Rockwell Automation powers 5 source-linked AI deployments documented in AIUseCaseHub, across 3 industries and 4 countries. Documented deployments include copilots.
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Use Cases
5
Industries
3
Countries
4
Hyperscaler mix
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The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) has partnered with Microsoft to launch the nation's first manufacturing-focused AI Co-Innovation Lab as part of a $3.3 billion investment in southeast Wisconsin. The lab aims to connect Wisconsin manufacturers with Microsoft's AI experts to accelerate the adoption of AI and cloud solutions. Located at UWM’s Connected Systems Institute, the lab will serve over 270 Wisconsin companies, including 135 manufacturers, by 2030. Stakeholders such as UWM, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), and partners like Rockwell Automation and TitletownTech are collaborating to support this initiative.The lab will facilitate joint design and prototyping of AI-powered manufacturing solutions, advancing education, research, and industry linkages. WEDC has committed $500,000 to upgrade CSI's facilities and assist entrepreneurship outreach through TitletownTech, a partnership between Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers. The overall goal is to enhance innovation, economic development, and competitiveness of Wisconsin’s manufacturing sector through AI.Microsoft’s direct involvement ensures expertise transfer and solution co-development, focusing on real-world implementations rather than theoretical research. The state government and educational leaders emphasized the collaborative, cross-sector approach as key to capturing this opportunity.By creating an innovation ecosystem, UWM aims to support manufacturers' digital transformation journeys and address sector-wide challenges collectively. This partnership serves as a demonstration model for future industry-academic collaboration around AI and cloud technologies.
This use case highlights how KUKA and Schneider Electric transformed manufacturing operations by leveraging advanced Microsoft technologies. At Hannover Messe 2024, they showcased real-world implementations of AI, IoT, and cloud technologies across the factory value chain—from accelerating robot programming to unifying IT and OT data. By employing solutions such as Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Fabric, Copilot, and Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, they improved quality, resource optimization, employee enablement, and sustainability across manufacturing functions. Multiple partners, including Hexagon, NVIDIA, PTC, and Rockwell Automation, collaborated to deliver intelligent, resilient, and sustainable operations. The demonstration included customer showcases such as BMW Group and addressed pressing manufacturing challenges, including rapid product development, issue resolution, and supply chain resilience.Innovations included new Copilot tools for factory operations, Dynamics 365 Field Service enhancements, and next-gen analytics in Fabric. The initiative demonstrated reduced development cycles, improved technician workflows, and smarter, data-driven decision making.This enabled factories to accelerate programming of industrial robots, apply AI-driven analytics for proactive maintenance, and optimize end-to-end operations. Enhanced employee productivity was achieved through AI-augmented tools like Copilot and Power Platform, extending benefits across HR, field service, and production. Sustainability was also addressed with Microsoft Sustainability Manager, helping organizations monitor and reduce environmental impacts through data and AI-driven insights.Over 130,000 attendees at Hannover Messe experienced nearly 40 live demos and presentations on these AI-powered manufacturing solutions. The showcase illustrated the power of collaboration among manufacturers, technology partners, and Microsoft, making a strong case for AI as a key enabler of industrial transformation.
Procter & Gamble (P&G), one of the world's largest consumer products companies, faced high defect rates and significant losses due to damaged diapers during the manufacturing process of Pampers. To address this, P&G launched the Hot Melt Optimization platform, using proprietary IoT sensors on assembly lines and Microsoft Azure's predictive analytics and edge analytics. The system monitors glue temperature and pressure in real time across 11 US manufacturing plants. Machine learning algorithms, supported by an AI rules engine within Azure, identify and correct anomalies before they cause large-scale production issues. This data-driven approach has eliminated 70% of defective diaper output, resulting in seven-figure weekly savings. The project also improved uptime, reduced scrap, and supported higher production capacity. The system was extensively piloted, using an industrial control database and Grafana for monitoring, before rollout across the network. P&G credits collaboration with Microsoft and Rockwell Automation for enabling these reliability, efficiency, and cost improvements.P&G now demonstrates how predictive analytics, IoT, and edge computing can have significant, measurable impacts on consumer goods manufacturing.
Fonterra, in collaboration with Rockwell Automation and Microsoft, modernized its manufacturing operations by integrating IT and OT data systems using edge-to-cloud digital solutions. The approach leverages cloud-native frameworks on Microsoft Azure and FactoryTalk InnovationSuite to unify operational data from sensors, equipment, and plants. Edge AI models train and process data locally, with insights securely transmitted to Azure cloud for enterprise-scale analytics and reporting. This allows Fonterra to monitor and analyze equipment and site-level data across multiple plants, driving operational efficiency, productivity, and secure, real-time decision-making on a company-wide scale. The platform's security is strengthened by Zero Trust principles, ensuring data confidentiality and integrity throughout the workflows.
Machine Pagès, a French manufacturer of robots for plastics processing, modernized its operations by deploying a Microsoft Azure-based IoT platform. This platform connects industrial robots for real-time operational oversight, predictive maintenance, and enhanced customer service experiences. The system was built in collaboration with Rockwell Automation, who delivered Power BI-powered dashboards, providing detailed machine status monitoring. The architecture aggregates production and sensor data for analytics, enabling the identification and rapid correction of machine performance declines or increased rejection rates.Customers and operators access supervisory functions via a mobile app, which offers clear insights into robot health and operational efficiency. The Azure secure-by-design framework provides security assurances to customers. This transformation improves process reliability, increases automation, and drives customer satisfaction, showcasing the next step in Industry 4.0 for manufacturing.