A manufacturer's AI book

Context

An industrial manufacturer runs twelve AI initiatives across plant (predictive maintenance, energy), quality (defect vision), and supply (demand, supply-risk). The plant-floor bets compound with uptime; the discovery-stage ideas burn budget with no line of sight.

The decision

Predictive maintenance, supply-risk monitoring, and spare-parts optimization scale; the procurement copilot and the quality-doc assistant are cut — early-stage, thin ROI, and no near-term path.

What most miss

The flashy generative pilots (doc assistants, digital twins) rarely top the risk-adjusted list; boring predictive maintenance usually does. Fund the boring compounder.

Stakes

Uptime is the P&L lever; funding discovery toys over predictive maintenance leaves real margin on the floor.