Petrochemical companies gather to share AI upgrade experience as the petrochemical industry moves towards internationalization

As a petrochemical hub, Kaohsiung has played the role of the backbone of other industries over the years. Amid multiple global uncertainties facing the petrochemical industry in recent times, including net-zero emissions and global economic slowdown, digital transformation has become an issue that brooks no delay. At Crossover Talks IV: upgrAIde, the Kaohsiung session of the Crossover Talks forum series organized by Profet AI several days ago, many heavyweight experts in the petrochemical field from the industry and academia, including Asia Giant Engineering Co., Ltd., Eternal Materials Co., Ltd., Funeng Co.,Ltd. (a subsidiary of Formosa Plastics Corp.), and National Cheng Kung University, revealed that when petrochemical companies adopt AI, strong management support, interdisciplinary and cross-organizational integration, as well as efficient AI tools and partners will be the key to successful transformation in the petrochemical industry.

Profet AI, which has gained a firm foothold in the development of the AI application market for the manufacturing industry, launched the Crossover Talks forum series this year, with the aim of creating a cross-industry, cross-generation, and interdisciplinary digital transformation communication platform. Jerry Huang, CEO of Profet AI, stated that Kaohsiung is home to a petrochemical industry with global competitiveness and many clusters of conventional industries. At the Kaohsiung session of Crossover Talks, Kun-Ta Chuan, Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Cheng Kung University, JY LIN, Head of the Department of Global Production of Specialty Chemicals, William Chu, Assistant Vice President of Funeng Co.,Ltd., and Paul Hsu, CEO of Asia Giant Engineering Co., Ltd., which was also the co-organizer of this event, were invited to share their practical cases and experience in hopes of helping petrochemical companies accelerate their transformation process and enhance their global competitiveness.

Digital transformation becomes the key to coping with challenges amid the international situation and labor shortage

William Chu pointed out that the current international ESG trend is also a trade barrier from the perspective of trade. For enterprises going global, green energy has long been a strict requirement that they need to meet. The petrochemical industry must carry out energy transition as soon as possible so that they are not excluded from the international market after reaching the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. On the other hand, JY LIN said that his company adopted smart manufacturing in 2018 and began using AI for big data analysis in 2020 to create predictive models. As a result, they significantly reduced the number of calibration and began improving and optimizing manufacturing processes. Moreover, amid the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and travel challenges over the past few years, AI settings for production data such as temperature and pressure that can be transmitted online in real time also serve as a critical factor in the continuous production of overseas products.

Paul Hsu shared that in addition to challenges in the international environment, labor shortage in the industry is also a problem that companies urgently need to overcome. When faced with difficulties in recruiting talents and retirement among senior employees, Asia Giant Engineering Co., Ltd. began to think about how to turn experience into data through AI adoption and pass experience and skills down to other employees using AI. As explained by Paul Hsu, all companies aim to achieve maximum results in the shortest possible time. Only by identifying the right tools and the right partners can traditional industries speed up AI adoption and successfully embark on the road to transformation.

Three elements on the road to transformation for companies: Management support, interdisciplinary and cross-organizational dialogue, and efficient AI tools

Professor Chuang shared his observations on digital transformation among various companies. He emphasized that to engage in digital transformation successfully, a company first requires support from an insightful management team, followed by effective dialogue and collaboration between departments, fields, and even companies. As AI projects at different companies may involve different departments and fields, different teams are required to carry out dialogue on topic exploration and processes to build mutual trust, thereby identifying the most suitable approach for an enterprise.

JY LIN added that in addition to management approval of AI investments, choosing the right tools is also the key to AI adoption among companies. While collaborating with Profet AI, Eternal Materials and Asia Giant Engineering managed to address issues arising from AI settings in just a few weeks, and the model established using Profet AI’s AI tool was more accurate those that created with their own algorithms. This tool has not only considerably reduced the time and resources used to train internal AI personnel, but also helped them create an AI environment quickly and enabled them to provide data to their management teams for reference efficiently.

William Chu offered some suggestions about energy transition for enterprises. He explained that as ESG covers a wide range of issues, the petrochemical industry, which has long been one of the largest electricity consumers, can start with energy management when considering ESG compliance. Funeng mainly provides companies with energy management services in hopes of assisting the petrochemical industry in successfully transitioning to green energy. William Chu added that companies should first examine their own data to learn about their current status and starting point before adopting AI technology to think about how to optimize their internal production processes.

About Profet AI

Profet AI is an industrial AI software company, provides an end-to-end no-code AutoML platform that empowers industry domain/IT experts to rapidly build high-quality prediction models and deploy industrial AI applications to solve their everyday production and digitization challenges.

Profet AI is widely adopted by world’s leading customers across industries, including the world’s leading EMS, Semi-OSAT, PCB, IC design House, display panel and materials solution providers. We leverage industry leading companies’ successful cases to benefit our customers to implement AI within one week.

Source: Profet AI