AI in the industrial value chain: Creating genuine impact

The challenge:
When developing products and services, one difficulty industrial enterprises often struggle to overcome is how to capture actual user needs. This can result in sub-optimal development and missed opportunities to improve products and services.

The solution:
A digital twin enables you to monitor a product throughout its life cycle. Combining this with AI analysis of actual customer behaviour enables data-driven optimisation of products and services.

Benefits:

• Improved customer satisfaction through the use of real-world data.
• Continuous product optimisation throughout the product life cycle.
• Automated evaluation enables faster decision-making (efficiency boost).

Users: Product managers, developers, etc.
Owners: Head of product, head of engineering, CDO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵⚪

Benefits for you: Better product decisions, targeted development.
Benefits for your customers: Better services and better product fit.

The challenge:
Industrial enterprises need to continuously collect and analyse feedback and requirements from their customers, and to use this analysis to generate actionable insights to enable them to better understand market needs and anticipate customer behaviour.

The solution:
Artificial intelligence can help you collect, structure, and analyse customer feedback, accelerating the identification and prioritisation of requirements and feeding actionable insights directly into the product development process. The AI system continuously learns in real time from huge datasets, enabling you to fine tune your strategy.

Benefits:

• Faster, fact-based product management decision-making (fine tuning your strategy).
• Precise prioritisation enables better product-feature fit.
• Precise fine tuning boosts customer satisfaction.

Users: Product managers, UX teams, customer insights teams, etc.
Owners: Head of product, CPO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵⚪⚪

Benefits for you: Better understanding of customer needs, data-driven roadmaps.
Benefits for your customers: More relevant products, greater user-centricity.
 

The challenge:
Industrial enterprises need to ship more than just hardware. They need to differentiate themselves by providing services and give customers solutions that simplify their processes and deliver genuine added value.

The solution:
By offering AI-augmented products and services, manufacturers broaden their offering beyond just hardware. The result is intelligent, integrated solutions that integrate seamlessly into customer processes and can be continuously improved and updated.

Benefits:

• Improved customer satisfaction through continuous added value and process optimisation.
• New, data-based revenue streams for vendors.
• Positions the enterprise as a long-term, full service solution partner.

Users: Product managers, business developers, customer success teams, etc.
Owners: Head of product, head of service innovation, CTO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵🔵

Benefits for you: Develop data-driven revenue streams, differentiate yourself from competitors.
Benefits for your customers: Improved processes, increased productivity, reduced operating costs.

The challenge:
Innovation processes in industrial enterprises are complex, resource-intensive, and often highly dependent on the experience of individual staff members. Often ideas get missed or are not evaluated systematically.

The solution:
Generative AI uses internal data, external knowledge, and existing market trends to support idea generation, clustering, evaluation, and validation with the aim of bringing new, innovative, high-quality products to market faster.

Benefits:
•    Broader-based, data-driven idea generation and rapid evaluation of ideas.
•    Accelerates innovation cycles and reduces innovation risk.
•    Shorter development time, better quality control, and new market opportunities.

Users: Innovation teams, product development teams, etc.
Owners: Head of innovation, CTO, R&D managers, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵⚪

Benefits for you: Increased innovation rate, better targeting of R&D investment.
Benefits for your customers: More innovative, more market-centric products.
 

The challenge:
Legal requirements and customer demand are increasing the pressure to make production processes more sustainable. Many companies struggle to achieve this, however, because they do not have consistent data and therefore do not have a good understanding of the product development or production levers available to them.

The solution:
Data and AI enable more accurate product lifecycle analysis and can be used to identify areas where material use and processes can be optimised. This reduces material consumption and optimises manufacturing processes, significantly reducing emissions and making more efficient use of resources.

Benefits:

• Visible sustainability improvements through the use of a consistent data set.
• Identifies realisable areas for improvement across the product lifecycle.
• Data-driven decision-making enables more efficient processes, reducing emissions.

Users: Product development, operations, sustainability teams, etc.
Owners: Head of sustainability, head of R&D, CTO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵⚪⚪

Benefits for you: More efficient, more resource efficient processes, enhanced reputation.
Benefits for your customers: More sustainable products.
 

The challenge:
Conventional testing processes, required for purposes such as regulatory approval or third party certification, are time-consuming and tie up lots of resources. This can create a significant bottleneck, particularly in iterative product development cycles.

