How a chemical engineer built an agentic manufacturing troubleshooting assistant

Discover how domain expertise and AI merge to solve complex plant problems – no coding required. Can experience be replaced by intelligence?
In this episode, I sit down with Scott Duncan, a chemical engineer who built an agentic manufacturing troubleshooting assistant – without any coding background. We dive into the real-world challenges of process manufacturing and how AI is transforming the way plant issues are solved. Scott shares his journey from hands-on troubleshooting to leveraging large language models, knowledge graphs, and real-time data for smarter, faster problem-solving. We also debate the future of domain expertise in an AI-driven world and what it means for education and workforce development. Join me as we explore the potential – and the limitations – of AI in reshaping the future of industrial operations.

NXAI

www.nx-ai.com (ww.nx-ai-com)

Claude Code

anthropic.com/news/claude-3-opus-sonnet-haiku

MATLAB

mathworks.com/products/matlab.html

OPC Foundation

opcfoundation.org

OPC UA

opcfoundation.org/about/opc-technologies/opc-ua

PI System

aveva.com/en/products/pi-system