9.25.19
Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry, today announced the general availability (GA) of its Infor Coleman AI (Artificial Intelligence) Platform for embedded machine learning models. The platform provides the speed, repeatability and personalization needed for enterprises to fully operationalize AI – and it serves as a key building block for Infor’s Intelligent CloudSuite.
Today’s enterprise AI environment is characterized by a myriad of developer-centric tools, which are designed primarily for experimental projects. With these tools, it is difficult to implement complete projects — and services quality and speed are painfully slow. As a result, the practical use of AI and machine learning in the enterprise remains low.
With the Infor Coleman AI Platform, enterprises can take advantage of industry-specific starter packs (templates) to accelerate development of repeatable big data, machine learning-based AI projects. These templates are highly personalized and tailored to specific customer data and usage patterns. Further, they are designed for use by “citizen developers,” who don’t need extensive data modeling skills.
When combined with Infor OS (Operating Service), enterprises can simplify and speed up the entire implementation process — giving them the ability to roll out complete, production AI projects in less than six weeks. Infor OS is a cloud operating service designed to bring business processes and AI together and offer operational insights that were never accessible to a business before.
Through its Infor Coleman AI Platform and Infor OS, Infor delivers the Intelligent CloudSuite, a complete solution to automate, anticipate, predict and inform. This gives enterprise customers the business insights they need, when they need them.
Flint Hills Resources, which produces a diverse range of fuels and ingredient products for many household goods, is starting to use the Infor Coleman AI Platform to better manage its inventory by relating predictive maintenance on its refining and manufacturing equipment to better cost-effective stocking patterns — all the way down to the part and component level.
Chris Dahl, CIO of Flint Hills Resources, said, “The combination of the Infor Coleman AI Platform and Infor EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) can give us better insights into our asset health and help transform the way we do maintenance at our facilities.”
Rick Rider, Infor senior director of product management, Infor OS and the Coleman AI Platform, said, “With other solutions, you have to figure out how to use AI with a multitude of other technologies. We bring an enterprise AI ensemble together in a single platform — through which we can provide a complete Intelligent CloudSuite.”
In addition, Rider said, “the Infor Coleman AI Platform is unique in that it is designed specifically for business users and is built upon a foundation of industry-specific data. At any given moment, it can help with executing tasks and recommending next-best sales offers, or predicting maintenance issues and adjusting production schedules accordingly.”
The Infor Coleman AI Platform value proposition
The Infor Coleman AI Platform is a pervasive machine learning platform that operates below an application’s surface. It mines data and uses powerful machine learning to help improve processes such as inventory management, transportation routing, and predictive maintenance.
The Infor Coleman AI Platform represents a giant leap forward for AI at scale — incorporating deep reservoirs of network data to help serve the needs of human workers and to help make connected devices smarter.
The platform is specifically designed for non-technical, business users and is built upon a foundation of industry-specific data, and it also provides the extensive tooling needed for a well-established machine learning practice. The Infor Coleman AI Platform modeling environment is “digestible,” in that it doesn’t require as complex a skillset as other AI tooling, nor is it designed to require an exhaustive service engagement. Customers can better understand, relate, and trust the output, given the focus on user experience and embedded connectivity to the entire applicable enterprise suite.
Organizations can work to gain a competitive advantage by creating models from their proprietary data and experiences, and the Infor Coleman AI Platform enables them to pass along advantages, up and down stream, using their AI insights.
The Infor Coleman AI Platform is named after the inspiring physicist and mathematician Katherine Coleman Johnson, whose trail-blazing work at NASA helped humans land on the moon.
