Towards Autonomous Industrial Operations
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What is autonomous industrial operations and why isn’t it about replacing people?
Welcome to Industry Optimized for AVB. I'm Fran Scott, presenter, pyrotechnician, and engineer at heart, and I am your host. Now, you might notice that this show has had a little bit of a refresh since our last series. And don't forget that you can watch all episodes online, past and present. There's a little link in the show notes. And across this brand new season, what we'll be doing is peeling back the curtain behind the scenes of automation, electrification, and digitalization technologies to discover how they enable our everyday life, often without us. Even knowing. And we kick off the season with a very hot topic, autonomous industrial operations. And like me, you might picture a scene from a sci-fi movie that's got machines everywhere.
It's a lights out factory. There's not a single person in sight. Well, the reality is it's not about technology taking over. On the contrary, technology, especially automation, digital, and AI, they play a huge role in supporting people and helping them to make better decisions. But how do we get from where we are now to this ideal level of autonomous operations, which mean we can be as efficient and sustainable as possible? Well, to help us get our heads around this, I have got just the right guest with me today. He's been on the podcast before. Welcome to the podcast, Peter Tervish, President of Automation at ABB. Peter, welcome again. You have been in this podcast from the beginning. Excited to be back.
Thanks, friend. Brilliant. Now I know that you are the right person to ask this question to. So when we are talking about autonomous industrial operations, something that I describe them as is kind of like things out of a sci-fi movie of where you've got no lights on, no people, systems that fix themselves, but do I have the right idea about this?
I think that's an extreme version of an idea that in most circumstances we'll rather sit somewhere on a spectrum between systems that are totally not autonomous and be as autonomous, lights out as you just described. By the way, that vision has been around since at least the 80s. I remember when I studied the Japanese industries were quite high. On it, very few installations of that type have actually been built. I think where in our interactions with customers, in our technology development, in our deployment in the different industries that we serve, the music is playing right now is really we've moved on from no support for operators to quite a level of automation. So if you would take a level more
You have support for operators on demand, you have closed loops, and you start to also see more and more plants that provide support for operators by actively detecting issues, abnormal situations, proposing solutions in certain situations.
How does Peter Terwiesch describe the spectrum of autonomy from manual to fully autonomous?
So that's really where you have a lot of activity and more and more we're talking about can you make this process autonomous under certain conditions and that's the more normal conditions. If I use an example that is not what we're doing but easily explained the so-called autonomous driving. The autonomous cars are actually typically not fully autonomous. They just drive a less in in terms of there's no Nobody in the car with you when you take, for instance, a Waymo in San Francisco. But what's happening after a couple of miles, you get to this complicated intersection, and then the car actually pings an operator who's a remote driver who basically assists the cars through that complex traffic situation until it's simple again.
And then the car can go by itself until the next time that it calls for an operator. Operator and that already helps them have more cars than operators here. So there's an efficiency gain already, there's a change in the workplace. And I think the equivalent of that in industry is where we're currently having a lot of the discussions. So from a certain level of automation to a level of autonomy for certain operating conditions, that's where many of our how customer interactions and deployment in different industries happen today.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is autonomous industrial operations and why isn’t it about replacing people?
0:07–3:21
2
How does Peter Terwiesch describe the spectrum of autonomy from manual to fully autonomous?
3:21–8:32
3
What are the five levels of autonomy and how are they similar to autonomous‑car technology?
8:32–13:33
4
How are real‑world examples like container cranes illustrating incremental autonomy?
13:33–20:54
5
What role does Microsoft play in helping manufacturers adopt AI and digital twins?
20:54–26:31
6
How does AI improve safety, productivity and decision‑making on the shop floor?
26:31–31:49
7
What cybersecurity challenges arise as data and control systems become more connected?
31:49–37:28
8
What is the realistic roadmap for scaling autonomous operations across industries?
37:28–44:09