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The 7bridges acquisition can transform Industrial Supply Chains with AI and IFS Ultimo's FSI purchase brings a unique EAM platform to the nest. The AI boom has triggered a feverish activity within enterprise system developer IFS. The company has invested heavily in developing competitive technologies in areas such as copiloting and agent AI, initiatives that permeate the entire corporate sphere, whose solutions lie primarily in the ERP, EAM and FSM areas, and now with the cloud, IFS Cloud, as the primary platform. With the new technologies behind it, the company, under relatively new CEO Mark Moffat, has launched an market offensive, where, by virtue of rapid technology development, it has established new potential and realism in, for example, the tough goals of winning market share from the ERP system leader SAP.
An interesting reflection of the market offensive is the acquisitions in recent weeks within the corporate sphere - two businesses have been purchased:
• On the one hand, efforts have been strengthened to develop the logistics side of industrial AI with the purchase of 7bridges - a supplier of AI-driven solutions for supply chain management. The acquisition strengthens IFS' position in industrial logistics and transport optimization.
• On the other hand, IFS subsidiary Ultimo, a specialist player in EAM (Enterprise Asset Management), has acquired a US-based category leader in software for managing healthcare facilities and healthcare technology, FSI. AI is also very much on the agenda when it comes to Ultimo. With FSI, the market perspective is also undeniably broadened – the company has the only platform for computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) specially built for healthcare professionals.
IFS CEO Mark Moffat says in a comment: "We are proud to lead the market in industrial AI and continue to invest in technologies that differentiate our offering."
He also has good reason to be satisfied. With 7bridges, IFS gains access to ready-made solutions for streamlining supply chains using advanced AI simulation and analysis to automate and optimize logistics networks. The system has been purpose-built for industrial applications and combines fast and cost-effective data collection, a high-quality semantic data warehouse and powerful AI to solve complex challenges in supply chain optimization.
The potential that the acquisition brings looks promising, says Moffat, pointing to, “a significant opportunity to scale up 7bridge’s capacity to the asset- and service-centric industries it serves, with strong demand from the manufacturing and aerospace and defense sectors.”
But IFS Ultimo’s purchase of FSI also has interesting business potential – how so?
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7bridges-förvärvet vässar industrilogistik med AI och IFS Ultimos FSI-köp ger bolaget en unik EAM-plattform på underhållssidan.
AI-boomen har utlöst en febril aktivitet inom affärssystemutvecklaren IFS. Bolaget har satsat stenhårt på att ta fram konkurrenskraftiga teknologier inom t ex copiloting och agentisk AI, satsningar som genomsyrar hela bolagssfären vars lösningar framför allt ligger inom ERP-, EAM- och FSM-områdena, och numera med molnet, IFS Cloud, som primär plattform. Med de nya teknologierna i ryggen har bolaget under relativt nye bolagschefen, Mark Moffat, laddat upp en offensiv mot marknaden, där man i kraft av sylvass teknologiutveckling etablerat en ny potential och realism i t ex de tuffa målsättningarna att vinna marknadsandelar från affärssystem-ledaren SAP.
En intressant reflex av marknadsoffensiven är de senaste veckornas förvärv inom bolagssfären - två verksamheter har köpts:
• Dels har man förstärkt ansträngningarna att utveckla logistik-sidan för industriell AI med köpet av 7bridges - en leverantör av AI-drivna lösningar för leveranskedjehantering. Förvärvet stärker IFS position inom industriell logistik- och transportoptimering.
• Dels har IFS-dottern Ultimo, specialistaktör på EAM-sidan (Enterprise Asset Management, ”underhållshantering”), köpt en USA-baserad kategoriledare inom programvara för hantering av hälso- och sjukvårdsinrättningar och hälso- och sjukvårdsteknik, FSI. Även när det gäller Ultimo är AI i högsta grad på tapeten. Med FSI vidgas onekligen också marknadsperspektivet – bolaget har den enda plattformen för datoriserade underhållshanterings-system (CMMS) specialbyggt för vårdpersonal.