The solution:
Intelligent automation solutions leverage AI to automate test design, test performance, and the evaluation of test results. The AI identifies non-conformities, prioritises errors, and significantly accelerates feedback loops.  

Benefits:

• Shorter test cycles and reduced time-to-market.
• Automated error detection and prioritisation (standards compliance).
• Improved development efficiency at significantly lower cost.

Users: Test engineers, development teams, QA teams, etc.
Owners: Head of QA, CTO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵⚪

Benefits for you: Improved development efficiency, reduced development time.
Benefits for your customers: More reliable products, faster updates.

The challenge:
Software development ties up significant resources; pressure to innovate and complex legacy systems are significant obstacles when it comes to implementing the latest requirements. But software development stands on the cusp of a fundamental transformation.

The solution:
Deploying AI in software development is about more than just using a few tools. The Zühlke Cybernetic Delivery Platform (CDP), for example, is a modular, standards-based platform that uses AI accelerators to accelerate the entire software lifecycle. It offers self-service automation, analytics, and AI-as-a-service, and is already increasing industrial productivity by up to 50%.

Benefits:

• Faster, high-quality development using automated code generation.
• Delivers a step change in flexibility, creativity, and efficiency when developing digital products and services.
• Frees up developers from repetitive tasks (greater value creation).

Users: Software developers, DevOps teams, QA, etc.
Owners: CEO, CTO, head of software engineering, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵🔵

Benefits for you: Improved productivity and quality, faster releases.
Benefits for your customers: More robust digital products, shorter time to value.

The challenge:
Manufacturers often lack visibility into ongoing production processes. The result is quality snafus, lots of manual work, and inefficient processes – particularly in work steps that are difficult to monitor visually and where it’s not possible to monitor variables, effects, and results directly with standard sensors.

The solution:
In contrast to standard solutions, AI-augmented computer vision can capture, automatically analyse, interpret, and optimise complex process-related variables, effects, and events without the use of physical sensors. Non-conformities and irregularities can be detected in real time. The result is less need for manual intervention and a higher degree of automation.

Benefits:

• Better quality and less need for manual intervention.
• Increased overall efficiency saves significant time and money.
• Real-time data enables continuous improvement.

Users: Process engineers, manufacturing teams, quality assurance, etc.
Owners: Production managers, head of manufacturing, CTO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵⚪

Benefits for you: More reliable processes, less wastage.
Benefits for your customers: Higher quality of supply, consistent manufacturing results.

The challenge:
It’s not uncommon for industrial enterprises to face the problem of not having the large volumes of realistic, properly annotated data needed to effectively train industrial AI applications. This makes progress in automation and process optimisation much harder to achieve.

The solution:
From digital twins to generating non-critical replicas or individual training content, generative AI can be used to generate synthetic training data based on actual production data, simulations, text descriptions, etc. These data enable AI-augmented applications to be developed much more quickly.

Benefits:

• Makes it possible to implement AI applications without needing large volumes of real data.
• Targeted data augmentation improves model quality; reduced data acquisition workload.
• Reduces resource consumption and ensures robust, reliable tests and simulations.

Users: Data scientists, AI engineers, R&D teams, etc.
Owners: Head of data and AI, CTO, head of engineering, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵⚪⚪⚪

Benefits for you: Faster implementation of AI and non-AI projects, reduced dependence on real-world data.
Benefits for your customers: Your customers benefit indirectly.

The challenge:
In the absence of real-time information on machine status and production performance, inefficiencies and malfunctions can remain undetected for a long time. This can lead to quality deficits, wastage, and unplanned downtimes.

The solution:
AI and IoT technologies can be used to continuously monitor machinery. Any non-conformities are detected and visualised immediately, enabling prompt intervention before serious problems arise.

This use case is closely related to the use case "AI-powered predictive maintenance and repair guidance".

Benefits:

• Predictive interventions reduce wastage and downtime.
• Better production utilisation rates and shorter response times.
• Reduced maintenance costs and increased production efficiency.

Users: Production managers, maintenance, quality assurance, etc.
Owners: Head of production, head of operations, CTO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵🔵

Benefits for you: Increased production visibility, quality, and efficiency.
Benefits for your customers: Consistent quality, more reliable supply.

The challenge:
Supply chain management is a complex but critical task. Supply chains are increasingly volatile and fragmented, and at increasing risk of disruption. In the absence of accurate forecasts and visibility, delays, overstocking, and shortages can occur.

