Artificial intelligence is opening new possibilities for European manufacturing, helping companies improve efficiency, quality and sustainability while supporting workers in increasingly complex industrial environments.
The WASABI project is demonstrating how this potential can be translated into practical applications through Digital Intelligent Assistants (DIAs). Designed around human-AI collaboration, these assistants provide workers with information and guidance directly within their daily activities, supporting decision-making, reducing errors and making industrial knowledge easier to access.
Rather than replacing human expertise, WASABI places workers at the centre of digital transformation. Its goal is to make conversational AI technologies easier to adopt and manage, particularly for small and medium-sized manufacturing companies.
Digital Intelligent Assistants in Manufacturing
Manufacturing environments generate large amounts of information, but accessing the right knowledge at the right moment can still be challenging for operators.
Digital Intelligent Assistants provide a conversational interface through which workers can interact with industrial information and receive support while carrying out their tasks.
Within WASABI, this approach has been tested in different real-world manufacturing environments. The industrial use cases cover sectors ranging from personal protective equipment and automotive technologies to metrology, medical technology and surgical instrument sterilisation.
Despite their different requirements, the use cases share a common objective: using AI to strengthen workers’ capabilities and improve industrial processes.
CROMA: Reducing Errors in Surgical Instrument Management
CROMA, specialised in the sterilisation of surgical instruments, has integrated the WASABI assistant into its packaging and waste management activities.
The Digital Intelligent Assistant supports employees during everyday operations, helping simplify tasks and reduce errors while also identifying opportunities for the redeployment of surgical instruments.
The implementation has contributed to shorter packaging times and fewer process errors. At the same time, it supports the identification of potential new value chains for instruments that might otherwise be discarded.
EPISCAN: Improving Production, Quality and Workforce Training
Spanish manufacturer EPISCAN has applied the WASABI solution to the production of personal protective equipment (PPE), with the objective of improving manufacturing quality while increasing productivity and reducing waste.
The Digital Intelligent Assistant has also been introduced into employee onboarding and training activities, providing workers with support as they become familiar with production processes.
The use case has resulted in shorter training times, fewer data-entry errors and improved time management. It has also strengthened the company’s ability to detect disruptions while contributing to waste reduction throughout the manufacturing process.
REINOVA: Faster Access to Industrial Knowledge
For automotive company REINOVA, one of the main challenges addressed by WASABI concerns access to laboratory information.
Instead of navigating complex information systems, employees can interact with the Digital Intelligent Assistant using natural-language questions to retrieve the information they need.
Making industrial knowledge easier to access has helped reduce alarm-management cycle times and process errors. The approach has also contributed to greater employee confidence, satisfaction and productivity.
TRIMEK: Supporting Accuracy in Metrology Operations
Metrology specialist TRIMEK has implemented WASABI in two areas: supporting operators during alignment activities on coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) and improving calibration management for verification artefacts.
The assistant guides workers throughout their activities, helping them carry out procedures more accurately and consistently while reducing the workload associated with complex operations.
The results include greater accuracy and consistency, reduced execution time and workload, and a lower risk of alignment errors. Better calibration management can also contribute to extending the useful life of metrology artefacts.
Beyond operational improvements, the use case demonstrates how intelligent assistance can support employee satisfaction and skills development.
SILK-BIO: Digital Assistance for Medical Technology Manufacturing
The potential of Digital Intelligent Assistants is also being explored in medical technology manufacturing.
KLISBio, a med-tech company developing regenerative medicine implants based on the properties of silk fibroin, has used the WASABI assistant to support operators throughout its production processes.
The solution assists workers in performing their tasks and completing production documentation, reducing administrative effort and helping minimise operational and reporting errors.
The implementation has contributed to greater task efficiency and operator satisfaction, together with fewer reporting and operational errors and shorter production cycle times.
From Industrial Experiments to Scalable AI Solutions
The WASABI use cases demonstrate how conversational AI can move beyond experimentation and become a practical tool for everyday manufacturing operations.
Across the different industrial environments, Digital Intelligent Assistants are supporting activities such as quality improvement, waste reduction, workforce training, information management, process optimisation and production documentation.
Testing these solutions across multiple sectors also provides valuable insights into their interoperability and replicability. Understanding how the same underlying approach can be adapted to different production environments is essential for making advanced AI technologies more accessible to European manufacturers and SMEs.
Keeping People at the Centre of Industrial AI
The experience of WASABI highlights an important dimension of artificial intelligence in manufacturing: its value does not come only from automation.
AI can also act as a digital colleague, providing workers with relevant information and assistance when it is needed and helping them perform complex or repetitive activities with greater accuracy and confidence.
By combining technological innovation with human expertise, Digital Intelligent Assistants can support a manufacturing environment in which workers are better informed, processes become more efficient and industrial knowledge becomes easier to use.
Through its real-world use cases, WASABI is showing how this model of human-AI collaboration can contribute to a European manufacturing sector that is increasingly digital, productive, sustainable, resilient and human-centred.