As we go through the evolution of working with data, not enough can be said about the importance of its transformation into information and knowledge. Collectively, information and knowledge enable businesses to make the most of past experiences and learnings to set benchmarks, measure success and find solutions. Information can power better understanding and by effectively processing that knowledge, we can extract useful insights to make the best decisions.
Efficiency, consistency and objectivity are crucial to decision-making especially when we are managing complex and safety-critical technologies and products. Rolls-Royce has consistently driven a culture of capturing and documenting information. Further, robust knowledge management processes such as knowledge codification, retrieval, and discovery capabilities are required to foster and develop a robust and data-rich environment.
Knowledge-powered decision making involves a continuous cycle of harvesting, storing information, yielding action recommendations and feedback. A big part of this is ensuring that the information is interpretable and usable by both humans and AI. That way, we can anticipate possible scenarios and undertake optimal planning based on current knowledge. Our ultimate vision is to foster an environment where humans and AI are in complete partnership to fulfil tasks and deliver solutions.
Rolls-Royce is currently developing AI-powered technology that will support the way users capture and visualise relationships between entities, thus broadening their understanding of a domain. By analysing vast volumes of stored data, the AI will outline the relevant networks linking related aspects and functions. This will facilitate a more comprehensive overview by displaying contextual information clearly and intuitively.
One such example is its ability to map out relevant specifications, parameters and components, which can then be used to identify and check against the appropriate standards to avoid any potential deviations in our engineering projects. By automating this process, the team can save time as well as ensure completeness and consistency.
Often used to store interlinked descriptions of entities, Knowledge Graph could also help in the exploration of new concepts and is being explored internally by businesses across the technology sector. Through automated reasoning, this could potentially speed up the research and analysis process in discovering new business areas. With a potentially significant contribution to make in streamlining workflows and advancing decision-making, the Knowledge Graph technology is set to empower organisations’ use of data further.
Dr Terence Hung, Chief of Future Intelligence Technologies at Rolls-Royce said, “Expanding our work with AI while growing our digital ecosystem is a journey we have been on for a long time. The benefits these technologies have delivered to our business have further motivated us to explore new ways to optimise our workstreams. There are huge opportunities to be discovered through digitalisation and AI, not just for Rolls-Royce but also for society in general.”