Imubit’s Optimizing Brain for Your Plant Announced at Transcend Houston Global AI Summit

By Allison Buenemann, Product Marketing Manager at Imubit

We gathered the process industries’ best and brightest in Houston last week for two days of sharing, learning, and lederhosen. A collection of customer stories and panel discussions led by refining powerhouses like Marathon Petroleum Corporation, Citgo, HF Sinclair, and others, plus calcining and cement leaders Oxbow and Ash Grove (A CRH Company) kept the audience on the edge of their seats. 

One Foundation Process Model™, Limitless Possibilities

The day began with Imubit CEO Gil Cohen unveiling of the Imubit Optimizing Brain solution, which highlighted customer ideas brought to life as interactive web applications on the Imubit Industrial AI Platform. Two examples of this were shared at Transcend – Operator Optimization Training and LP Tool Augmentation. 

Big West Oil Operations Supervisor Bobby Hammer couldn’t believe how much the use of the Imubit application for operator training got his people thinking. “Operators’ minds were unlocked. And when that happened they started to ask questions. They started to think outside of their norm outside of their comfort zones.” A little healthy competition sparked by a gamified training simulator never hurt anybody. 

There was an aha moment earlier this year at HF Sinclair’s Woods Cross Refinery when they realized that their LP Model shift vectors had a lot in common with their Imubit process model relationships (gains). They decided to compare the two and found some things they expected, and others that weren’t so expected. “This didn’t take very much time, and it’s pretty invaluable information to our Economics & Planning Engineers,” remarked Engineering Specialist, Kevin Daines. 

The sharing of these new use cases sparked interest from everyone in attendance on how Imubit could help them unite teams around a single view of their plant’s reality. 

“ChatGPT and similar Foundation Models are general models utilized in many applications. As we all know, this step change in AI is sweeping consumers and businesses in all sectors these days. Imubit has taken that approach into process manufacturing through its Foundation Process Model. This allows our customers to leverage their data-driven models in multiple ways in operations, planning, and process engineering. We’re breaking down plant silos, enabling data-driven collaboration, and empowering ALL technical staff to thrive in an AI-driven future.”

Closed Loop Continues to Differentiate AI

While the morning focused on applications beyond closed loop optimization and control, the afternoon dove deep into Imubit’s roots in closed loop applications with presentations from Marathon Petroleum Corporation and Ash Grove. 

Marathon has found a sweet spot for AI-based solutions, solving problems that traditional APC technologies have struggled to address. “As a big company, we weren’t looking for an APC replacement. We were looking for something to augment our existing APCs, solving problems that were difficult for them,” said APC Engineer Chris Harrison. They found that sweet spot in optimizing coke drum giveaway – reducing the number of suboptimal cycles (and associated giveaway) by 25%. Catch more on this topic at AFPM Summit next month!

As part of the world’s leading building materials company CRH, Ash Grove’s presentation marked a major milestone for Imubit and our customers’ successes in the cement industry. Sr Corporate Automation Engineer Bryan Cook elaborated on Ash Grove’s logical approach to AI in the cement industry. Key ingredients in his recipe included starting with the why for an AI-based approach, knowing what type of solutions to look for, how to detect and discard AI/ML in disguise, and identify the right pilot site. 

A New Category of Closed Loop

No good story is complete without an omniscient narrator, and that’s exactly what Peter Reynolds, Analyst for Industrial Manufacturing at ARC Advisory Group brought to the table. Peter’s talk gave the audience an exclusive preview into ARC’s upcoming 2024 Process Optimization and Control Market Study, and highlighted the need for a new category in this closed loop world. 

Closed Loop AI Optimization (AIO) joins heritage Advanced Process Control (APC) and Online Optimization (RTO) in this market study. It’s differentiated by its data-first approach, leveraging neural networks and approaches like reinforcement learning to break the traditional paradigm of closed loop control. “We see Imubit’s use of RL for real-time process optimization as quite unique and a strong differentiator in the market,” said Reynolds.

Stein Clinks to New Connections

Attendees celebrated a day of exciting announcements and cross-industry pollination with an Oktoberfest-themed after party. Some of our speakers felt the call of the theme more than others!

Kyle Kuchta (Sr Director, Business Transformation at Delek) and Kris Kissel-Weir (VP, Manufacturing Systems and Data Analytics at Oxbow) connected on the leadership panel ‘Democratizing AI Through One Model Collaboration.

Auf Wiedersehen until the next Transcend!

Read the press release to learn more.