Jeff Witt says the worst case for a mistake in enterprise generative AI analyzing sales figures is redoing the work.
“if I'm using generative AI or an agent to analyze some sales figures, worst possible case is that I have to redo it.”
Person
Jeff Witt
1 episodes · 16 quoted claims
Jeff Witt says 80% accuracy, which may be acceptable in enterprise AI, is inadequate in operational technology settings such as forklift pedestrian safety.
“I can't have a forklift truck not hit a pedestrian. 80% of the time. That's not good enough”
Jeff Witt says some levels of equipment on GE Vernova's shop floors are intentionally air gapped.
“some of our, uh, levels of equipment are air gapped intentionally, right?”
Jeff Witt says data from shop-floor control loops is not sent to the cloud to run models against it.
“We are not going to round trip something to the cloud to analyze or run a model against that sort of data.”
Jeff Witt says running models on local edge computing gives GE Vernova more control over security than cloud processing.
“we run edge compute locally to to bring that model down, you know, a little bit closer to the edge, where we have more control over the security.”
Jeff Witt says frontline leaders hold deep context about their machine, work cell, people and history, which sets the bar for AI recommendations.
“they know the machine, they know the work cell, they know the people that are working on that machine, they know the history”
Jeff Witt says GE Vernova has up to ten years of history for much of its equipment, part structured data and part unstructured notes.
“for a lot of our equipment, we might have history going back ten years”
Jeff Witt says a human reviews, plans, schedules and resources each AI recommendation, and that execution becomes feedback to the model.
“a human in the loop is going to evaluate that recommendation. They're going to plan the work, they're going to schedule the work, they're going to resource it”
Jeff Witt says shop-floor workers lack time to stop and query a chatbot, so chatbot interfaces do not work in operational technology environments.
“Do not have time to stop, go to a terminal, pull up our phone, start asking questions, right?”
Jeff Witt says his team's principle of earning the right to automate requires that a process first be fully documented and optimized.
“we have to earn the right to automate. The way we are embracing that is. Has the process been fully documented? Has the process been optimized?”
Jeff Witt says GE Vernova scouts for mature, well-documented, efficient processes used across all thirty-five sites as AI candidates.
“those processes that are mature, well documented, efficient processes that are used in all thirty five sites.”
Jeff Witt says the value of industrial AI lies in eliminating waste across all thirty-five sites running the same product, not in success at one site.
“The value's not in being successful in one site, it's in eliminating that waste across all thirty five sites that are running that same product.”
Jeff Witt says GE Vernova is investing in a context layer including a unified name space so that all data flows through one template.
“building a unified name space so that all data flows through this one template.”
Jeff Witt describes an asset hierarchy running from division to plant, line, work cell and pump, designed to be understandable to the newest employee.
“this division, this plant, this line, this work cell, this pump, it makes sense, and they can follow it”
Jeff Witt says the upfront work of structuring and contextualizing data pays off across later AI use cases, from the third to the hundredth.
“that basic structure and context work pays dividends. When you look at the third use case, the fiftieth use case, the hundredth use case”
Jeff Witt says he first looks for an internal standard, then to his network or the wider industry, before building a new solution.
“I look internally first to see if we have that standard. If we don't have it internally, then I look to my network or to the industry”