Case Study
AI-Assisted Automated BOM Generation (Bill of Materials)
Problem
- Passenger and freight ships sail a long time on seas.
- At some point in time, the toilet facilities break and new parts are requested.
- Installation and service data resided in thousands of files with various types (e.g., images, drawings) and was hard to find.
- The client had started a manual effort to compile a product and spare-part database, but the effort was deemed to be too slow. Some more modern, automated methods were needed.
Approach
- In the initial phase, we made a 3-day effort to assess the effort. We looked at samples of the data and talked to the experts to understand the business domain.
- Subsequently, we developed an automated NLP-based BOM tool that collects product and spare part information from various sources to help manual inspection.
- We created a cloud-based architecture with various AI algorithms to automate the processing of the files and integrate the BOM to the database.
Results
- 75 percent of the previously manual BOM processing work could be automated with the AI system.
- The service delivery business sped up considerably as it was known, which parts were installed into which ships and when.
Business Value
Service, Sales, Delivery.
Tech & Methods
Case
Client
Marine Cleantech Company
The client is the world’s leading provider of integrated water and waste management systems and waste management technologies and corrosion-protection systems for the marine and building industries.