IFS-chefen, Mark Moffat, säger i en kommentar: "Vi är stolta över att leda marknaden inom industriell AI och fortsätta investera i teknologier som differentierar vårt erbjudande.”
Han har också goda skäl att vara nöjd. Med 7bridges får IFS tillgång till färdigutvecklade lösningar för effektivisering av leveranskedjor med hjälp av avancerad AI-simulering och analys för att automatisera och optimera logistiknätverk. Systemet har specialbyggts för industriella användningsområden och kombinerar snabb och kostnadseffektiv datainsamling, ett högkvalitativt semantiskt datalager och kraftfull AI för att lösa komplexa utmaningar inom leveranskedjeoptimering.
Potentialen som förvärvet för med sig ser lovande ut, menar Moffat och pekar på, ”en betydande möjlighet att skala upp 7bridges kapacitet till de tillgångs- och tjänstecentrerade industrier som det betjänar, med stark efterfrågan från tillverknings- och flyg- och försvarssektorerna.”
Men även IFS Ultimos köp av FSI har en intressant affärspotential – hur då?
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KRITI SHARMA, CEO of IFS Nexus Black: “We’re in a phase of opportunity.” Business systems developer IFS has published a new, very interesting, global study that in itself shows that the adoption of industrial AI is increasing rapidly across all industries. But the study shows that even though businesses are now embracing AI, they are not fully prepared for full implementation. This has created what IFS calls an “AI execution gap.”
This gap has arisen because businesses have been adopting AI faster than their workforce’s AI skills have developed. Over the next 12 months, the number of businesses still in the early AI experimentation stage will fall from 24% to just 7%. This means that more and more businesses are becoming AI-mature. Yet 52% of decision-makers in the survey say their management teams do not fully understand AI, and 99% of the global workforce will need extensive retraining to benefit from the adoption of AI in industry.
“AI is a core driver of business performance and it’s time to plug the AI execution gap – bring people, process and product together to deliver tangible outcomes,," said Kriti Sharma, CEO of Nexus Black at IFS. “The pace of adoption is inspiring, but the next big unlock will come from scaling trust, strategy, and talent. Industrial AI is a powerful force for good, and we’re in a moment of opportunity: those who move fast will lead the next decade of industry.”
The study was conducted by the British research firm 3Gem in May 2025. They surveyed 1,700 senior decision-makers at companies working in manufacturing, teleco, services, construction, aerospace & defense, and energy, in the UK, US, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, among others.
The report - IFS Invisible Revolution Study 2025 - further identifies what is called an "invisible revolution" - a rapid but under-recognized shift away from consumer productivity AI experimentation and toward embedded, operational AI across core business processes. But as with all revolutions, significant challenges are emerging.
An interesting connection in this context is IFS Nexus Black, launched in April, intended to support and accelerate the introduction of AI solutions. Many AI projects do not reach their goals. IDC, for example, points out that unclear goals, insufficient data readiness, and a lack of internal expertise are slowing down many AI POCs, Proof of Concept. According to IDC research, 88% of observed POCs fail to scale. For every 33 AI POCs that a company launches, only four are upgraded to production, IDC found. That's barely 13%.
At the same time, the new IFS report shows that the use of industrial AI has developed explosively, almost doubling from 32% to 59% in just 12 months.
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REPORT from REALIZE LIVE in AMSTERDAM. A former AWS man, VASI PHILOMIN, becomes Siemens’ own version of agent 007, James Bond. But it’s not about fighting evil villains; on the contrary, the new signing Vasi Philomin, former AI leader at Amazon (AWS), and his new team, with around 700 patents in their portfolio, will play major roles within Siemens to create intelligent AI Copilots and AI Agents for the company’s customers, both in PLM and smart factories, which will, among other things, take the edge off the complexity of today’s product development.
