Product companies have focused for years on designing energy efficient products and getting the best energy ratings. To reach the next level they must optimize how every unit automatically adapts to where and how it is being used to run at its best.
Let us use air conditioners (AC) as an example. ACs are sold globally but run the same standard setting independently if they are shipped to Gothenburg or Kuala Lumpur, if it is summer or winter, and if people are in the room or not. Manual configuration is costly and introduces the human factor, while automatically learning the normal conditions of the room, which will vary depending on direction, sun exposure, and if it is an office, hotel, factory, or residential building, will make it run better and better over time. And by learning people’s preferences and predicting the utilization of the room, you can heat/cool it efficiently. This might not have any major financial impact for the individual house owner, but a decent impact for a hotel operator, and it makes a world of a difference for the environment when we optimize 2.5 bn ACs worldwide.
But the sustainability benefits of Edge AI and individual condition monitoring do not stop at energy optimization. By optimizing the settings and running every product only when (and where) it is needed, you will reduce wear and tear. Proactive maintenance will detect failures before the product has a fatal break. And by predicting the remaining useful life (RUL) of a wear part, like the crusher cone of a stone crusher or the saw blade of a stone saw, you maximize the utilization of every wear part.
The shift to a more sustainable future is a question of attitude – an attitude to how we sell and how we buy things. With the service transformation comes a shift from minimizing the production cost per unit, to maximizing the time a unit generates revenue, and managing total lifetime cost; And rather than making a customer come back to buy an updated unit, you focus on retaining them as a customer. Being able to optimize the product for the individual use and user is a good way to build customer loyalty through added value. Edge AI enables these business models where you manage every product, or rather every customer, individually – and automatically!