Le Journal du Net ( JDN – 08 December 2020 ) looks at the choices available to the industry to select a suitable voice assistant. Voice assistants for the general public, voice assistants dedicated to specific functions… the offer becomes plethoric and complex to follow without applying certain strong discriminating criteria, specific to the industry.

SPIX industry offers a cross-section of the subject with elements drawn from its industrial and technological experience. The approaches of the digital newspaper and the supplier of industrial voice assistants serving the men and women of the industry can be complementary in answering the question of the price of free!

Voice Assistants: who are the real market players?

If we look at the number of voice assistants installed, all terminals combined, in 2019 we exceed the number of 2.5 billion. On this subject, the main players in the market do not hesitate to engage in a small battle of figures. When Amazon boasts of having sold more than 100 million copies of its speakers with Alexa, Google responds by announcing the installation of Google Assistant on more than a billion terminals by 2020 (c Célia Garcia-Montero, JND 2020).

Today, the major players in voice assistance known to the general public are GAFAM: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. These American players are essential due to their power of technical development and their economic power. It is important to note that in this category of actor, no European can really be considered as a competitor.

By dint of talking only about the GAFAMs, we would almost forget the BATX which are quickly arriving on our markets, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencen, and Xiaomi which are coming to us directly from China. For its part, Samsung’s voice assistant is making a remarkable breakthrough in Asia and the United States. By way of comparison, in 2020 Chinese voice assistants are more deployed in the world than Apple’s “Siri”, as is Samsung’s Bixby.

This observation raises a first question about the sovereignty of European industry, as well as something to think about our models of economic and technological watch… Looking only at the tree, we risk missing the forest.

Can we do everything from a single economic model?

This frenzy for voice assistants is not without risk for users. Since their appearance, they have been the subject of multiple charges. They are suspected, among other things, of not fully securing conversations and keeping users’ personal data, which represents a serious privacy risk (c Célia Garcia-Montero, JDN 2020).

In this case, the user would like to have butter and butter’s money! The butter is to be able to have an overperforming voice assistant almost free of charge. Butter money is keeping control of your private life. Both GAFAM and BATX have decided otherwise for us…

The technical development of voice assistants as we know them today has cost a small fortune to each of the companies that develop them. These investments, which can only be made by the big players mentioned above, must be profitable one day. Two solutions are available to them: make the customer pay for a product to provide access to a service, or provide access to a product to monetize a service. It was the second choice that took over! The major voice assistant publishers offer us their products, so that we can consume services offered by other e-commerce or advertising players. The icing on the cake, in the general conditions of use of these “free” products, we all agree to pool our data and share our time spent listening to high value-added advertising content.

It is on the basis of this type of model that Amazon can train its voice assistant Alexa with several million data and exchanges between users, shared free of charge by all users of the product. This investment is then made profitable by the increase in sales through voice interfaces on the Amazon platform, and by the advertising content broadcast by other advertisers.

So that’s the price of free! The question to ask for the development of voice assistance solutions for the industry: is this price acceptable? If not, what economic model to adopt?

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The monetization of data and the industrial constraints

To perform, Alexa has been trained with billions of conversations around the world. On the other hand, in industry, we do not have sufficient semantic data to constitute big data. Thus, BtoB voice assistants are not trained in the same way (c Célia Garcia-Montero, JDN 2020).

If, as we have seen, the economic model of the major voice assistants is based on the valuation of the data handled, then the question must be asked of the adequacy of this model with the capacities and constraints of the industry.

Unless the world of tomorrow is really different, it is unlikely that sometimes competing manufacturers will agree to pool all their documentary, semantic and linguistic resources in order to train a voice assistant. Even in a utopian world, the sharing of such data could possibly be envisaged at a precise moment, but it is not enough. The voice assistants of our giants need to be constantly supplied with fresh and qualified data in order to continuously increase their capacities.

It is illusory to think that manufacturers will make all the exchanges between their employees and a voice assistant available in real time to a third-party company, and authorize it to use this data for the benefit of the whole of the industry.

