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White-label shop for digital intelligent assistance and human-AI collaboration in manufacturing

THE PROJECT

 

WASABI focuses on digital intelligent assistance solutions, based on human-AI collaboration, and applied to the manufacturing domain. The WASABI solution increases the cognitive abilities of workers and accelerates the acquisition and transfer of knowledge, through Natural Language Processing (NLP), for the upskilling of the existing workforce, meantime securing job positions.

Our challenge is related to SMEs and mid-caps manufacturers in Europe that need to meet sustainability goals. Producing components for complex products, or often operating in emerging specialty equipment markets, they must be quite careful about spending their resources on activities with uncertain costs or outcomes.

Wasabi makes digital intelligence assistance and conversational artificial intelligence solutions become standard practices, accessible, affordable, and manageable even for small companies. Wasabi allows European SMEs to achieve sustainability principles and technological and operational innovation capacity, such as to become renewed and cutting-edge, and reach leadership goals and market competitiveness.

TECHNOLOGY

WASABI reuses and customizes technologies from previous projects. The rEUse waste management digital platform, to manage circular economy information about circular entities, processes and services (SYXIS), that covers production and recycling, and COALA (BIBA, ICCS, and SYXIS), a human-centred AI-based digital assistant, focused on education and training, that covers production and product end-of-line testing. WASABI positions its business cases along the product life cycle to demonstrate its solution’s coverage and adaptability.

The three initial cases represent typical problems in manufacturing. The first business case concerns the valorisation of production waste. The second business case concerns the fast and cost-efficient onboarding of new factory workers. It combines knowledge management and learning theories with digital assistant technology. The third business case focuses on improving manufacturing quality. It covers, for instance, product tests and end-of-line quality control procedures and applies digital assistant technology in combination with prescriptive quality analytics.

TECHNOLOGY

WASABI reuses and customizes technologies from previous projects. The rEUse waste management digital platform, to manage circular economy information about circular entities, processes and services (SYXIS), that covers production and recycling, and COALA (BIBA, ICCS, and SYXIS), a human-centred AI-based digital assistant, focused on education and training, that covers production and product end-of-line testing. WASABI positions its business cases along the product life cycle to demonstrate its solution’s coverage and adaptability.

The three initial cases represent typical problems in manufacturing. The first business case concerns the valorisation of production waste. The second business case concerns the fast and cost-efficient onboarding of new factory workers. It combines knowledge management and learning theories with digital assistant technology. The third business case focuses on improving manufacturing quality. It covers, for instance, product tests and end-of-line quality control procedures and applies digital assistant technology in combination with prescriptive quality analytics.

OPEN CALLS

 

WASABI will run two open calls for experiments that will provide financial support to 20-40 SMEs. These open calls will be designed to support AI-based digital assistance experiments involving SMEs from the broad manufacturing sector, and provide DIHs and DIH networks in I4MS and I4MS2 with additional tools, to enhance the support to industrial SMEs. Each call will have a focus and topics to attract applicants from all manufacturing sectors, especially those that are less digitized and/or are less familiar with AI.

Both open calls will include experiments that develop modules, providing digital assistance solutions for SMEs. Experiments will be able to use the WASABI core infrastructure to create the specific solutions for their user stories. The final objective of the open calls is to have a diverse portfolio of solutions (and in particular assistant skills) that SMEs and mid-caps can access and choose from to offer the best support to their workers and most efficiently incorporate AI-based digital assistance in their daily processes.

Register to the WASABI Newsletter to receive the latest information on the Open Calls.

               GOALS

01

Sustainability

Aims at minimising the number of sustainability incidents in manufacturing, through the implementation of DIA (Digital Intelligent Assistant) solutions. It focuses on waste valorisation and product quality test procedures optimisation, to save energy and materials.

02

Agility & Resilience

Aims at reducing the training time for workers in manufacturing. It focuses on assisted workforce management to shorten the onboarding of new workers, and to optimise the upskill of other roles, providing a training concept and materials for human-AI collaboration.

