Product Information
Version as of March 13, 2025
EthonAI Analyst
Overview
The EthonAI Analyst is a software to monitor and analyze key metrics from production lines, for example to remedy quality issues or yield losses. Process engineers use the software to access all relevant data in one platform and get relevant insights about process parameters that are suspected to negatively affect production output.
Details
The Analyst uses an artificial intelligence (AI) to find correlations that are very challenging and onerous to find using classical statistics. The main workflows provided by the Analyst are tailored for process engineers and line managers who need to keep production running smoothly as well as gain deeper insights into the production lines, with the aim of improving them. These workflows are Monitoring, Analysis, and Simulation.
In the Monitoring workflows: production process parameters and KPIs can be visualized and explored. Depending on the data integration pipeline, for example with MQTT, this can be achieved in near real-time. In addition to fine-grained data exploration workflows, the monitoring capabilities include a customizable Dashboard.
The Analysis workflows are based on a Process Model that represents the ontology of a production line in a fine-grained manner. The analysis uses a “Causal AI” to find and present hidden correlations and related data statistics. Results are presented with an interactive display of graph-based relations and statistics from the historical data that underpins each analysis.
Using the Simulation workflows, based on the findings of a particular analysis, users can run virtual optimizations of setpoints and other parameters. These virtual what-if scenarios significantly speed up the task of planning and executing improvement actions on the factory floor.
EthonAI Inspector
Overview
The EthonAI Inspector is a software to detect quality defects using artificial intelligence (AI). The AI is trained on sets of defect-free product images, and measures deviations from the norm. The EthonAI Inspector is available as an on-premise solution.
Details
To accommodate the varied deployment challenges of modern manufacturing, the EthonAI Inspector consists of three distinct software components: the Inspector Backoffice, the Inspector Lite, and the Factory Frontend.
The Inspector Backoffice has a web-based user interface to train, evaluate, and maintain/monitor inspection jobs. AI models trained with the Inspector Backoffice receive an image as input and produce a binary inspection result (i.e., OK, NOK). It can optionally receive and emit other information, for example:
- provide explanations for the AI output, such as heatmaps showing where in the image a defect is suspected;
- receive product identifiers directly, or use an additional AI model to infer them automatically; and
- AI models may also read barcodes in various formats, as well as text, via optical character recognition.
The Inspector Lite can deploy the AI models from the Inspector Backoffice on the edge, close to the production line. The Inspector Lite can be installed on every inspection station, which allows for distributed computing within the factory. This may naturally reduce latency, and facilitate horizontal scaling of inspection capabilities within the factory.
The Factory Frontend is an interactive graphical user interface for sending new inspections to the Inspector Backoffice and visualizing the inspection results, connecting directly with up to four cameras.
EthonAI Miner
Overview
The EthonAI Miner is a software to extract and analyze production history event logs to identify bottlenecks, process variations, and excess inventory. It helps manufacturers optimize throughput based on clearly visualized insights into their material flows.
Details
The Miner provides a comprehensive visual overview of material flow, based on advanced process mining techniques; to automate value stream mapping so it can be run dynamically with low overhead; and to monitor inefficiencies in real-time.
EthonAI Observer
Overview
The EthonAI Observer is a software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) for real-time monitoring of manufacturing processes.Its advanced anomaly detection capabilities for multivariate process data help identifying unusual patterns or deviations across multiple correlated variables, signaling potential faults or issues in the production process.
Details
The key functionalities of the Observer revolve around integrating and managing diverse data sets from various manufacturing sources; real-time alerting based on discovered anomalies; as well as customized and detailed analytics on operational performance.
EthonAI Tracker
Overview
The EthonAI Tracker is a software to streamline the quality management and monitoring of physical products throughout their lifecycle. It offers detailed access to each product unit’s history and images in a single platform.
Details
The Tracker provides comprehensive tracking of individual product units. It captures critical details such as time, routing, inspections, measurements, and image metadata. It gives access to the full operational history of each product unit by searching serial, batch, or order numbers. Users can easily find out when and where each product unit was processed, and also under what specific conditions. Permanent data storage enables future retrieval for transparency.
The Tracker has subsystems for image storage and data management.
- Images are securely stored and archived on the cloud in accessible formats, supporting various operational and customer service activities.
- Direct sharing of reports with customers in case of damage (e.g., via a PDF export function).
- Automatic data compilation at the order level, for a complete overview of each batch.
- Systematic archiving of all data, including images, for permanent access and reference.
EthonAI Console
Overview
The EthonAI Console is a scripting environment for custom data analysis of manufacturing processes. Users can create and manage fully custom analytics and reports using the widespread Python programming language.
Details
The core functionalities of the Console include the ability to integrate and manage diverse data sets from various manufacturing sources; use the Python programming language, via Jupyter notebooks, to create custom analytics tailored to specific manufacturing needs; and generate comprehensive reports and insights for strategic decision-making and process optimization.