Augie, Augmentir’s industrial generative AI assistant, is designed to enhance manufacturing operations. Unlike standard AI-powered helpers, Augie relies on real-time operational data, workforce insights, and training records to deliver solutions that integrate smoothly into daily workflows. It considers job roles, skill levels, and the equipment a worker handles to provide valuable and specific guidance to the task at hand. 

In this Q&A, Quality Digest spoke candidly with Augie about customizing AI-generated insights, preserving industry knowledge, protecting sensitive data, and supporting a global workforce while addressing concerns about AI adoption in manufacturing.

Quality Digest: How does Augie ensure that the AI-generated solutions and insights are tailored to each manufacturing environment’s challenges and unique workflows?

Augie: Connected worker technology harnesses the immense potential of manufacturing data, which, according to McKinsey Global Institute, amounts to more than 1.9 petabytes annually, making manufacturing the single most data-prolific industry. By leveraging data generated by their operations, manufacturers can uncover valuable insights to optimize processes, enhance efficiency, and drive innovation. One key area where this data-driven approach proves invaluable is in supporting employee development.

Augie uses manufacturers’ data to ensure that generated solutions are relevant to the organization and individual frontline workers. It leverages operational data, training data, workforce management data, connected worker and engineering data, and information from enterprise systems.

AI-generated responses from Augie take into context:
• What skill level, capabilities, and certifications the worker has
• What their job role is
• What specific job they are working on
• What asset or piece of equipment they are working on
• Their experience level

Augie uses this context to generate a response tailored to each user.

QD: Can you explain how Augie captures, retains, and updates tribal knowledge over time? How does it differentiate between outdated practices and those that remain valuable?

A: Augie is a powerful tool for accelerating the transition from paper-based to digital operations in manufacturing and industrial settings. It begins with digitizing processes and converting static, paper-based content into dynamic, interactive digital workflows, making operations more accessible and efficient for frontline workers.

Augie can quickly generate digital, interactive work instructions, checklists, and smart forms within Augmentir from existing Excel, Word, PDFs, images, or videos. For example, frontline personnel can create brief videos demonstrating a standard work procedure and load the video into the platform. Augie can generate native Augmentir work instructions, SOPs, OPLs, CILs, checklists, and training materials such as quizzes.

Augie leverages real-time data as operations connect to deliver actionable insights, enabling companies to identify inefficiencies, improve workflows, and drive continuous improvement.

QD: What safeguards are in place to ensure that sensitive operational data and proprietary workflows uploaded to the Augie platform remain secure?

A: Generative AI assistants in manufacturing streamline production by automating repetitive tasks, reducing human error, and optimizing workflows. They enhance decision-making through real-time data analysis, increasing efficiency and cost savings.

Augie is unique among other intelligent manufacturing assistants. It leverages proprietary fit-for-purpose, pretrained LLMs and generative AI, coupled with robust security and permissions, to help factory managers, operators, and engineers improve efficiency, resolve issues faster, and prevent downtime.

Data privacy is fundamental and foundational. Augie is built using a comprehensive approach to enterprise-grade security that inherits manufacturers’ enterprise security policies, seamlessly protecting operational data and proprietary workflows. Information returned from Augie is only displayed to users [with] specific access and permissions. Queries and responses are unavailable to other customers or external generative AI models. They are not used to train, retrain, or improve third-party language models, products, or services.

QD: How does Augie’s translation capability enhance its usability for global teams, and what steps have been taken to ensure it can be easily implemented across diverse companies?

A: Augie is transforming how multilingual workforces access and utilize technical documentation. Its deep integration with the manufacturing context sets this technology apart. For example, when a Spanish-speaking worker encounters an equipment issue or needs to perform a complex procedure, they can ask questions in their native language. The system then searches through existing English-language technical documentation, understands the specific context of the operation—including the worker’s skill level and the equipment they’re using—and delivers a contextually appropriate response in Spanish. This goes beyond translation; it’s about making technical expertise accessible 24/7 across language barriers.

Additionally, for manufacturing organizations [using] Augie to aid in their transformation from paper to digital, Augie can translate original digital work instructions created in one language, and generate new versions of the same work instructions in other languages.

QD: How has Augie been designed to address potential resistance to AI adoption among frontline workers, particularly those less technologically inclined or people concerned about automation replacing their roles?

A: Since its launch, Augie has received massive support from leading manufacturing organizations. These global leaders have applied it across all manufacturing and production types, helping prevent safety and quality issues at the point of work, driving operational efficiency, and giving frontline workers the tools, guidance, and support they need.

Augie supports workers in the flow of work, augmenting their skills rather than replacing the need for human workers. The tool creates a paperless shop floor that empowers workers to seamlessly access needed information without interrupting their workflows. As such, frontline manufacturing workers view Augie as a powerful resource rather than a job threat.

Augie’s generative AI capabilities are built into the core of the Augmentir platform so users can quickly and securely leverage the latest AI advances within the framework of digital collaboration, skills management, and work execution. This allows frontline users and other manufacturing personnel to leverage existing data, documents, applications, and their existing tribal knowledge, increasing the ROI. In addition, because Augie can receive requests from workers in their natural language, they can efficiently utilize the technology without being limited by their experience, or lack thereof, with technology.

QD: What limitations does Augie face when generating solutions or recommendations? How does the system handle scenarios where AI suggestions conflict with on-the-ground expertise?

A: The answers and recommendations that Augie generates are based on the enterprise data accessible to Augie within the company using the tool. In other words, Augie is limited to operational data, training, and workforce management data, connected worker data, corporate documents, SOPs, training manuals, etc. This gives Augie a fact-based data set for its LLM.

Additionally, Augie uses context-aware fact checking in its responses. For example, if a prompt results in Augie generating a solution to a troubleshooting issue that is “unverified” by a corporate source, then Augie would only return that solution to a certified subject matter expert within the organization with the appropriate experience level.  Augie would not return that solution to a novice worker.

QD: What features does Augie offer to support training and adaptation for offsite or traveling workers while ensuring seamless communication with those on the shop floor?

A: Augie operates directly where the worker operates.  As manufacturing environments shift from paper-based work instructions to digital instructions on mobile devices, Augie moves with them, operating seamlessly on those devices.

QD: How does Augie ensure consistent and effective deployment and performance for manufacturers operating across multiple sites with varied levels of technological maturity?

A: Augie is tailored to each workforce and includes extensibility aspects and usability designed to be adopted quickly by frontline workers. This enables manufacturers to get automated systems up and running in days or weeks rather than months or years. This accessibility means companies with minimal technical expertise and infrastructure can realize transformative capacity, quality, costs, and improvements in customer service. These capabilities also apply to multisite scenarios, enabling manufacturing organizations to utilize Augie across locations regardless of variations in technological maturity.

Augie’s Extensibility Assistant increases the productivity of developers building new and supporting existing user-defined functions in Augmentir’s extensibility framework. Augmentir’s unique platform-as-a-service capabilities enable customers and partners to create unique capabilities to solve essential business problems, a capability not available elsewhere in the market.