The solution:
AI solutions are used to analyse historical and current internal and third-party data sources, detect patterns, and forecast demand, risks, and bottlenecks. This ensures resilient, optimised supply chains and data-driven decision-making.

Benefits:

• Greater predictability of and optimisation of inventory levels reduces warehousing costs.
• Greater visibility and early warning of supply chain disruptions.
• Optimised inventory levels and resource allocation.

Users: Supply chain management, purchasing, logistics planning, etc.
Owners: Head of supply chain, COO, etc. 

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵⚪

Benefits for you: More efficient logistics processes, reduced operating risk.
Benefits for your customers: Reliability of supply, more on-time deliveries.

The challenge:
In logistics, static route planning systems aren’t able to take into account changing circumstances such as traffic, weather, or new delivery terms. This causes delays, fleet underutilisation, and avoidable emissions.

The solution:
By analysing real-time data, AI-powered dynamic routing systems are able to optimise routes dynamically. These systems take into account factors such as traffic, delivery priority, and vehicle availability, enabling more efficient, more flexible logistics processes.

Benefits:

• Optimised fleet and personnel utilisation reduces costs.
• Shorter delivery times and greater responsiveness.
• Reduced fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions.

Users: Dispatchers, logistics planners, service teams, etc.
Owners: Head of logistics, COO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵⚪⚪ 

Benefits for you: More efficient staff scheduling, lower operating costs.
Benefits for your customers: More on-time deliveries, better service.

The challenge:
Fused together from multiple sources, many industrial enterprises find themselves in possession of data sets that are fragmented, inconsistent, or incomplete, making maintaining these data a real headache. This takes up valuable time and increases the error rate

The solution:
Enterprises can improve their data management by using AI to clean up, maintain, and harmonise their core data. Generative AI is able to analyse, extract, clean, and harmonise unstructured or incomplete master data automatically. The result is product and component databases containing reliable, scalable data.

Benefits: 

• Reduced manual workload and fewer data maintenance errors.
• Improved discoverability and reusability of component data.
• A foundation for automated, end-to-end processes and staff time savings.

Users: Purchasing, product managers, data managers, etc.
Owners: Head of procurement, head of product data, CIO, COO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵🔵

Benefits for you: Better quality data as a foundation for AI, faster processes throughout the value chain.
Benefits for your customers: Improved product quality, increased customer satisfaction.

The challenge:
Lots of variants, volatile demand, and a shortage of skilled workers are piling the pressure on manufacturing and logistics processes. Lots of workflow steps are still manual, inefficient, and difficult to scale. Standard AI solutions are able to offer only limited solutions.

The solution:
In contrast to standard AI systems, which merely generate instructions, this solution enables robots to understand and perform complex actions in an industrial setting. The decision-making ability of AI is combined with physical robots to achieve autonomous, flexible, scalable automation throughout the value chain. The solution combines machine learning, sensors, and actuators, and reacts adaptively to new requirements.

Benefits:

• Automation of complex manual activities.
• Greater flexibility despite increasing variant diversity.
• Scalable processes boost efficiency, safety, and productivity.

Users: Production teams, intralogistics, equipment operators, etc.
Owners: Production managers, head of robotics, COO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵⚪

Benefits for you: Scalable processes, better use of resources.
Benefits for your customers: Reliable quality, shorter lead times.

The challenge:
Complex assembly processes, a wide range of variants, and growing shortages of skilled workers significantly complicate the safe, efficient documentation and performance of workflows.

The solution:
Generative AI produces adaptive, written, voice, or image-based instructions that take into account an individual’s prior knowledge, role, and the current process status, individually guiding users through complex workflows.

Benefits:

• Intuitive, individualised instructions reduce onboarding time.
• Contextual process support reduces errors and rework.
• Adaptive step-by-step instructions boost efficiency and productivity.

Users: Assembly and production teams, maintenance, etc.
Owners: Production managers, head of operations, CIO, etc. 

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵⚪⚪

Benefits for you: Reduced onboarding workload, increased process stability.
Benefits for your customers: Consistent quality despite staff changes.

The challenge:
Complex production environments require material flows to be perfectly coordinated with production processes. If they’re not, the result is waiting times, inefficient routing, and unnecessary complexity in resource use.

The solution:
AI-controlled automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) (for example) can optimise internal logistics processes by analysing their environment and making real time navigation decisions. Dynamic adaptation to changing conditions boosts efficiency and safety, reduces delays, and enables seamless material flows.

Benefits:

• Shorter throughput times and fewer material logjams.
• Reduced staff workload.
• Automated control means less need for manual intervention.

