Harry Rhys Davies, February 24, 2021 8 min read
This list is a coming-together between Tech Nation and AWS, to introduce some of the most exciting companies that apply AI and machine learning to construction and manufacturing.
Drawn from across the UK, and from our programmes at Tech Nation (that include alumni like Skyscanner, Monzo, and Darktrace), these ten companies have all been highlighted by VCs, later-stage founders, corporate executives and other experts as having demonstrated exceptional growth potential and ability to deliver impact within their sectors.
In this list, you’ll find companies that are already demonstrating real value to clients that include HS2, Shell, Network Rail, P&G, Siemens, Schneider Electric, and others. So, if you work in manufacturing or construction, and if you’re keen to dig deeper into the latest innovation in your sector, have a read, and connect with the founders to learn more.
Who are they?
nPlan helps their clients understand uncertainty and risk in construction projects using machine learning technology. Through their clients, they have built the largest dataset of construction programmes in the world. Their insights have changed the course of major capital projects, providing greater certainty and cost savings from avoidance of overruns.
Who are they working with?
Kier Group (UK), Google (US), Royal BAM Group (Dutch), Suffolk Construction (US) HS2 (UK), LNG Canada (Canada), Network Rail (UK), Shell (US)
Case Study:
nPlan correctly forecast the outcome of a Major Rail Project under blind testing conditions. Based on our estimates, had nPlan existed before the recent troubled project, it could have saved >£84million through optimal project selection, greater certainty, and cost savings from avoidance of overruns.
Who do they usually speak with?
Project Director, Head of Planning or Project Controls, Head of Operational Performance or Risk, Head of Technology & Innovation
Who are they?
Sensat’s mission is to provide the civil infrastructure industry with the understanding to shape a sustainable world. They are building an intelligent eco-system that translates real world data into a version that can be visualised, shared and understandable to AI. This technology will help build improved, more sustainable infrastructure where human development is in balance with our natural environment.
Who are they working with?
Tier One Civil Infrastructure Companies, including infrastructure asset owners, engineering companies, and construction contractors such as Network Rail (HS2), Balfour Beatty, Osborne, Connect Plus (M25), National Grid, Morgan Sindall and Aecom to name a few.
Case Study:
With their topographical survey drone data capture and platform, customers have: Captured 23 data points and 85,000 high-resolution images in 30 days across one project, saved over 100,000 man hours and £20 million in direct project costs, and sped up project delivery by 6 months whilst also providing a powerful, intuitive tool for future public consultation.
Who do they usually speak with?
Head of construction, project or programme owner, director or manager, asset manager, surveyor or GIS manager.
Who are they?
Senseye, headquartered in the UK with regional offices in Germany, France, USA, and Japan is a leading industrial software company for Machine Health Management. Senseye helps global industrial organizations to save millions of dollars in unplanned downtime and maintenance efficiencies every week in key industries such as Automotive, Manufacturing, Heavy Industry and CPG / FMCG.
Who are they working with?
Nissan, Aloca, TATA, Smurfit Kappa, Siemens, Schneider Electric, are among the many companies that Senseye works with worldwide. Senseye has also partnered with a number of factory historians and third-party platforms such as Siemens MindSphere, PTC ThingWorx and the OSIsoft Pi System to ensure its products can integrate seamlessly and ingest data no matter the source.
Case Study:
Senseye counts Nissan among its major customers, having scaled from its factory in Sunderland, to across 7 production facilities in the USA, Europe and Japan, with other countries in development. There has been several $m of unplanned downtime saved to date at each site, it’s used across over 10,000+ assets in 5 geographies, there is a rapid return on investment of less than 3 months and 2 weeks to 6 months advance warning of asset failure, as well as year-on-year OEE improvements.
Who do they usually speak with?
Digital Transformation Manager, Factory/Maintenance Manager, Finance Director etc.
Who are they?
Nodes & Links helps project experts make faster and better decisions, delivering time and cost savings in capital and infrastructure projects. They do this through their cloud-based platform which combines sophisticated data models with automation and a smooth user experience. Their vision is to act as a ‘one-stop’ shop for AI to support project experts across all their major decisions. They are backed by top VC investors, including backers of deep-tech unicorns and the inventor of Amazon’s Alexa. In just 2020 they won the ‘Risk Innovation’ award at CIR, and have been shortlisted for AI Product and Innovation awards in CogX and British Construction Industry awards.
Who are they working with?
They are working with a number of companies across the US, APAC and EMEA region, including Balfour Beatty, Vinci, Mott Macdonald, BAM Nuttall, Jacobs, Skanska, Costain, EDF, Gray and HKA.
Case Study:
Using their risk analysis capability, they are working on HS2 (the biggest infrastructure project in the EU, with an estimated budget of $145Bn project budget) with Balfour Beaty and Vinci where their solution has driven a 245% increase in risk precision, 61% reduction in process time, 73% saving in work hours and 57% increase in risk auditability. HS2’s Head of Risk said, “Nodes & Links’ approach to tackling the challenge of project complexity is the biggest breakthrough in project risk management since the introduction of Quantitative Risk Analysis”.
Who do they usually speak with?
Typically this will be the Head of Planning/Scheduling/PMO/Project Controls, or Head of Digital Solutions. The particulars of the role title will depend on the specific organisational structure.
Who are they?
Continuum Industries is a Scottish software company that helps engineers to design big, complex infrastructure projects better and faster. Their product, Optioneer, lets engineers automate their design process and use AI to explore millions of possible design options and quickly find the best ones.
Who are they working with?
Engineering consultants, contractors and infrastructure owners.
Case Study:
Mott MacDonald (engineering consultant) uses our technology for water pipeline design and estimates 40% design time savings and potential savings in outturn cost of schemes of up to 10%.