When Siemens’ PLM event Realize Live came to Europe and Amsterdam this week, this was also the main theme: Mastering the complexity of today’s product development and turning it into a competitive advantage.
“It’s the most challenging task for the world’s engineers today,” said Bob Jones, EVP of Siemens PLM division’s global sales, in Amsterdam. “Explosively growing amounts of electronics, electricity, software, regulations, tough sustainability targets and more have reached avalanche proportions and when sophisticated mechanics are to be integrated with this within the product shell, it is important to walk a tightrope. The right digital tools in this are built on three pillars: The comprehensive digital twin, lifecycle intelligence and adaptive operational concepts.” Of course, AI is of crucial importance in this context, and this is where Vasi Philomin comes into play.
The cast at Siemens in this industrial drama looks super interesting. To continue in the Bond track: Philomin's immediate boss – the equivalent of "M", Bond's superior - is Peter Koerte, Siemens CTO, Chief Technology Officer. While Siemens AG's top manager, Roland Busch, can be seen as the "Minister and Secretary of Foreign Affairs."
So, yesterday, Philomin took on the role of EVP and head of the newly established division for Data & Artificial Intelligence. His resume is impressive: Most recently, he came from Amazon, where he was VP of Generative AI, leading AWS AI product strategy. At Amazon, he played a critical role in building Amazon Bedrock and overseeing the development of foundational models. His expertise spans machine learning, platform architecture, and enterprise-scale AI implementation. He also holds 100 U.S. patents.
“Unparalleled expertise in AI, yes, and his proven leadership in building transformative technologies will be critical to scaling our data and AI capabilities, unlocking new things in our technology stack, and delivering even greater value to our customers,” says Koerte, while Philomin himself notes that the boundaries between the physical and digital worlds are being redrawn by AI.
“That’s right, and the next great frontier for AI is the physical world – powering machines, factories, and infrastructure that sense, reason, and act. Siemens is uniquely positioned to lead this transformation,” he said.
It’s not a bad guess that we’ll hear a lot from Philomin and his group related to PLM. It’s a part of the job to turn complexity into an advantage. Another one is about the Altair acquisition. How so?
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ABB and MICROSOFT develop GENERATIVE AI solution that ensures operational continuity when key employees retire or leave.
Generative AI to transform how information is preserved and shared, thus enabling smarter, faster and more sustainable decision-making – could this be a solution to a not-so-uncommon industrial problem? ABB’s experts, together with Microsoft, have thought and acted on the matter and created a solution, Ability Industrial Knowledge Vault, that addresses a growing challenge in many industrial environments: knowledge loss. Why is this so interesting?
For several reasons, not least in the perspective that when experienced employees retire or leave, the loss of decades of collective knowledge threatens operational continuity, efficiency and innovation if not addressed properly. Traditional documentation methods are often fragmented, requiring significant manual effort to compile, interpret and apply. In this, ABB’s new Ability family solution can act as, “a bridge over murky waters.”
“Industries everywhere are facing a critical knowledge gap as a generation of experienced workers retire, taking their invaluable expertise with them,” says ABB’s Sanjit Shewale, Global Head of Digital, Process Industries. “Our Industrial Knowledge Vault addresses this challenge head-on by providing a secure and accessible platform to enable businesses to do more digitally. By capturing, preserving, and sharing this critical knowledge, companies can ensure business continuity and provide workforces with timely information to do their jobs smarter, faster, and more sustainably.”
Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, this Ability family’s Industrial Knowledge Vault can store, retain, and protect critical expertise while actively transforming that knowledge into step-by-step workflows. This enables workers to quickly access and apply best practices, enabling businesses to run more smoothly while maintaining secure operations.
The solution captures and structures expertise in a centralized, secure repository, easily accessible through natural language conversations, enabling engineers and operators to perform tasks more efficiently. To that end, Industrial Knowledge Vault uses ABB Genix CoPilot and Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to analyze and synthesize information into actionable procedures, allowing workers to effortlessly retrieve insights through an intuitive, conversational interface.