So, what do we do ? We could ask digital players on the west coast of the United States to sell a license for private use of this type of assistant for the benefit of a single industrialist. This is a hypothesis, but it will be costly, even unaffordable for the majority of manufacturers. Then there will be the question of the specific training of these assistants for the specific needs of this manufacturer. Why not, but we will quickly come up against the volume of available and accessible data. Let’s take a practical example: an industrialist who manages 100,000 different types of tasks for his maintenance operations is already a good size. Nevertheless, 100,000 documents are not much compared to the billions of exchanges used by Alexa to train.

In conclusion, whatever the technical solution envisaged, the manufacturer will find it difficult to accept the constraints imposed by the “free” models of the major players in the field. So you have to be creative and find other industry compatible approaches.

What is the solution for the industry?

A voice assistant, also called a smart personal assistant or connected speaker, is a device based on natural language voice recognition to allow its user to perform a search by voice (c Célia Garcia-Montero, JDN 2020).

To meet the needs of the industry in terms of voice assistance, it is necessary on the one hand to broaden the definition of a voice assistant, then to adapt the technology and the economic model to the specific constraints of this activity.

Voice assistance for industry will take different forms depending on the intended use. Indeed, an assistant for answering customer questions (FAQ type) will not have the same attributes as a voice assistant for generating field reports for site inspectors in the nuclear industry.

Two needs coexist for an industrial voice assistant, responding to a request from a user on the one hand, collecting and structuring information provided by a user on the other. Thus, for the industrial field, the definition of a voice assistant can be extended to “ smooth relations between an industrial employee and a sometimes complex digital system thanks to voice and intelligent assistance ”.

From a technical point of view, an industrial voice assistant will have to meet the specific constraints of the field: little data, a requirement for reliability, functional in noise, efficient offline, acceptable as a work tool by the employees of the industry. Still technically, an industrial voice assistant must be able to dialogue with all the content already validated and used operationally in industry. One can easily imagine that no industrialist will question what he has validated in SAP to set up a voice assistant… Therefore, any intelligent industrial voice assistant must take as input data the contents of digital tools already deployed like SAP, IBM-Maximo, Delmia-Apriso, INFOR, IFS, and so many other digital solutions.

The ” Spix ” industrial voice assistant from SPIX industry responds to these industrial requirements to better control production tools or systems under maintenance. Indeed, the investment to be made in the implementation of an industrial voice assistant is profitable if the manufacturer gains points of productivity or profitability of its operations. The voice assistant at the service of employees allows the manufacturer to collect more data on the state of his production tool, or to be better informed of the state of a complex system for which his employees are responsible. SIMSOFT INDUSTRY’s “Spix” voice assistant is at the service of employees’ expertise and allows them to more easily trace information from the field to the company’s information systems.

Finally, as the industry does not wish (or cannot) share its data to access “free” services, different economic models must be found. The major players in industrial digital technology such as SAP, IBM-Maximo, Delmia-Apriso, INFOR, IFS and others have already worked on economic models adapted to the expectations of their customers. The industrial voice assistant needs to find a compatible business model of these. For example, SPIX industry’s industrial voice assistant adopts the economic codes expected by its customers who already use industrial software.

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Conclusion

Manufacturers want to benefit from the advantages of intelligent voice assistance technologies to help their employees (or their customers) in carrying out their tasks. In this professional world where data protection is not an option, it is urgent to bring out alternative European solutions to the American and Chinese giants. SPIX industry with its industrial voice assistant ” Spix ” is a pioneer in Europe in this field and is in a good position to take the leadership of this emerging market.

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Press contacts
André JOLY – Managing Director
Phone. : +33 (0)6 25 17 27 94
Email: andre.joly@spix-industry.com

Legal entity
Website : spix-industry.com
Linkedin : linkedin.com/company/spix-industry
Simsoft3D SAS – 1244 rue l’Occitane – 31670 Labège (France)
“SPIX” and “SPIX industry” are registered trademarks of Simsoft3D SAS.