Users: Logistics and production planners, intralogistics teams, etc.
Owners: Head of logistics, production managers, COO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵⚪⚪

Benefits for you: Higher utilisation, less work-in-process inventory.
Benefits for your customers: Shorter lead times, on-time production.

The challenge:
In many industrial companies, production planning still relies on static models or Excel-based tools. This results in rigid processes, limited responsiveness to disruptions, and sub-optimal utilisation of resources – particularly in environments with high product variety or frequent agile plan changes, as is common in complex industrial settings.

The solution:
An AI-enabled solution integrates real-time data from manufacturing, logistics, and workforce planning to dynamically adjust production schedules. Historical production data, along with current machine and personnel information, is analysed to avoid bottlenecks, optimise machine utilisation, and continuously improve production sequencing. Simulations evaluate various scenarios, with the most cost-effective option automatically prioritised.

Benefits:

• Improved utilisation of equipment and staff through better planning
• Shorter lead times and reduced downtime
• Lower production costs while increasing delivery reliability 

Users: Production planners, manufacturing control teams, operations teams
Owners: Head of Production, Head of Manufacturing, COO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI Value Score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵⚪

Benefits for you: Greater planning reliability, improved utilisation, reduced reactive workload
Benefits for your customers: On-time delivery, consistent quality, and reduced costs

The challenge:
Production-adjacent systems are increasingly targeted by cyber-attacks. In recent years, the manufacturing sector has repeatedly ranked among the most heavily affected industries. Traditional security approaches are reaching their limits: they offer limited transparency for industrial protocols and fail to capture the full physical context.

The solution:
Modern, AI-enabled CPS security platforms understand industrial protocols and continuously capture data from connected systems. Using AI, they execute “safe queries”, detect threats in real time, and automatically initiate appropriate countermeasures – often before production lines are disrupted or shut down. In addition, these systems provide valuable insights for engineering, maintenance, and operational optimisation.

Benefits:

• Early detection and prevention of cyber-attacks on production-adjacent systems
• Protection of production-critical assets and avoidance of unplanned downtime
• Increased transparency and asset intelligence through continuous monitoring 

Users: Security operations teams, OT teams, maintenance, engineering
Owners: CIO, CISO, Head of Manufacturing, Head of Engineering, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI Value Score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵🔵

Benefits for you: Reduction of outage risks, increased system resilience
Benefits for your customers: Assurance of delivery capability, protection of sensitive data and infrastructure

The challenge:
In identifying their target groups, many companies still use fixed segmentations based on outdated data or their own experience/intuition. The result is ineffective campaigns and missed sales.

The solution:
Machine learning and generative AI can be used to dynamically segment customers based on their behaviour. These systems also analyse huge amounts of structured and unstructured market data from sources such as social media and CRM systems to deliver reliable, actionable marketing and sales insights.

Benefits:

• More precise targeting and less waste coverage.
• Real-time insights enable faster, sounder decision-making.
• Data-driven fine tuning to market needs boosts competitiveness.

Users: Market researchers, data analysts, marketing strategy teams, etc.
Owners: Chief marketing officer, head of marketing strategy, head of sales, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI Value Score: 🔵🔵⚪⚪⚪

Benefits for you: Faster insights, data-driven campaign management.
Benefits for your customers: Products and services that are better adapted to demand.

The challenge:
Today’s content marketing needs to be quick, scalable, and relevant. But when teams have to manually create content for a range of different channels and target groups, quality often gets lost along the way.

The solution:
Generative AI takes care of much of the content teams’ workload by automatically generating content based on corporate language, current campaign objectives, and user data. Human review ensures that the content is brand relevant and strikes the right tone. The result is scalable content with no loss of quality.

Benefits:

• Target group-appropriate content is generated up to 70 percent faster.
• Greater consistency across multiple channels.
• Frees up creative capacity for strategic tasks.

Users: Content creators, social media managers, campaign owners
Owners: Head of brand and communication, chief marketing officer, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI Value Score: 🔵🔵⚪⚪⚪

Benefits for you: Reduced content creation workload, consistent output.
Benefits for your customers: More frequent, more relevant content.

The challenge:
Sales and customer management teams often find themselves having to work with siloed tools and inconsistent data, significantly complicating lead prioritisation, customer retention, and strategic decision-making.