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“INTEGRATION of ASSET MANAGEMENT with BUSINESS needs is AN AREA WHERE MAINTENANCE 5.0 models frequently FALL SHORT.” According to a survey by analyst IDC, increasing operational efficiency was the top priority for industrial organizations in 2022 (51%). It's reasonable to assume that this relationship is still largely true today, three years later. But it's also a clear indication that effective management of the lifecycle of assets–such as factory facilities, production lines, machinery, etc–is critical to maximizing the return on investment (ROI) in these valuable assets. A relevant concept in this context is Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM), which summarizes the process by which organizations keep their assets in top condition throughout their entire lifespan. This is done by combining a range of strategies designed to extend the life of an asset and increase its efficiency.
There are of course several ways to handle this, but a strong concept in this context is the ISO 55000 standard. In today's guest column on PLM&ERP News, Bas Beemsterboer, responsible for sales strategy at Hexagon's Asset Lifecycle Intelligence division, discusses around this.
As recently as last summer, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) released new updates to the ISO 55000 series, a comprehensive set of standards for asset management. These standards offer guidance and requirements on the critical areas of value, organizational alignment, leadership, outcomes and benefits of asset management, and measurable improvement and maturity.
"There's a common misconception that ISO standards are designed only for large companies, specific industries, or compliance purposes. In reality, they provide a powerful framework that allows organizations to integrate asset management more effectively with their business needs – an area where "maintenance maturity" or "maintenance 5.0" models frequently fall short," Bas Beemsterboer notes. How then?
"The concept of 'maturity' itself can become a dead-end, causing maintenance teams to pursue maturity milestones that bring limited business value. For instance, maintenance teams may focus on KPIs that demonstrate maturity – like the percentage of preventive interventions – without aligning with the strategic concerns of a CFO or CEO," he writes.
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"Lätt att hamna i en ÅTERVÄNDSGRÄND där UNDERHÅLLS-TEAMEN lägger kraft på MILSTOLPAR med ett BEGRÄNSAT AFFÄRSVÄRDE." Enligt en undersökning av analytikern IDC var ökad operativ effektivitet högsta prioritet för industriorganisationer 2022 (51%). Det är rimligt att utgå från att detta förhållande i huvudsak också gäller idag, tre år senare. Men det är också en tydlig indikation på att effektiv hantering av tillgångars livscykel - som ifråga om fabriksanläggningar, tillverkningslinor, maskinutrustningar etc - är kritiskt för att maximera avkastningen på investeringarna (ROI) i dessa värdefulla tillgångar. Ett relevant begrepp i sammanhanget är Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM), vilket sammanfattar den process genom vilken organisationer håller sina tillgångar i toppskick under hela livslängden. Detta genom att kombinera en rad strategier utformade för att förlänga en tillgångs livslängd och öka dess effektivitet.
Det finns förstås flera sätt att hantera detta, men ett starkt koncept i sammanhanget är ISO 55000-standarden. I dagens gästkrönika på PLM&ERP News diskuterar Bas Beemsterboer, ansvarig för försäljningsstrategi på Hexagons division för Asset Lifecycle Intelligence, kring denna.
Till saken hör att så sent som i somras släpptes de internationella uppdateringarna av ISO 55000-serien, som lite mer detaljerat kan beskrivas som en omfattande standard för hantering av tillgångar (asset management). Standarden styr viktiga områden som värde, organisationskoppling, ledarskap, resultat och fördelar med asset management, samt mätbara förbättringar och mognadsgrad.
”En vanlig och felaktig uppfattning om ISO-standarder är att de är utvecklade bara för stora företag, vissa branscher eller endast för efterlevnad. I realiteten är de ett kraftfullt ramverk som hjälper organisationer integrera hanteringen av sina tillgångar med organisationens behov på ett mer effektivt sätt. Det här är ett område där modeller för “underhållets mognadsgrad” eller “underhåll 5.0” ofta brister,” konstaterar han. Hur då?