SPIX: a smart voice assistant for the performance of the nuclear sector

SPIX industry offers an Intelligent Voice Assistance solution, adapted to the specific constraints of nuclear production, maintenance and deconstruction, with an ambitious objective of increasing the industrial performance of the sector. This solution uses the SKILLS of Spix, the industrial Voice Assistant of SPIX industry.

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What is the challenge of digitizing the nuclear industry ?

The development of an Industrial Voice Assistance solution dedicated to the nuclear industry meets the demands of the nuclear industry to increase the productivity and competitiveness of players in the nuclear sector , thanks to the introduction of “factory of the future” or “industry 4.0”.

A major effort has already been made by manufacturers in the nuclear sector in France to digitize, digitize, even robotize, certain tasks. This effort makes it possible to gain in the standardization and reliability of industrial processes. For example, the introduction of “IoT” type technologies makes it possible to generate more structured data in order to ensure installation monitoring, and to better plan predictive maintenance interventions.

Nevertheless, the competence of the French nuclear industry still relies mainly on the skills and professionalism of its operators and technicians in the field . In the French nuclear sector, 2/3 of jobs (i.e. 133,000 jobs) are held by employees, technicians and supervisors who combine strong skills and unique industrial know-how.

In order to increase the sector’s competitiveness, one lever therefore consists in improving the capacities of these players in the field by successfully transitioning them into the employees, technicians and supervisors of the future. As for other industrial sectors, the introduction of innovative Smart Voice Assistance solutions will help meet this challenge.

Nevertheless, the needs and constraints of the nuclear sector induce specific technical locks , particular validation needs and demand increased security . SPIX industry takes up this challenge with manufacturers in the nuclear sector, in order to provide the sector with reliable, robust Industrial Voice Assistance solutions that are compatible with the requirements of the field.

The development and generalization of an Interactive Voice Assistant for the nuclear sector should enable technicians working on production sites or during decommissioning:

• Improve the efficiency of the operations carried out, through guidance in their activities and access to knowledge libraries,
• To improve the safety of their interventions , by freeing the operator’s hands from any keyboard/screen input. The operator is thus focused on the activity in progress and has better control of the associated risks.
• Improve the completeness and quality of the databases : the facilitated collection of field observations will make it possible to increase the data reported and to make the collection more reliable.

Toward an industrial Voice Assistant for the nuclear industry

A Voice Assistant brings together a set of technological bricks derived from artificial intelligence (voice recognition and synthesis, multimodal dialog agent in natural language, automatic language processing, knowledge base) capable of completing a business process and integrated into an existing application of production or maintenance. Its objective is of course to benefit from the power of the voice in the business tools of the nuclear industry, but above all to help technicians in their tasks and to increase the quantity and quality of data reported from the field.

The idea is to radically change the user experience of technicians, to reconcile them with their digital environment by integrating voice and intelligent business assistance to truly succeed in the digital transformation of the industry.

Unlike a consumer voice assistant (Google, Alexa, Siri, Xiaomi, Baïdu, etc.), an Industrial Voice Assistant meets the needs of a technician, which are much more specific than the provision of weather information, for example. The technician needs help because:

• He must carry out increasingly complex tasks without making mistakes,
• The instructions on his work order are long and difficult to understand,
• The instructions are dependent on the intervention context,
• His hands are busy carrying out his tasks,
• He must quickly access increasingly voluminous and varied documentation,
• He encounters problems on the ground that he must solve,
• He must feed back more and more information from his field observations.

A voice assistant for industry is made up of four major components:

1. a voice recognition brick,
2. a voice synthesis brick,
3. a dialog manager,
4. a business knowledge base and their associated tools.

An “Industrial” voice assistant must also take into account the constraints of the field which are not those of the general public: the noise of factories, the compulsory wearing of PPE, absent or reduced connectivity, the security of the data collected, mobility , compatibility with existing ranges, procedures or instruction sheets, integration with existing information systems, and acceptability by operators, etc.