The solution:
AI-powered solutions facilitate efficient, data-driven sentiment analysis, predictive lead scoring, and real-time customer insights. Secure, modular integration with existing sales platforms means they can deliver measurable value from day one.

Benefits:

• Real-time analysis for better lead qualification.
• Automation of repetitive tasks means more time for in-person meetings and value creating tasks.
• Strengthened customer relationships based on robust data.

Users: Sales teams, customer relationship managers, account managers, etc.
Owners: CMO, head of sales, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵⚪⚪ 

Benefits for you: Structured customer relationship management, prioritisation by probability of closing.
Benefits for your customers: Quotes better tailored to individual needs, more personal customer support.

The challenge:
For highly specialised products with a wide range of possible configurations in particular, generating technical quotes is time-consuming and error-prone, and gets in the way of a rapid response by the sales team.

The solution:
A large language model-based, AI-powered automated quotation system integrated into your processes enables historic data to be combined with real time product data. This produces consistent, verified quotes much more quickly and with maximum precision. 

Benefits:

• Significant reduction in response/quotation lead time.
• Automated data harmonisation reduces error rates.
• Enables staff to dedicate more time to value-creating customer interactions.

Users: Sales teams, quotation managers, technical sales units, etc.
Owners: Head of sales, sales managers, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵⚪

Benefits for you: Faster quote generation, higher close rate.
Benefits for your customers: Shorter wait times, precisely tailored configuration.

The challenge:
Customer service teams often have to process large volumes of enquiries, which can mean lengthy response times and can negatively impact customer satisfaction.

The solution:
An AI-powered system combining generative AI, NLP, and semantic search is able to respond to, prioritise, and provide personalised support for enquiries automatically and in real time.

Benefits:

• Quicker response times with no loss of quality.
• Automation reduces the customer support workload.
• Contextual support increases customer satisfaction.

Users: Customer service teams, internal support teams, etc.
Owners: Head of customer service, CIO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵⚪⚪

Benefits for you: A more efficient support process, more rapid processing.
Benefits for your customers: Faster, high-quality contextual help.

The challenge:
Demand for after sales service and repairs tends to be unpredictable and subject to significant fluctuations. This results in inefficient staff deployment planning, and staffing and material bottlenecks.

The solution:
Predictive AI models analyse historical data and real-time information to predict after sales service and repair demand, and proactively plan resource allocation.

Benefits:

• Accurate demand and utilisation forecasting for after sales service and repairs.
• Better staff deployment and spare part availability.
• Quicker response times, fewer missed appointments.

Users: Dispatchers, service coordination, sales representatives, etc.
Owners: Head of customer service, operations manager, service manager, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵⚪

Benefits for you: Improves predictability, reduces operating costs.
Benefits for your customers: Quicker response times, reliable after sales service.

The challenge:
Fundamental knowledge, such as process instructions and standard operating procedures, is often bound up with specific individuals or stored within the company in a highly fragmented form. Lack of availability leads to inefficiencies, particularly in complex production environments. The problem is exacerbated by an increasing shortage of skilled workers and older workers retiring.

The solution:
Generative AI evaluates production data and automatically generates voice-based, situation-specific instructions to support workers. Tasks are summarised simply, concisely, and comprehensibly, and instructions are easier to retrieve.

Benefits:

• Businesses are able to stem the loss of knowledge and experience.
• Decreases error rates in complex processes.
• Faster onboarding of new employees.

Users: Production staff, temporary workers, technicians, etc.
Owners: Head of production, head of operations, digitalisation manager, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵⚪⚪

Benefits for you: Scalable knowledge, reduced reliance on specific individuals.
Benefits for your customers: Staff turnover does not result in any reduction in quality of service.

The challenge:
Conventional maintenance processes are reactive and often inefficient. This leads to unplanned outages which reduce productivity, increase costs, and risk missing agreed delivery dates.

The solution:
AI continuously analyses machinery and equipment data, predicts failures before they occur (predictive maintenance), and provides real-time repair guidance to ensure that equipment remains operational.

Benefits:

• Early detection of critical conditions minimises downtime.
• More efficient servicing and maintenance processes reduce operating costs.
• Increased equipment availability boosts productivity and efficiency.

Users: Service and maintenance technicians, etc.
Owners: Head of maintenance, head of manufacturing, CTO, etc.

Zühlke Industrial AI value score: 🔵🔵🔵🔵⚪

Benefits for you: Robust production, reduced maintenance costs, better resource utilisation.
Benefits for your customers: Quicker, more reliable deliveries.