Xeeva welcomes this guest post from Matthew York, Senior Research Analyst, Ardent Partners. For the past two decades, the modern manufacturing facility has become highly automated, employing robots to assemble automobiles and other large and complex consumer goods – sometimes without any direct human intervention (i.e., “lights-out manufacturing”, a hallmark of Industry 4.0). But as these robots and robotically-driven assembly lines age, they need regular maintenance, repair, and operating (MRO) services and supplies. Service calls must...

It seems that these days, you can’t go anywhere without hearing about artificial intelligence (AI). It really is one of the hottest buzzwords right now. But as we looked at in the previous chapter of our tale, a lot of the buzz around artificial intelligence is nothing more than that: a whole lot of noise. Lots of tech companies claim their products have AI. However, most are only using it at the most basic level,...