The industrial characteristics of the Voice Assistant represent a discriminating factor for most solutions on the market, and its implementation requires multiple skills that go beyond a simple push of technology.

The implementation of Intelligent Voice Assistance solutions for technicians and operators in the nuclear sector responds to a need to improve the sector’s competitiveness. The addition of Intelligent Voice Assistance services in the software tools used by manufacturers in the sector will ultimately make it possible to promote their use by operators in the field.

In general and without precautions, the current digitization process does not yet bring all the expected benefits. The benefits expected by nuclear industry manufacturers from the introduction of Voice Assistance solutions for their technicians are:

• Time saving : technicians and operators in industry spend an average of 25% of their time on low value-added tasks. This time is mainly dedicated to “IT” tasks of access to information, feedback or misunderstanding. In addition, the “in-zone” exposure time can be reduced significantly.
  An Intelligent Voice Assistant can reduce low-value time by 60%.
• Reduction of non-quality : The nuclear industry is looking for “zero defects” and must ensure the safety and operating reliability of its facilities. Non-quality is often linked to misunderstandings by technicians and operators on increasingly complex instructions.
  A Voice Assistant can reduce human errors related to misunderstandings.
• Technician comfort : Changing positions to go to computer equipment, wearing a tablet with gloves, and handling a PC, are uncomfortable situations for a technician or a field operator. “IT” interactions are not always well experienced by technicians or field operators whose area of expertise is not in this area.
  A Voice Assistant helps reconcile technicians with the digital world.
• Securing people and property : The reminder of safety instructions is a major challenge for industry, and for the nuclear sector in particular. Safety instructions are often misunderstood, hard to find when needed.
  A Voice Assistant makes it possible to recall the safety instructions at the right time.
• More qualified “field” data : Understanding the reality on the ground, the condition of equipment, and the quality of an installation, in real time, is a major challenge for the nuclear industry. This information can come from IoT data, but not only. Much of the qualified information is based on observations made by men and women in the field. This task is critical and complex.
  A Voice Assistant facilitates the generation of reliable and qualified field reports.

These gains, once integrated into the tools used by manufacturers in the nuclear sector, constitute significant competitive advantages for gaining competitiveness in the current economic context.

With Intelligent Voice Assistance solutions integrated into their digital business tools, manufacturers in the nuclear sector maximize the return on investment of their digital transformation, and improve their competitiveness.

The Spix.SKILLS voice assistant unitary services

The introduction of a Voice Assistance solution such as Spix’s SKILLS within existing applications will extend their context of use (technician three meters or away from the screen) and will add various functionalities useful to the technician to carry out its tasks.

For technicians to work effectively with the help of a Voice Assistant, and for it to be intelligent in their work context, it must have specific characteristics for the targeted business applications:

• Natural conversation : The Intelligent Voice Assistant allows technicians to speak in natural language with their own words to trigger several actions or pick up a set of information, as if they were talking to their co-worker.
• Robustness to the working environment : The AVI and its associated audio devices must be developed to withstand the constraints of working environments: noise, humidity, heat, dust, mandatory PPE wearing, prohibited frequency bands, etc.
• Understanding of trades : the AVI must allow technicians to use all the words and expressions used in their trade. It feeds on the work instructions and all the associated technical documentation.
• Contextual intelligence : The AVI must understand the vocal requests of a technician according to his work context, a machine state, a system data or the tasks already carried out and those to be carried out.

The Voice Assistance service components are unitary interactive voice programs, which make it possible to establish a dialogue between a user and business applications on a subject or domain. These services are the basic building blocks for developing a complete and consistent Intelligent Voice Assistant for a technician’s work context, according to his profession and the tasks he must perform.

Basic SKILLS exist at SPIX industry without being representative or adapted to a particular profession. They are grouped into categories:

• Work instructions (white): Components related to tracking work instructions.
• Voice (orange): components dedicated to controlling the vital functions of the Intelligent Voice Assistant.
• Utilities (green): components intended to simplify the life of operators. (e.g. unit conversion).
• Information Retrieval (purple): components dedicated to information retrieval (documents, media) .
• Internal communication (blue): components to help operators communicate with each other, to contact an expert if they need help.

