ABB Ability™ Industrial Knowledge Base is grandly released!

• ABB Ability™ Industrial Knowledge Base adopts generative AI technology to innovate the information retention and sharing mechanism, supporting smarter, faster and more sustainable decision-making processes
• The natural language query function and powerful human-computer collaboration capabilities transform knowledge into action
• This solution was jointly developed by ABB’s industrial AI experts and Microsoft, integrating the technical resources of the two leading enterprises in the industry, significantly enhancing the production efficiency of the workforce

    ABB has released a generative AI solution – ABB Ability™ Industrial Knowledge Base, aiming to address the increasingly severe challenge of knowledge loss in the industrial field. The newly launched industrial knowledge base, relying on Microsoft Azure OpenAI services, can store, retain and protect core technical knowledge. Meanwhile, it actively converts the knowledge into standardized step-by-step workprocesses, enabling employees to quickly obtain and apply practical solutions, and helping enterprises achieve lean operation on the premise of ensuring operational safety.
As senior employees retire one after another, if not handled properly, the collective wisdom accumulated over decades will be lost, thereby endangering the continuity, efficiency and innovation ability of the operation. Traditional document management methods are often rather fragmented and require a great deal of human and material resources for compilation, interpretation and application transformation. Industrial knowledge bases address this challenge by collecting professional knowledge and systematizing it in a central secure repository, allowing engineers and operators to easily access and interactively query through natural language, which can significantly enhance the efficiency of task execution.

    This industrial knowledge base was jointly developed by ABB and Microsoft. It combines ABB Genix™ CoPilot and Microsoft Azure OpenAI services to analyze information and integrate it into an executable program. Employees can easily retrieve information through an intuitive communication interface. The system supports the automatic generation of workflows driven by natural language input. Structured programs can be created within just a few seconds without the need for manual analysis of documents. In addition, its policy and procedure management capabilities can update key operational knowledge access in real time based on role permissions, simplifying compliance review and version management work. The solution also offers real-time guidance and decision support, pushing instant messages to shorten the learning curve and enhance operational performance. This technical system supports three deployment modes: cloud, internal localization and ABB SaaS.
“As a generation of experienced employees retire one after another, the professional knowledge they have mastered is also lost. The gap in key knowledge can be seen everywhere in the industrial field,” Sanjit Shewale, the global head of ABB’s digitalization business in process industries, said, “Our industrial knowledge base directly addresses this challenge by building a secure and user-friendly digital platform, helping enterprises empower digitally and break boundaries.” This system, by collecting, preserving and sharing core knowledge and experience, can not only help enterprises ensure operational continuity, but also provide real-time knowledge support for employees, assisting them in performing work tasks in a smarter, faster and more sustainable way.
The industrial knowledge base has the ability to continuously learn. By conducting real-time analysis of operational data, it constantly improves work processes and practical plans to promote continuous improvement. By integrating the existing industrial systems, it enhances the collaboration between on-site employees and the control room, making task status and operation processes visible in real time, thereby reducing operational bottlenecks and improving overall process capabilities.

“Our collaboration with ABB will help industrial organizations fully unleash the unlimited potential of AI-driven knowledge management,” said Sonja Meindl, Business Director of Microsoft Switzerland. “By combining AI with deep industrial technology knowledge, we will assist enterprises in filling the knowledge gap and building more resilient and efficient operation models.”