange is one of India's proudest deep tech exports and despite a massive shift in how warehouse automation is being adopted in the US, GreyOrange is nimbly shifting its business model for the best of Fortune500 retail and commerce companies and winning market share and confidence. We think it can be the first billion $ revenue company in deep tech from India and are proud to further back GreyOrange's growth aspirations, along with our existing partners and new investor Anthelion”, said Karthik Reddy, Blume Ventures. 

GreyOrange will deploy the growth capital to accelerate the company’s technology leadership, continue its global expansion, and further support the adoption of GreyOrange’s fulfillment orchestration platform in warehouses, distribution centers, and retail stores.

“As we scale our technology and enhance customer experiences and operational efficiency, we recognize that keeping the needs of our customers at the center of our product and solution roadmap has proven essential for our customers’ success, as well as our own,” said Akash Gupta, Co-Founder and CEO, GreyOrange. "This Series D funding amplifies our commitment to leadership within the AI and robotics orchestration space and affirms our thought leadership within this market." 

“Not only has GreyOrange automated the movement of goods within the warehouse, but the company has also built a network that optimizes how retailers move their goods across their entire supply chain,” said Vusal Najafov, Co-Founder, Anthelion Capital. "Their capability to improve operational efficiency in various settings and their innovative approach in transforming inventory into a more productive asset in warehouses and retail spaces are key reasons for our excitement in leading this funding round”.

“GreyOrange’s technical and commercial advances reinforce our shared mission to bring game changing automation and productivity to retail,” said Ajay Royan, Founder and Managing General Partner of Mithril Capital. “GreyOrange’s thoughtful implementation of their pioneering technology has earned the trust of the world’s largest retailers and logistics partners. GreyOrange is leading a major shift in productivity, safety, and novel forms of convenience that will benefit hundreds of millions of consumers.”

The overall growth seen in the warehouse automation sector will continue to be a strong tailwind for GreyOrange. According to the 2023 Gartner Hype Cycle™ for Supply Chain Execution Technologies report, “by 2027, over 75% of companies will have adopted some form of cyber-physical automation within their warehouse operations.”

The Gartner report also details that, “As companies expand their use of robotics, most will eventually have heterogeneous fleets of robots from different vendors performing various tasks, which will require standardized software that can easily integrate to a variety of agents and robot platforms. These solutions will assign work to the right robots based on the characteristics of immediate and prioritized tasks and communicate with other types of automation (agents) like door or elevator controls.”  

1. Gartner, Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Execution Technologies, 2023, Dwight Klappich; 13 July 2023.

Gartner Disclaimer GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

GreyOrange is at the forefront of AI-driven robotics systems, transforming distribution and fulfillment centers worldwide. Its emphasis on orchestration, innovation, and customer satisfaction marks a new era in efficient, responsive supply chain solutions. The company’s solutions offer a competitive advantage by increasing productivity, empowering growth and scale, mitigating labor challenges, reducing risk and time to market, and creating better experiences for customers and employees. Founded in 2012, GreyOrange is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with offices and partners across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.greyorange.com.

Sharechat Founders' Automation Startup General Autonomy Raises $3 Mn in Seed Funding

Industrial automation and robotics company, General Autonomy, which is co-founded by the founders of ShareChat, has successfully raised $3 million in funding from investors including Elevation Capital and India Quotient, along with participation of notable angel investors such as Srinath Ramakkrushnan, Ramakant Sharma, and Ankush Sachdeva.

Founded this year, by Farhid Ahsan and Bhanu Singh, General Autonomy aims to pioneer industrial robotics infused with artificial intelligence (AI).

The launch as well as fundraise announcement was made by Ahsan on X (formerly Twitter), expressing gratitude for the support from investors like @IndiaQuotient and @ElevCap, as well as mentors @KhandujaM and @AnandLunia

Farhid and Bhanu have joined the likes of founders of several growth stage startups wherein co-founders or executives with leadership roles left the company and managed to raise capital for their new startup. The two founders left Sharechat earlier this year.

NVIDIA and Foxconn Join Hands to Build AI Factories and Systems for the AI Industrial Revolution

Partnership To Fuel Digitalization of World’s Industries through NVIDIA AI, DRIVE AV, Isaac Robotics and Omniverse Platforms

NVIDIA has just made an announcement that it is collaborating with world's largest contract manufacturer Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn), to accelerate NVIDIA coined – "AI industrial revolution" .

With this collaboration, Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn will integrate NVIDIA technology to develop a new class of data centers powering a wide range of applications — including digitalization of manufacturing and inspection workflows, development of AI-powered electric vehicle and robotics platforms, and a growing number of language-based generative AI services.

