The emergence of big data has made it more important than ever to have just the right information to hand precisely whenever you need it. So much so, it can make or break a company’s competitive edge. This applies as much to maintenance tasks and avoiding systems downtimes as it does to recycling successful sub-projects to produce quick and realistic offers. The software developers at AUCOTEC AG in Germany have teamed up with the AI experts at Quicklogix Inc. in the United States to find a way of vastly accelerating the process of locating key engineering data within big data containers. Their novel solution, based on AUCOTEC's Engineering Base (EB) platform, is on show at HANNOVER MESSE 2018. The cross-disciplinary plant model stored in a central database as a source of big data enables the EB to provide all the necessary information in a targeted manner and without system disruptions. What's more, the platform is designed to be easily integrated into any IT landscape.

The search machine from Quicklogix, with its team of keen minds from prestigious institutions such as MIT, can even interpret unstructured inquiries in regular language thanks to the use of AI. The idea is to enable even users without expert knowledge to find exactly what they're after. Configurable web-based algorithms access the EB either directly or via the embedded Quicklogix data layer. "Especially companies that have already documented hundreds of projects can save valuable time. As well as operators who have to have millions of pieces of data available to ensure that their plant always runs perfectly," explains AUCOTEC Executive Officer Uwe Vogt. He likens their system to a strong magnet that instantly attracts the proverbial needle in a haystack, saying: "We are delighted to have teamed up with the innovative startup Quicklogix to provide this solution."