November 2024 – According to estimates from the Global Manufacturing Forum 2024, by 2030, investments in Digital Transformation for manufacturing (automation, process digitization, interconnected systems based on Industrial IoT logic, robotics, and artificial intelligence) will double to $3.62 trillion, and connected devices will reach 40 billion. The development of solutions driven by traditional and generative Artificial Intelligence will therefore be the key to economic growth and the digital and sustainable transformation of businesses. Managing high-density information contexts and transforming data into knowledge and, therefore, value, will become crucial for companies engaged in the 5.0 Transition.
This is precisely the direction of the new agreement between Bonfiglioli Consulting, an Italian pioneer of the “lean thinking” philosophy specializing for over 50 years in optimizing and streamlining operations, and expert.ai, a leading company in the implementation of enterprise artificial intelligence solutions to create business value.
The aim of the agreement is to offer companies engaged in the digital transformation of operations innovative solutions in which AI can provide effective support in every aspect of operations: from product design and development to its production, from logistics to customer service, from preservation and protection to the sharing of internal know-how.
Supply chain management, operational optimization, and digital transformation are the three areas covered by the agreement, which represents a further step in the growth of the Bonfiglioli Consulting Group and a valuable opportunity for Italian companies to improve their competitiveness in an increasingly dynamic global market.
Recent research conducted by Bonfiglioli Consulting involving top managers of over 100 Italian companies, 85% of which have over 100 employees and operate in 22 different sectors, shows that there is still a long way to go for digital transformation in Italian companies. From the benchmarking study “What’s Next Nelle Operations?” at the end of 2022, it emerged that: over 69% of companies invest less than 5% of their turnover in digitization and 86% do not foresee significant budget increases for the future. Furthermore, even if processes are digitized in 40% of cases and digitization has been planned by more than 60% of the companies interviewed, the digital transformation of processes is mainly realized through the adoption of substantially “non-innovative” management systems such as ERP and MES. Only 27% have implemented Cloud Computing, 20% IoT, 4% AI and Machine Learning, and only 5% use AI algorithms to predict consumption, while all other technologies (from big data to blockchain, from augmented and virtual reality to cybersecurity) are not implemented nor is it planned to do so.
Michele Bonfiglioli, CEO of Bonfiglioli Consulting, commented: “This partnership is part of our growth strategy and confirms our commitment to providing real and sustainable value to our customers. With an integrated approach, we do not want to limit ourselves to digitizing existing processes, but with expert.ai we can truly introduce artificial intelligence within company operations, allowing for the truly strategic use of data.”
For example, with the Supplier Dynamic Insight solution, which combines consulting services and digital tools, the company can analyze, monitor, and optimize the management of relationships with suppliers, optimizing the sourcing strategy. In the production area, on the other hand, through StockSense AI (EB), which combines advanced warehouse analysis to identify, for example, critical products, slow-moving or obsolete products, the company can develop analytical models to measure the impact of demand fluctuations on inventory levels in real time. With SmartServe AI (LS), a solution designed to optimize the management of company information, it is possible to extract relevant knowledge from large datasets of different content and use it effectively internally or to support customers.
Marco Varone, founder and Chief Technology Officer of expert.ai, stated: “From production management to customer support, there are many advantages of artificial intelligence to make the production chain more efficient with pervasive impacts also on costs. We are therefore pleased with this partnership and proud to make our AI expertise and solutions available to a leading company like Bonfiglioli Consulting, thus helping to support companies in consolidating competitiveness through innovation, digitization, and transformation of operations“.
Expert.ai
Expert.ai is a company specializing in the implementation of enterprise artificial intelligence solutions to create business value, listed on the Euronext Growth Milan market (EXAI:IM) and active in Europe and North America. By applying a proven framework for innovation, expert.ai supports companies and public administrations in digital transformation, leveraging the potential of AI for multiple processes and use cases, through a responsible, transparent, and sustainable approach that places people, problems to be solved, and objectives to be achieved at the center. The company has over 25 years of experience in natural language solutions and hundreds of successful implementations carried out through concrete projects, based on the integration of the best technologies available on the market with proprietary ones (knowledge graph, machine learning techniques – machine/deep learning – large language models and generative AI). Banks and financial institutions, insurance companies, publishing companies, and organizations in the public administration, healthcare, defense, and intelligence sectors choose expert.ai solutions to automate knowledge on a large scale, effectively manage huge volumes of information, improve decision-making processes, and enable new levels of efficiency by using the right data at the right time, and with great speed. Among the Company’s customers, which operates directly and through partners, are AXA XL, Zurich Insurance Group, Generali, Sanofi, EBSCO, The Associated Press, Bloomberg INDG, Dow Jones, and other leading companies. Since 2024, Dario Pardi, who has over twenty years of experience in major ICT multinationals, has been CEO, Chairman, and Majority Shareholder of expert.ai. https://www.expert.ai/
