HANOVER, Germany, April 25, 2017 /CNW/ -- ABB and IBM (NYSE: IBM)
today announced a strategic collaboration that brings together
ABB's industry leading digital offering, ABB Ability™
, with IBM Watson Internet of Things cognitive capabilities to
unlock new value for customers in utilities, industry, transport
and infrastructure.
Customers will benefit from ABB's deep domain knowledge and
extensive portfolio of digital solutions combined with IBM's
expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning as well
as different industry verticals. The first two joint industry
solutions powered by ABB Ability and Watson will bring real-time cognitive insights
to the factory floor and smart grids.
"This powerful combination marks truly the next level of
industrial technology, moving beyond current connected systems that
simply gather data, to industrial operations and machines that use
data to sense, analyze, optimize and take actions that drive
greater uptime, speed and yield for industrial customers," said ABB
CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer. "With an
installed base of 70 million connected devices, 70,000 digital
control systems and 6,000 enterprise software solutions, ABB is a
trusted leader in the industrial space, and has a four decade long
history of creating digital solutions for customers. IBM is a
leader in artificial intelligence and cognitive computing.
Together, IBM and ABB will create powerful solutions for customers
to benefit from the Fourth Industrial Revolution."
New suite of breakthrough solutions
The new suite of breakthrough solutions developed by ABB and IBM
will help companies address in a completely new way some of their
biggest industrial challenges, such as improving quality control,
reducing downtime and increasing speed and yield of industrial
processes. These solutions will move beyond current connected
systems that simply gather data, to cognitive industrial machines
that use data to understand, sense, reason and take actions
supporting industrial workers to help eliminate inefficient
processes and redundant tasks.
"This important collaboration with ABB will take Watson even deeper into industrial
applications -- from manufacturing, to utilities, to transportation
and more," said Ginni Rometty, IBM
Chairman, president and CEO. "The data generated from industrial
companies' products, facilities and systems holds the promise of
exponential advances in innovation, efficiency and safety. Only
with Watson's broad cognitive
capabilities and our platform's unique support for industries
can this vast new resource be turned into value, with trust. We are
eager to work in partnership with ABB on this new industrial
era."
Bringing real-time cognitive insights to the factory
floor
For example, ABB and IBM will leverage Watson's artificial intelligence to help find
defects via real-time production images that are captured through
an ABB system, and then analyzed using IBM Watson IoT for
Manufacturing. Previously these inspections were done manually,
which was often a slow and error-prone process. By bringing the
power of Watson's real time
cognitive insights directly to the shop floor in combination with
ABB's industrial automation technology, companies will be better
equipped to increase the volume flowing through their production
lines while improving accuracy and consistency. As parts flow
through the manufacturing process, the solution will alert the
manufacturer to critical faults - not visible to the human eye - in
the quality of assembly. This enables fast intervention from
quality control experts. Easier identification of defects impacts
all goods on the production line, and helps improve a company's
competitiveness while helping avoid costly recalls and reputational
damage.
Bringing real-time cognitive insights to smart grids
In another example. ABB and IBM will apply Watson's capabilities to predict supply
patterns in electricity generation and demand from historical and
weather data, to help utilities optimize the operation and
maintenance of today's smart grids, which are facing the increased
complexity created by the new balance of conventional as well as
renewable power sources. Forecasts of temperature, sunshine and
wind speed will be used to predict consumption demand, which will
help utilities determine optimal load management as well as
real-time pricing.
About ABB
ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a pioneering technology leader in
electrification products, robotics and motion, industrial
automation and power grids, serving customers in utilities,
industry and transport & infrastructure globally. Continuing
more than a 125-year history of innovation, ABB today is writing
the future of industrial digitalization and driving the Energy and
Fourth Industrial Revolutions. ABB operates in more than 100
countries with about 132,000 employees. www.abb.com
About IBM
For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/iot,
https://www.ibm.com/internet-of-things/iot-solutions/iot-manufacturing/
and follow @IBMIoT on Twitter.
Media Contacts:
For ABB
Saswato Das
+1 646 954-8982
saswato.das@us.abb.com
Reiner Schoenrock
reiner.schoenrock@ch.abb.com
+41 43 317 65 68
For IBM
Kaveri Camire
+1 914 625 6395
kcamire@us.ibm.com
Erica Topolski
+1 617 803 7665
ericat@us.ibm.com
To view the original version on PR Newswire,
visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/abb-and-ibm-partner-in-industrial-artificial-intelligence-solutions-300444633.html
SOURCE IBM; ABB