Process industry software specialist, eschbach, has won the German Innovation Award for its use of artificial intelligence (AI) to drive productivity and efficiency in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.
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The company’s Shiftconnector AI Suite was awarded in the categories of Excellence in Business to Business – AI Methods, and Excellence in Business to Business – Information Technologies/Industry Specific and Service Software.
Founded by the German Design Council, the German Innovation Awards have been an award for design, branding and innovation for over 75 years.
The Shiftconnector AI Suite – which spans the Shiftconnector Artificial Manufacturing Intelligence (SAMI) Search, SAMI Solutions, and SAMI Chat functions – was recognised for its ability to help process manufacturers facilitate faster problem resolution and smarter decision-making.
With chemical and pharmaceutical sites generating significant volumes of shift logs, maintenance records and process data across multiple sites on a daily basis, SAMI Search allows operators to instantly retrieve critical data such as incident reports using the power of AI.
Taking it a step further, SAMI Solutions enables users to input operational queries directly into the search bar. Its powerful AI then scans the plant’s digital shift logs and other operational data, instantly drawing on this information to suggest proven, human-validated solutions from past process records — all within seconds.
SAMI Chat, which is the latest addition to the Shiftconnector AI Suite, offers a conversational interface, allowing the time to gather and trace root causes to be reduced even further, enabling the fastest possible resolutions.
Crucially, all module functions base any responses only on existing plant data, with all potential solutions linked to the original shift or incident log to provide maximum accuracy and traceability.
The platform is designed to enable measurable operational improvements — allowing for up to 10% cost reductions related to quality issues, shortening resolution times by as much as 2 hours, and significantly accelerating root cause analysis by a factor of ten.
Andreas Eschbach, founder and CEO of eschbach, said: “This is a landmark achievement for the company in what is now our twentieth year of operation. Our Shiftconnector platform, developed closely in line with customer requirements, has now grown into a tool which is used by more than 100,000 industrial stakeholders every day.
“AI has the potential to unlock productivity on a scale as yet unseen in the process industry. From streamlining the effective transfer of knowledge between seasoned and junior colleagues through to significant reductions in downtime and major improvements in OEE, the information is already freely available to operators. However, tools such as the Shiftconnector AI Suite can unleash its true potential.”
The jury presiding over the award entries, which included notable industry leaders such as Mara Hummel, associate director and team leader at Roche, and Dr. Christopher Stillings, global head of strategy & innovation at RENOLIT Healthcare, said: “Efficient shift handovers and the use of operational data remain key challenges in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, particularly given the increasing complexity of industrial processes. The Shiftconnector AI Suite provides a progressive solution by leveraging artificial intelligence to make information from unstructured data sources quickly accessible, accelerate root cause analyses, and propose actionable solutions.
“A particularly notable feature of the suite is its ability to seamlessly link operational knowledge with data-driven decision making through semantic search functions and generative AI. This intelligent and user-friendly software demonstrates a clear focus on industry-specific needs and convincingly illustrates how digital technologies can sustainably enhance the efficiency and safety of industrial processes.”