03

Technology Adoption

Aims at increasing the uptake of intelligent digital assistance technology, to augment workers’ cognitive capabilities, assist them during difficult tasks, guiding them through knowledge-intensive procedures where lapses could result in injury, and allowing them to delegate the simpler activities.

04

Innovation capacity

Aims at making digital assistance technologies and related services available to innovation infrastructures.  It focuses on providing an overview about Europe’s legal framework regarding AI related contract law and the emerging trustworthy AI legislation, increasing innovation capacity, agility and productivity of the manufacturing sector, in particular for SMEs and mid-caps.

05

Leadership

Aims at overcoming barriers and scepticism about intelligent digital assistance in industry. It focuses on increasing competitiveness through customised e-commerce software with federation capabilities and a cloud and edge deployment for DIA infrastructure, contributing to standardization on conversational AI and interoperability.

OUR NUMBERS

A strong consortium has been built to cover all aspects of technical, industrial, and business requirements, going from industry to academia, to provide a complete value chain to bring new products and services to the manufacturing market.

PARTNERS

COUNTRIES

FUNDING

MONTHS

USE CASE 1

Augmented waste management and valorisation

Waste management for the manufacturing sector, through a conversational interface and rich-media records, to identify waste and determine if it qualifies for reuse. This use case will connect the COALA solution for cognitive assistance consisting of a composition of trustworthy AI components with a voice-enabled digital intelligent assistant as an interface, with the rEUse waste management platform. 

In dimensional metrology, TRIMEK will develop a module that measures manufacturing scrap pieces to see if other manufacturing SMEs or midcaps can reuse them. In recycling and revamping, surgical tools provider CROMA will check the instruments used after each surgery following SOPs (Standardized Operation Procedures): if fit for use, they are sterilized and, if they are not, the information is published on the rEUse platform for it to be recycled.

Image Credits: Croma Gio Batta España SL

USE CASE 2

Assisted workforce management

Manufacturing workforce management towards the use of human-centred AI-based digital assistance solutions to onboard and integrate new workers facing different job experience, education, ethnic, social and demographic background, and language issues. This use case aims to increase agility by rapidly upskilling the workforce of the organisation.

WASABI will demonstrate its solution in this use case by customizing the COALA assistant’s dialog model and creating a knowledge base that contains what new workers should focus on during the onboarding process. EPISCAN will enhance the integration and participation of workers such as foreign employees.

Image Credits: Episcan

USE CASE 2

Assisted workforce management

Manufacturing workforce management towards the use of human-centred AI-based digital assistance solutions to onboard and integrate new workers facing different job experience, education, ethnic, social and demographic background, and language issues. This use case aims to increase agility by rapidly upskilling the workforce of the organisation.

WASABI will demonstrate its solution in this use case by customizing the COALA assistant’s dialog model and creating a knowledge base that contains what new workers should focus on during the onboarding process. EPISCAN will enhance the integration and participation of workers such as foreign employees.

Image Credits: Episcan

USE CASE 3

Assisted quality assurance for sustainable products

Augmentation of product quality testing to increase product and worker safety, carbon footprint, and workers’ cognitive skills and reduce the burden of repetitive, boring, error-prone, and knowledgeintensive activities. Assisted quality assurance for sustainable products.

WASABI will demonstrate its solution in four cases with target users REINOVA that will provide a new facility for battery testing already equipped with the most advanced technologies for digital twin and safety standards, with TRIMEK that will focus on building an assistance solution to increase the quality of the work performed during the use of the Coordinate Measuring Machine, with EPISCAN that will work to provide assistance to workers for quality checks and material testing, and with KlisBio for prosthetics quality testing purposes.

Image Credits: Silk Biomaterials Srl

CONTACT US

MARIE BOURDON

Coordinator, Carsa

MAIL TO

info@wasabiproject.eu