Who do they usually speak with?
It varies a lot, but often a combination of head of sectors (e.g. energy) and digital / innovation
Who are they?
BKwai are committed to radically improving the built environment throughout the lifecycle of assets – from planning, to construction, to long term asset management. Their solutions use data science and AI to leverage insights from manual measurements, sensor data and satellite data, resulting in next generation products for construction and preventative maintenance for a more resilient built environment.
Who are they working with?
Examples include Laing O’Rourke and Thames Tideway Central. They are also an industrial partner of the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction.
Case Study: Example 1: Supporting safety-critical decisions: predictive analytics are being used on a site where workers are in a closed environment which floods when there is heavy rainfall; they’re given predictions, probabilities and alerts to keep people and equipment safe. Example 2: Saving up to 50% in staff time curating, processing and analysis of monitoring data, as well as providing insights that would otherwise be hidden in the data; this allows for faster, smarter decisions.
Who do they usually speak with? Construction: Project Director, Head of Instrumentation and Monitoring, or the Asset Owner: Head of asset portfolio
Who are they?
Contilio is the world’s first 3D AI platform that automatically provides actionable intelligence from 3D data (Lidar scans and 360 images) collected from construction sites in real-time, fully automating construction progress, installation quality and predictive risks, all from a central platform. Contilio’s customers (Tier 1 general contractors, asset owners and developers) use the insights to gain full visibility, make timely and smart decisions and deliver their construction projects cheaper, faster and more sustainably (20X ROI). Contilio’s differentiated technology also creates self-intelligent (semantic, machine readable and analytics ready) digital twins, creating further efficiencies during operations.
Who are they working with?
Contilio’s currently bringing value to Tier 1 General contractors, Asset Owners and Real Estate developers headquartered in UK, EU and US. Examples include #1 industrial real estate company globally, UK’s #1 and US top 10 General contractor, world’s 3rd largest global certification and quality assurance co, top 3 technology giant, etc.
Case Study:
Recently Contilio has helped a global asset owner to automatically track construction progress and quality of installed work at task/trade level, enabling them to accelerate schedule delivery, reduce the rework cost (30%) and waste and improve the productivity (of PMs, project controls and BIM team), enabling them to pay for work installed correctly. Insights were delivered 14X faster for 100% of the site and accessed by the customer teams globally in <24 hours. Up-to-date, compliant, and intelligent digital twin created for smart Facility management and operations. Contilio has been already scaled to be used at Enterprise level.
Who do they usually speak with?
Project Directors, Head of Planning/Project Controls, Head of Delivery, Head of Technology/Digital Construction/ Innovation, Head of Construction (Asset owners).
Who are they?
The control of many manufacturing processes still relies on human judgement and experience, resulting in product quality defects, low productivity, and unnecessary CO2 emissions. Metis uses AI-enabled technology to encode this human judgement into software – improving the efficiency and reliability of the manufacturing processes. Their product is a full-stack industrial optimisation platform consisting of self-service vision systems, real-time analytics platform, and closed-loop intelligent process control.
Who are they working with?
Manufacturers of consumer chemicals, beverages and processed foods.
Case Study:
Their software improves the performance of automated filling lines. It reduces filling losses by over 80%, by reducing both give-away and underfill rejection. In particular, they work with companies who produce food, beverage and consumer chemical products. In many cases, the value can be over €100,000 per filling line per year. It is a “self-learning” technology which works very well in high speed, fully-automated dosing/filling lines, and satisfies all weights and measures regulations. This technology can also be used to generate control strategies for other manufacturing processes. Consider it as an easy-to-deploy advanced process control technology – improving yields and reducing waste.
Who do they usually speak with?
Operations Director and Plant Manager
Who are they?
Conundrum is an AI-powered software platform for industrial companies. Conundrum Platform enables to create, deploy and manage AI applications for optimization of manufacturing processes.
Who are they working with?
Highland Gold, Phillips 66 and other companies including ones from S&P500. They’re focusing mainly on mining, steel and FMCG industries
Case Study:
1. Optimization of milling and flotation for enrichment plants for mining (gold, nickel, copper, etc.) increases production by 2-5%. 2. End-to-end optimization and behavior simulation of manufacturing for enrichment and melting. 3. Reduction of electrical energy consumption by 4% and increase of quality of electrical steel for bell converters.
Who do they usually speak with?
Chief Technology Officer (manufacturing) of plant
Who are they?
Peak is a Decision Intelligence company – they help customers use AI to make great commercial decisions. Peak’s technology embeds AI across sales, marketing, planning, and supply chain to accelerate revenues and profits. Headquartered in Manchester (UK), Peak has been named a Gartner ‘Cool Vendor’ for AI, and is an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advanced Technology Partner with a competency in Machine Learning, and was awarded AWS Rising Star Partner of the Year in 2019. Peak is ISO 27001 accredited.
Who are they working with?
Peak’s customer base includes KFC, PepsiCo, AO.com, Marshalls, and Speedy Hire.
Case Study:
Peak’s customers have seen transformational results, including a 5% increase in total company revenue, a doubling of return on advertising spend, a 12% reduction in inventory holdings, and a 5% reduction in supply chain costs. CMOStores – 5% revenue increase and a 25% increase in click-to-transaction rate through onsite personalisation. Speedy – 18% reduction in stock levels, 4x return on inventory investment. Leading aluminum manufacturer – 8% reduction in supply costs.
Who do they usually speak with?
Job Level: Director, VP, or C-level executives. Job Function: Marketing, Merchandising, Planning, Supply Chain, or Technology (CIO). Also “Digital Transformation”, “Transformation” or “Strategy” job titles. Examples: CEO, CSO, CFO, CIO, Transformation Director, Marketing Director, Merchandising Director, Supply Chain Director