Announced in a fireside chat with NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang and Foxconn Chairman and CEO Young Liu at Hon Hai Tech Day, in Taipei, the collaboration starts with the creation of AI factories — an NVIDIA® GPU computing infrastructure specially built for processing, refining and transforming vast amounts of data into valuable AI models and tokens — based on the NVIDIA accelerated computing platform, including the latest NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper™ Superchip and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software.

Foxconn is also developing its smart solution platforms based on NVIDIA technologies:

• Foxconn Smart EV will be built on NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion™ 9, a next-generation platform for autonomous automotive fleets, powered by NVIDIA DRIVE Thor™, its future automotive systems-on-a-chip.
• Foxconn Smart Manufacturing robotic systems will be built on the NVIDIA Isaac™ autonomous mobile robot platform.
• Foxconn Smart City will incorporate the NVIDIA Metropolis intelligent video analytics platform.

“Most importantly, NVIDIA and Foxconn are building these factories together. We will be helping the whole industry move much faster into the new AI era,” said Foxconn Chairman and CEO Young Liu.

“A new type of manufacturing has emerged — the production of intelligence. And the data centers that produce it are AI factories,” said Huang. “Foxconn, the world’s largest manufacturer, has the expertise and scale to build AI factories globally. We are delighted to expand our decade-long partnership with Foxconn to accelerate the AI Industrial revolution."

 

Foxconn Eyes Potential AI Factory

In addition to equipping its customers with NVIDIA technology-powered AI factories, Foxconn is eyeing its own that will tap into the NVIDIA Omniverse™ platform and Isaac and Metropolis frameworks to meet the strict production and quality standards of the electronics industry.

Advances in edge AI and simulation are enabling deployment of autonomous mobile robots that can travel several miles a day and industrial robots for assembling components, applying coatings, packaging and performing quality inspections.

An AI factory with these NVIDIA platforms can give Foxconn the ability to accomplish AI training and inference, enhance factory workflows and run simulations in the virtual world before deployment in the physical world. Simulating the entire robotics and automation pipeline from end to end provides Foxconn with a path to operational efficiency gains, saving time and costs.

Enabling Foxconn Customers to Build AI Data Factories

Working closely with NVIDIA, Foxconn is expected to build a large number of systems based on NVIDIA CPUs, GPUs and networking for its global customer base, which is looking to create and operate their own AI factories, optimized with NVIDIA AI Enterprise software.

Among the key NVIDIA technologies Foxconn is using to create these custom designs are NVIDIA HGX™ reference designs featuring eight NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs per system, NVIDIA GH200 Superchips, NVIDIA OVX™ reference designs and NVIDIA networking.

With these systems, Foxconn customers can leverage NVIDIA accelerated computing to deliver generative AI services as well as use simulation to speed up the training of autonomous machines, including industrial robots and self-driving cars.

Developing Safe, AI-Powered EVs

Foxconn will also deliver a range of NVIDIA DRIVE™ solutions to global automakers, serving as a tier-one manufacturer of NVIDIA DRIVE Orin™-based electronic control units (ECUs) today and scaling to NVIDIA DRIVE Thor-based ECUs in the future.

As a contract manufacturer, Foxconn will offer highly automated and autonomous, AI-rich EVs featuring the upcoming NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion 9 platform, which includes DRIVE Thor and a state-of-the-art sensor architecture. This will enable Foxconn and its automotive customers to realize a new era of functionally safe and secure software-defined cars.

Industrial Automation Startup Ethereal Machines Raises $7.3 Million

Bengaluru-based Ethereal Machines, which makes, which manufactures 5-Axis CNC machines, has raised $7.3 million in Pre-Series A Round of funding from Peak XV's Surge, Blume Ventures, Ganapathy Subramaniam, Mathew Cyriac, Lip-Bu Tan, Finvolve, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts and T2D3 Capital, reported TechinAsia. 

The company will use the freshly raised funds to establish more factories across India, adding to the one it currently has in Bangalore.

Ethereal Machines had earlier raised $1 million (~ Rs 7 crore) in its pre-Series A round of funding, which was led by Blume Ventures with contributions from PayU India managing director, Jitendra Gupta, and founders of Grey Orange Robotics - Samay Kohli and Akash Gupta.

Ethereal Machines is poised capture enormous growth opportunities in India’s manufacturing sector, which accounts for 17% of India’s GDP and over 27.3 million workers. According to the International Trade Administration, the Indian manufacturing industry generated 16-17% of India’s GDP pre-pandemic and is projected to be one of the fastest growing sectors. The machine tool industry was literally the nuts and bolts of the manufacturing industry in India.

Ethereal Machines uses proprietary Computer Numerical Control machines, such as drills and mills, to produce precision engineering components for aerospace, automobile, and healthcare use.

Founded in 2014, by Kaushik Mudda and Navin Jain, Ethereal Machines solves problems related to manufacturing faced by industries, engineers and makers through its machines and aid the growth of small-scale and mid-scale entrepreneurs by equipping them with affordable machines.