”Konceptet “mognad” kan i sig vara en återvändsgränd, som gör att underhållsteamen lägger all kraft på att nå milstolpar som bara ger begränsat affärsvärde. De kan till exempel lägga stort fokus på KPI:er som visar på mogenhet, som hur stor andel av arbetet som läggs på förebyggande åtgärder, men utan att länka det till strategiska frågor som en CFO eller CEO funderar över,” skriver Beemsterboers.
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The New AI ​​Assistant A BOOST. AI is making its mark everywhere in the PLM and ERP world. Last week, it was time for PTC’s field service management (FSM) platform, ServiceMax, to enter the AI ​​paradigm after months of development and beta testing. PTC’s CEO, Neil Baraua, who joined the company in connection with PTC’s 2022 acquisition of ServiceMax, had as his main merit the lift of the solution to become the market leader in FSM. With today’s AI initiative, this “Barua’s Baby” is taken even further, with one key point being that ServiceMax AI can utilize the complete, documented history of an asset stored on the platform, including equipment data, service history and known service resolutions. A reasonable outcome of this is that field service technicians will get more done in less time; undeniably a weighty argument in a world bursting with increasingly complex assets.
ServiceMax is PTC’s cloud and SaaS-based FSM software and plays an important role in the company’s overall concept of product realization, asset and maintenance management, not least linked to building DIGITAL THREADS. In general, the platform thus includes lifecycle services related to various types of assets, such as factory facilities, machine equipment and the like. The platform handles things like preventive maintenance, contracts, mobile apps for technicians and customers, advanced automation of workflows and analytics for asset health and operational profitability. How can AI help with this?
“In many ways,” ServiceMax’s GM, Joseph June, states in a blog post, pointing to, among other things, the transfer of knowledge from retired field service technicians. “It’s one of the biggest challenges our customers face, and traditional methods like manuals and knowledge management systems have not reduced this. So the use of large language models to train a system on a data set was eye-opening. We knew right away that this approach could work for ServiceMax as well. Here we are, the AI-based solution has access to all the data stored in a ServiceMax instance, interacts with technicians through natural language and an easy-to-use chat interface,” June explains.
Technicians can use ServiceMax AI Chat to get answers to questions about a specific job or asset; it can automate manual documentation and scheduling; and review recommendations for predictive maintenance.
The magic happens when these agents combine: work history, scheduling, and knowledge access. ServiceMax AI dynamically selects the most relevant agents to answer a given question, just as an experienced technician can leverage their memory and knowledge to troubleshoot. What really sets this apart is how the agents work together behind the scenes, supported by today’s AI technologies, such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), how then?
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”Nya AI-assistenten ETT LYFT.” AI sätter inte överraskande sina fotspår överallt i PLM- och ERP-världarna. I förra veckan var det dags för PTCs fältservice-plattform, ServiceMax, att mer officiellt, efter många månader av utvecklingsarbete och kund-betatester, göra entré i AI-paradigmet. Till saken hör att PTCs CEO, Neil Baraua, som kom till bolaget i samband med PTCs köp 2022 av ServiceMax, som främsta merit hade lyftet av lösningen till att bli en marknadsledare inom fältservice-hantering (FSM). Med dagens AI-satsning tas denna "Baruas Baby" ännu kliv uppåt, bl a med en huvudpoäng i att ServiceMax AI kan utnyttja den kompletta, dokumenterade historiken för en tillgång lagrad i på plattformen, inklusive utrustningsdata, servicehistorik och kända serviceupplösningar. Ett rimligt utfall av detta är att fältservice-tekniker kommer att få mer gjort på kortare tid; onekligen ett tungt argument i en värld sprängfylld av allt komplexare tillgångar.
