By Rebecca Gibson |
How can we solve the toughest critical infrastructure and manufacturing challenges? According to Guillaume Boué, head of strategic technology partners at AVEVA, the answer lies in radical collaboration. But what is radical collaboration and how will it help the industrial sector to build trustworthy, scalable AI systems that will transform how it operates? Boué shares his insights.
Can you explain the concept of radical collaboration and why it will help solve challenges?
Radical collaboration is about sharing data across departments, companies and extended ecosystems of business partners, bringing a multidisciplinary approach to problems and tapping into systems thinking. It’s a departure from the old way of working, where key stakeholders are sealed off in protective silos. Radical collaboration is built on the recognition that sharing information doesn’t diminish its value but rather multiplies it.
Collaboration unlocks synergies across the operational lifecycle and sparks innovation where disciplines intersect. Above all, radical collaboration is absolutely critical for delivering trustworthy, scalable AI – grounded in industrial realities.
What does radical collaboration look like in practice? Why is it essential for effective AI implementation and scaling?
Our partnership with Microsoft exemplifies radical collaboration. Together, we help customers build industrial AI roadmaps rooted in domain expertise, operational realities and shared innovation.
As Noel Phillips, senior vice president of the Americas at AVEVA, puts it: ‘We’ve learned that the future of industrial AI isn’t about forcing new technology into old systems, it’s about leveraging existing investments while helping customers imagine what comes next. Across the world, critical operations continue to run in tightly segmented, on-premises environments, delivering essential functions for very good business reasons. AVEVA brings deep industrial data-management expertise, while Microsoft brings cloud and AI leadership. Together, through our bold partnership, we’re unifying these worlds and unlocking data that has been untapped in those segments for decades. Leaders like Dominion Energy, among many others, are proving what’s possible in transforming data into intelligence that powers the next era of industrial innovation.’
Our Industrial AI Assistant – an AI-powered tool that helps engineers make complex operational decisions in real time – is one of the clearest examples of radical collaboration in action. It’s a joint innovation developed through CONNECT Visualization Services and powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, combining AVEVA’s deep understanding of industrial data and its specific context with Microsoft’s AI and cloud leadership.
This co-development shows what happens when domain expertise and AI converge. Engineers can now ask complex operational questions in natural language and get context-aware answers drawn directly from live source data, leading to faster and smarter decisions.
Do you have any examples of how radical collaboration is driving transformation across industries?
There are many examples but a notable one is Methanex, the world’s largest methanol producer. The company implemented CONNECT Industrial Intelligence platform, built on Azure, to unify vast operational data from six countries, enabling AI agents and machine learning models to deliver real-time insights for faster and smarter decision-making at scale. Since leveraging AI, Methanex has made faster data-driven decisions, significantly reduced integration costs and complexity, and improved plant performance through predictive analytics.
Another example is food and beverage producer Nestlé, which partnered with AVEVA to enhance the manufacturing process for Nesquik and Ovaltine by addressing inefficiencies in manual agglomeration. As a result, Nestlé reduced powder waste by 10 per cent – equivalent to saving one jar for every 10 produced – while also improving product uniformity, decreasing spillages and accelerating global scalability.
Food and beverage manufacturer Nestlé has cut waste and improved product quality since working with AVEVA to minimise inefficiencies in the manual agglomeration process for its Nesquik and Ovaltine products.
AI projects often fail because of silos between operational technology (OT) and IT. How can enterprises bridge that divide and create the right foundation for industrial AI?
Failed AI projects often share the same root causes: industrial IT and enterprise IT teams working in silos; companies chasing the next shiny technology without building the right foundations; and organisations treating industrial time-series data as if it were just another enterprise dataset by ignoring its operational context and physical-world specificity. In truth, streaming industrial data is the heartbeat of operations – and it demands a fundamentally different approach.
Companies can bridge this divide by securely integrating their existing systems – SCADA, historians and enterprise resource planning – with cloud-native architectures. This allows data to flow freely and meaningfully. It’s about unlocking what’s already there and connecting it to modern AI frameworks and enabling OT and IT collaboration.
AVEVA was recognised as Microsoft’s 2025 Manufacturing Partner of the Year. What does the award signify for the future of industrial AI?
This award is a shared achievement that reflects our commitment to innovation and customer-centric implementation. It recognises AVEVA’s leadership in delivering transformative industrial and manufacturing solutions powered by Azure. However, this achievement is not the finish line – it’s a launchpad. The work our teams do is transforming how industrial organisations harness data and AI. Every customer success story strengthens an ecosystem where partners and customers thrive together.
If you had to give one piece of advice to industrial leaders embarking on their AI journey, what would it be?
The most successful AI journeys start with collaboration, not disruption. Focus on securely connecting your existing systems, unifying your data and fostering cooperation across teams and partners. No company can transform alone. Radical collaboration isn’t just a strategy; it’s the foundation for scaling AI that truly works in the real world.
Find out more about radical collaboration by following Guillaume Boué’s new ‘PartnerTalk: Radical Collaboration in Action’ blog series
Discover more insights like this in the Winter 2025 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox.