In today’s digital era, where technology plays a central role in every aspect of our lives, the concept of voice experience is reshaping the industrial landscape. Voice experience refers to the seamless and intuitive interaction between humans and machines through voice commands and responses (also named human-machine smart dialog). This transformative technology is revolutionizing the way we engage with industry processes, equipment, and systems.

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In the industrial sector, voice experience is being leveraged to enhance worker productivity, safety, and operational efficiency. Through voice-enabled devices and applications, workers can perform tasks, access information, and control equipment using natural language commands. This hands-free and intuitive approach reduces the need for manual input, streamlines workflows, and minimizes errors.

The integration of voice experience technology in the industry offers numerous advantages. Firstly, it enables workers to access critical information, such as equipment manuals, safety procedures, or inventory data, simply by speaking their queries. This instant and contextual retrieval of information saves time and increases accuracy, empowering workers to make informed decisions on the spot.

Moreover, voice experience promotes worker safety by providing a hands-free environment. In hazardous or high-risk settings, workers can execute commands, report incidents, or request assistance without physical interaction. This not only minimizes distractions but also ensures that workers can maintain focus on their tasks while staying connected to the necessary support systems.

Additionally, voice experience enhances collaboration and communication on the shop floor. Workers can engage in real-time voice conversations with colleagues, supervisors, or remote experts, enabling efficient problem-solving and knowledge sharing. This seamless communication fosters teamwork, accelerates decision-making processes, and ultimately improves overall productivity.

The future of voice experience in the industry holds even more potential. As advancements in natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence continue to evolve, voice assistants will become even more intelligent and adaptable. They will understand complex commands, learn from user interactions, and offer personalized recommendations, further enhancing the user experience and driving operational excellence.

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The limits of the digital transformation

In the wake of the digital transformation of Industry 4.0, industry decision-makers are now able to list the main problem and bottlenecks that are reducing their return on investment and preventing them from achieving their financial goals.

The main problems mentioned by digital managers and plant managers are the following:

• The digital transformation of my production plant suffers from resistance from the workers,
• The software already deployed (MES, CMMS, FSM) is not used to its full potential,
• I don’t get enough data from the field, the data collected from my installations is too weak,
• I do not get enough feedback to use the Digital Twin of my factory at the maximum of its capacity,
• My workers waste too much time with their business software, interfaces lead to manual interventions and hand-over of data, information is lost or erroneous, non-conformities are the result. Finally, time for value creation is lost.

The introduction of digital solutions on the shop floor not only creates frustrations but may also introduce safety breaches as the workers may lose the focus on their tasks, remove their gloves, and look at a screen instead at their surrounding environment.

The introduction of voice interfaces for field operators is identified as a key solution to solve the problem, generate trust in digital systems, restore safety conditions at work, and generate more digital data from the field. SPIX industry already proved this fact with the development and adoption of its Spix.SKILLS.

SPIX is a voice assistant 100% dedicated to the field and shop floor workers of the industry. This voice assistant closes the gap between the workers (on the right) and their digital tools (on the left). It provides robust to noise voice interactions, natural language dialog functions, and private by design data management. The Spix.SKILLS are embedded, operate offline, and interface with the business software of the industrials.

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Voice Experience: for what purpose?

The challenge to solve now is to give the industrials the knowhow and the confidence for them to massively deploy voice technologies on the shop floor. Nevertheless, the deployment of voice-first solutions in the industry requires to resolve a multidimensional system of constraints: coherence of the semantic, performance in the noise, data privacy, user acceptability, audio hardware, utility and usability, and the interface to the already deployed shop-floor software.

To successfully introduce the use of voice on the shop floor, “Voice Experience by SPIX industry” proposes the equivalent of the GAFAM eco-system for voice assistance, but 100% dedicated to the industry.

The “Voice Experience by SPIX industry” focuses on:

• Industrial data management: ex. type of data needed to describe the users’ expectations, validation of the privacy of the data,
• Assembly and validation of voice interactions: ex. assembly of the Spix.SKILLS, validation under constraints of the expected performances,
• Interface to business software: ex. interface protocols generation for business software applications (Apriso, Maximo, SAP, QDA, SiteFlow, …).

The ambition of the “Voice Experience” is to build an eco-system, supported by on-premises solutions, to configure and validate custom voice assistants for the blue collars of the industry.

Thanks to the introduction of Voice Experience and Spix.SKILLS voice interactions on the field the European industry may restore its competitivity with the respective benefits.

