Artificial intelligence arrives in Andalusia to taste oils and design counters and clothes

“AI has found a place in many sectors of traditional industry,” says Isabel Hormigo, technical manager of the ICT sector at CTA. The most widespread uses range from after-sales service to energy saving or predicting breakdowns in production plants.

Generally speaking, the goal is to automate tasks with intelligent assistants. “Anyone who does not integrate AI will lose their position in relation to others», warns Antigo. The director of AI, data and digital experience of Ayesa, Víctor Fernández, agrees with this diagnosis: “not using AI will generate a gap equivalent to that of not having Internet”.

AI at Cosentino

One of the traditional companies that has innovated the most with these technologies is materials manufacturer Cosentino. This Almería company uses AI to develop products, manage vacations for its more than 6,000 employees or place orders. You will soon integrate it to analyze the market for potential customers.

“It is not seen as a passing fad or a complementary technology, but as a structural and transformative change in the history of humanity,” explains Rafael Domene, CIO of Cosentino. The group pursues a triple objective: reduce costs, increase efficiency and generate real value for the company and customers.

Currently, Cosentino has identified six areas where AI can have a significant impact. The first is product development, which they have opted for ‘Slab designera tool based on generative AI that allows you to develop models and designs very quickly. Once the original is created, the system reproduces variations that add realism to the design. They are also exploring the use of AI to improve quality and reduce production variability.

The second area is linked to employees. The company has developed several agents that allow it to manage basic worker tasks such as vacations or the arrival of new staff. AI has also found its way into manufacturing, where it helps monitor processes to improve quality.

One of its first projects was the automation of the credit process. Previously, blocked orders could be delayed up to 22 days, but now, thanks to your agent, the delay has been reduced to less than 24 hours.

In financial management, AI has become an ally for automating repetitive ordering, invoicing or profitability analysis tasks. In the commercial field, “Clar” is an assistant that accompanies humans in their daily lives and, soon, the company will add ‘C-Brain’, a network of agents who will scour the market for potential clients.

THE intelligent agents They will be even more protagonists of Cosentino’s future.

Collaborate with humans

This multinational is moving towards an “Autonomous Enterprise” model in which processes are managed autonomously by these agents and are capable of collaborating with each other and with humans.

In the Almería company it is hoped that in a few years traditional systems will be replaced by AI-based logic layers with intelligent interfaces that will help users do their jobs more efficiently.

“We are building a digital workforce that complements and, in some cases, replaces human tasks,” says Domene. To do this, they chose Microsoft and Celonis as technology partners. “AI is not seen as a threat, but as an opportunity to grow, innovate and drive change in the sector,” concludes the CIO of Cosentino. The company’s strategy is based on three fundamental pillars: Leverage existing tools to transform the business; train teams and redefine roles so that they understand and use AI; and reduce reliance on traditional backend systems, opting for more universal and adaptable solutions.

Manage Silbon stock

Silbon is another traditional company that applies AI in its daily life. This fashion brand uses these tools to manage the stock of its 150 stores. “We went from being reactive to demand to proactive because we now have a sales forecast,” CEO Pablo López told ABC.

In practice, this means that before, if a size M shirt was sold, another one was automatically sent to replace it. Now, if this item of clothing took months to sell, it is not replaced. On the other hand, if the XL size sees strong demand, its stock is increased.

Artificial intelligence has also become another companion of design and production teams. “The creative part is still real, but our team can now work faster,” says the CEO.

These tools are an ally in preparing next season’s collections and allow you to simulate models with different garments, by modifying the prints. “This does not replace human talent, it serves to enhance it and allows it to work with more possibilities,” explains the founder of this Cordoba company.

Analyze trends

Another area in which it has revolutionized is that of sales analysis. Until recently, the product manager studied information in a long Excel to draw conclusions about current trends. Now, an automated tool offers real-time information on the most requested items and their characteristics. That is, it is able to obtain conclusions about the best-selling clothes as well as the best-selling colors, sizes, patterns or textiles, among other parameters of interest that help prepare the next collection.

The next step will be the incorporation of internal virtual agents to support new employees in their incorporation process at Silbon.

Acesur’s digital “nose”

Extra virgin, virgin or lampante. Giving the right name to an olive oil is not always easy. Certified experts capable of cataloging them are rare and, in addition, they usually have traffic jams because the olive harvest is concentrated in a very specific time of the year.

To speed up this process, the largest bottler of this liquid gold, Acesur, has created a “digital nose” which makes it possible to obtain more than a hundred characteristics and parameters of each oil sample. The tool has been fed with hundreds of thousands of data and, now, thanks to a “machine learning” algorithm, it helps its professionals to label the product in the corresponding category. Its results coincide more than 93% with the tests carried out by professional tasters. “We never eliminate the human, we provide them with all possible information so that they can make decisions,” Acesur’s director of digital transformation, Óscar Lozano, explains to ABC.

Three million investments

This is not the only application, this oil group has invested more than three million euros to create its own digitalization tools and thus reduce automatic tasks. Over the last ten years, exports have exploded and its catalog has diversified with more than 3,000 references. To maintain supplies in its 120 countries, the group needed more precise control and better production planning in its dozen factories (spread across Spain and the United States).

In this context, Acesur has decided to train all staff in Generative Artificial Intelligence and to develop its own agents. Today, the oil company has automated part of the Human Resources workload and created different tools to speed up purchases or predict the most appropriate time to acquire liquid gold. Knowing that 90% of the cost of a bottle corresponds to the oil inside, the innovation team shaped “Predcamp”, a system capable of estimating the harvest that will be in the olive grove the following season, with data available since January.

Digitize the cellar

Other innovations are linked to the digitalization of cellars to know the exact level of oil reserves at any time as well as temperature or pressure, among other characteristics.

Likewise, he launched a software to make the most of the production capacity of your factories. This new development opens the door to smaller series of its products, thus making it possible to market different personalized formats.