This news got buried in my queue. It is an early use of ChatGPT specifically for industrial applications. This came my way about six weeks ago. I don’t think I’ve seen it elsewhere, yet. It is interesting, although ChatGPT does come with drawbacks in that it doesn’t filter for truth or facts.
The product from Retrocausal is called LeanGPT and the derivative product is Kaizen Copilot.
Retrocausal announced the release of LeanGPT, its proprietary foundation models specialized for the manufacturing domain. The company also launched Kaizen Copilot, Retrocausal’s first LeanGPT application that assists industrial engineers in designing and continuously improving manufacturing assembly processes and integrates Lean Six Sigma and Toyota Production Systems (TPS) principles favored by Industrial Engineers (IEs).
The industry-first solution gathers intelligence from Retrocausal’s computer vision and IoT-based floor analytics platform Pathfinder. In addition, it can be connected to an organization’s knowledge bases, including Continuous Improvement (CI) systems, Quality Management Systems (QMS), and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) systems, in a secure manner.
“We trained Retrocausal’s generative AI LeanGPT models on specialized knowledge needed for manufacturing,” said Dr. Zeeshan Zia, CEO of Retrocausal. “Using our new LeanGPT-powered Kaizen Copilot application with our Pathfinder floor analytics platform gives IE’s all the information they need to excel in their roles, including domain expertise, organizational knowledge, and automated process observations, eliminating the need for tedious field studies or combing through unwieldy knowledge bases, while staying firmly rooted in Lean principles.”
Kaizen Copilot can autonomously access the Retrocausal Pathfinder analytics platform through API calls to observe factory floor activity through computer vision and IoT sensors. It can also retrieve hidden insights from an organization’s internal knowledge bases, either by just connecting to it or by “fine-tuning” proprietary LeanGPT models on it. Retrocausal is also releasing Kaizen Copilot as a tablet application so industrial engineers can take it on their Gemba walks around the shopfloor. This app further embeds contextual knowledge into the tool to proactively offer help to IEs and assist in gathering worker feedback on problems and solutions.
Retrocausal recently raised $3.4 million to advance its AI-powered platform led by Glasswing Ventures and Differential Ventures, along with major investors Incubate Fund US, Argon Ventures, Ascend Ventures Vietnam, and Hypertherm Ventures. The company also opened a new office in Dallas, Texas, to be closer to its manufacturing customers in the Midwest and Mexico. It unveiled joint projects with Honda Innovations and Siemens Digital Industries.