• Reduction of non-quality

Complex, critical, and rare tasks

• Time saving

Access to information, data entry

• Better traceability of field operation

Real-time data reports, observations, Retex

• Increased safety of people and assets

Reminder of PPEs, alerts, reduction of security breaches

• Improved working comfort

Reduce walking, avoid removing PPE, learning HMIs

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Conclusion

In conclusion, voice experience is transforming the industry by revolutionizing the way workers interact with machines, systems, and processes. It empowers workers with hands-free, intuitive, and contextually relevant interactions, improving productivity, safety, and collaboration. As the technology continues to advance, embracing voice experience in the industrial setting becomes increasingly crucial for staying competitive and unlocking the full potential of human-machine interactions.

At SPIX industry, we are convinced by the development of intelligent voice assistance solutions in business verticals for the industry. On production, inspection, quality control or maintenance jobs, it is possible to assemble the necessary components of SPIX.SKILLS to ensure the usefulness, usability and acceptability of the voice services rendered to the workers. The development the “Voice Experience by SPIX industry” will help the industrials to satisfying the expected return on investment on their digital transformation.

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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)
“Voice Experience”, “SPIX” and “SPIX industry” are registered trademarks of Simsoft3D SAS.

Mining, a long-standing activity with a strong traditional profile, has experienced the greatest changes in its history in past 100 years, particularly in efficiency and safety.

This transformation culminated in recent years when technologies associated with Industry 4.0 began to be implemented in the sector.

Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and the use of drones are just some examples of the progress being made toward Mining 4.0, which aspires toward sustainable, safe, and productive operations.

Mining industry and digital transformation

In this context, the technologies for automation, digitalization, connectivity, and data analysis will play a fundamental role in the new model. 

All the technology involved in the new processes of digitalization, including exploration and research, dynamic distribution of machinery, mining topography, use of tele-operated controls, process automation, big data studies, etc., are used for an activity that was beyond imagination a few years ago.

Such digital transformation is mandatory for the mining sector to keep the safety of the workers at the highest level, and restore the productivity margins. Despite a huge effort of automatization, the mining industry still heavily depends on the competencies and skills of the field and front line workers.

The digital transformation is not an evidence for the workers in the mine. Where the management expects more data from the field, the workers sees a waste of time and efficiency.

To be efficient and succeed in its digital transformation, the mining industry needs to solve this paradox: get more data from the the people on te field.

The role of voice experience for mining

Based on the constraints of the workers in the mining industry alternative solutions are required to help the workers in their digital interactions. Voice Assistance solutions like Spix from SPIX industry are good candidates:

• Most of the tasks are complex and some have high criticality level,
• They are based on the collection of a high volume of very precise data from the field, whether it is the continuous extraction, processing and transport of minerals,
• Workers are busy, they have their hands full, and spend too much time on non-added value task as data collection from the field.

The role of a smart voice assistant like Spix for a field operator in the mining industry is :

• to be able to quickly and accurately trace detailed information on assets,
• to be able to simply search through work orders, history and inventories to troubleshoot and maintain equipment on site,
• create and update work orders in real time for maintenance
• to follow routine checklists specific to inspection, quality control, material consignment or inventory management

As an example, the Spix conversational agent integrates an NLU (Natural language Understanding) brick allowing a field operator to request information from his IT system.

For transport operations, this may be information on truck arrival times, waiting times, number of vehicles en route, types of loading, etc.

The whole constituting a real decision support system for supervisors, empowered by more data coming from the field.

Spix seamlessly integrates to any ERP, CMMS, QMS, WMS and FSM systems used in the mining industry.

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What is the solution from SPIX industry?

For the first time ever, Spix replies to this situation and provides the quality controllers in harsh environment an operational mean to interact with their digital tools. The use of an embedded, offline and robust voice assistant helps them solve their equation!

Spix brings together two types of complementary voice technologies:

• Robust speech recognition technology capable of translating voice into text in industrial environments in the highest possible performance, even under noisy conditions,
• Smart voice assistance technologies also called conversational agent to manage a dialogue between the quality controller and his digital tool to help him to achieve his goals.

The voice assistant Spix is fully embedded, works offline, and interfaces with the default MES and FSM software already used by the mining workers. This enables the operators to benefit from the power of voice in their reporting business tools, compatible with their working conditions.

With Spix, no need to remove the gloves, the protection helmet to generate a quality control report. Spix can be used without any visual feedback, the smartphone can be in the pocket. This help the worker to be safe and focus on his tasks and environment.

The idea behind this disruptive innovation consists in radically changing the user experience of workers in the mining industry, help them use their digital tools.

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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, “SPIX industry” and “Voice Experience” are registered trademarks of Simsoft3D SAS.