ServiceMax är PTC’s moln- och SaaS-baserade FSM-mjukvara och fyller en viktig funktion i den helhetskoncept kring produktframtagning- och underhållshantering som bolaget tagit fram. Allmänt inkluderar plattformen sålunda livscykel-tjänster relaterade till olika slags tillgångar, typ fabriksanläggningar, maskiner och liknande. Plattformen hanterar i detta sånt som förebyggande underhåll, kontrakt, mobilappar för tekniker och kunder, avancerad automatisering av arbetsflöden och analyser för tillgångars hälsa och operativ lönsamhet. Men hur kan AI vara behjälpligt detta?
”På många sätt,” konstaterar SerivceMax’s GM, Joseph June, i en bloggpost, och pekar på bl a kunskapsöverföringen från pensionerade fältservice-tekniker. ”Det är en av de största utmaningarna som våra kunder står inför, och traditionella metoder som manualer och kunskapshanterings-system har inte minskat detta. Så användningen av stora språkmodeller för att träna ett system på en datamängd var ögonöppnande. Vi visste direkt att detta tillvägagångssätt kunde fungera även för ServiceMax. Där är vi nu, den AI-baserade lösningen har tillgång till all data som lagras i en ServiceMax-instans, interagerar med tekniker genom naturligt språk och ett lättanvänt chattgränssnitt och slutför uppgifter genom specialiserade AI-agenter,” förklarar June.
Tekniker kan alltså använda ServiceMax AI Chat för att få svar på frågor om ett specifikt jobb eller en tillgång; den kan automatisera manuell dokumentation och schemaläggnings-uppgifter och granska proaktiva rekommendationer för prediktivt underhåll.
Magin händer när dessa agenter kombineras: Arbetshistorik, schemaläggning och kunskapsaccess. ServiceMax AI väljer dynamiskt ut de mest relevanta agenterna för att svara på en given fråga, precis som en erfaren tekniker kan utnyttja deras minne och kunskap för att felsöka ett problem. Det som verkligen skiljer detta åt är hur agenterna arbetar tillsammans bakom kulisserna, med stöd av dagens AI-tekniker, som "retrieval-augmented generation" (RAG).
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"A MISSION CRITICAL PROJECT," says IFS' CEO, MARK MOFFAT about TotalEnergies HEAVY IFS Cloud and AI investment. An interesting aspect of business IT system developer IFS' strategy is the company's focus on six specific industry segments: Aerospace & Defense, Energy, Construction, Manufacturing, Services and Telecom. Within these segments, the ambitions are extremely high with world-class goals. This applies to the company's locally installed, on premise ERP, EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) and FSM (Field Service Management) suites, as well as for the cloud-based overall approach on the IFS Cloud platform. One of these industry-specific areas, energy, is for example on the oil and gas side, which is of the utmost importance to today's announced news from IFS.
It concerns the energy company TotalEnergies, a giant with over 100,000 employees and operating in 120 countries, which has chosen IFS Cloud as the only platform for management and service of its global asset portfolio. In this, the IFS solution will complement the energy giant's strategic industrial backbone, integrated with TotalEnergies' global business system to increase the performance and profitability of assets.
TotalEnergies produces and markets its products on a global basis - oil and biofuels, natural gas and green gases, renewable energy sources and electricity. In a comment on TotalEnergies' investment, IFS CEO Mark Moffat says that this collaboration with this one of the world's leading oil and gas companies is a mission-critical project:
"Indeed," says Moffat. “It is mission-critical and highly significant in terms of ensuring high-impact asset performance. I am very proud that TotalEnergies has placed its trust in our deep oil and gas expertise and industry-focused industrial AI innovation. TotalEnergies will have an agile and future-ready platform that seamlessly integrates with their global operations.”
Notably, TotalEnergies has chosen a comprehensive IFS.ai-powered solution that leverages the power of the composable, scalable IFS Cloud platform, including EAM and Service within a single data model, to meet the challenge of transforming its asset management process.
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