A project supported by the France Relance 2030 recovery plan

The development, validation and implementation of this intelligent voice assistance solution for technicians and field operators in the nuclear sector is made possible thanks to the support of the French industrial recovery plan .

Technical objectives

The technical objective of the AVI-TechNuc project is to remove the technical and human obstacles linked to the development of an Intelligent Voice Assistance solution for nuclear field technicians and operators, in order to respond effectively to the gains productivity demanded by the sector.

This “Intelligent” Voice Assistant will benefit from the latest developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and more particularly automatic language processing (TAL), Information Retrieval (RI) and knowledge engineering ( CI). The proposed project, voluntarily ambitious, aims first and foremost to adapt these emerging AI technologies to the specificities of the nuclear field by removing a certain number of identified technical obstacles. It is then a question of developing and experimenting with a prototype of Intelligent Voice Assistance which, with a short phase of industrialization, is likely to be deployed quickly for the greatest number of trades and technicians possible while respecting the constraints. of safety, security and sovereignty specific to the French nuclear industry.

societal objective

The reconciliation of technicians and operators and field with the digital applications deployed in the nuclear industry is an essential key for a successful transition to the industry of the future.

The introduction of an Intelligent Voice Assistance solution controlling and simplifying access to digital tools for technicians and operators will allow them to better adhere to the digitalization process underway in their companies.

The consumer voice assistants with which we will interact tomorrow, with connected objects or intelligent systems will shape our own social system. The voice systems that are currently being developed come mainly from the United States and China. They conform to the values and social organization of the United States (SIRI, Cortana, ALEXA, etc.) or China (TmallGenie, TingTing, XiaoAI). For example, social rules and personal data protection laws like the GDPR apply differently in these countries compared to Europe. It is therefore important to develop intelligent systems, intelligent voice assistants that are compatible with social rules, personal data protection and European security.

Today, it is vital for French industry to have voice systems in line with its values, its social organization, and its work organization.

The relocation of entire production or industrial maintenance sectors, in the nuclear field as in other fields, is part of the industrial roadmap for the years to come. This reindustrialisation of Europe will take place if the workforce is more efficient, generates better quality results, allows a faster move upmarket than subcontractors located in low-cost countries.

With this project, SPIX industry will be able to offer a greater number of manufacturers Voice Assistance solutions for optimizing labor costs in the euro zone. The competitiveness of industrialists in nuclear deconstruction is a major focus for the French industry . This competitiveness will create many qualified jobs in France in the years to come.

The project AVI-TechNuc, which serves as a support for this referencing of Voice Assistance use cases for technicians and operators in the nuclear sector, has received the support of the French Recovery Plan , from the BPI and sector support structures: pole Nuclear Valley , cluster e-Clide and GIFEN .

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About SPIX industry

The company was created to develop the use of voice in industry in all its forms: voice control of existing software, advanced conversational assistance to guide operators on their procedures, “eyes and hands-free” form filling by voice, real-time or delayed transcription of audio notes, co- development of a business application integrating an Intelligent Voice Assistant.

A resolutely innovative company, totally committed to the operational implementation of technologies derived from Artificial Intelligence for the benefit of the development of industry 4.0 and the augmented operator, SPIX industry is the leader in its market in Europe.

Since 2013, SPIX industry has been leading a major R&D effort to develop a 100% French Smart Voice Assistance technology “Spix” and build operational solutions in a demanding industrial environment.

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Press contacts
André JOLY – Managing Director
Phone. : +33 (0)6 25 17 27 94
Email: andre.joly@spix-industry.com

Legal entity
Website : spix-industry.com
Linkedin : linkedin.com/company/spix-industry
Simsoft3D SAS – 1244 rue l’Occitane – 31670 Labège (France)
“SPIX” and “SPIX industry” are registered trademarks of Simsoft3D SAS.