“LivNSense has invested significantly into delivering IIoT & AI Based Innovations for Metals Industry, especially with focus into Bauxite Refineries and Aluminium Smelter Plants”, Avnish Kumar, Founder and CEO, LivNSense Technologies Pvt. Ltd

Avnish Kumar, Founder and CEO of LivNSense Technologies Pvt. Ltd., has a proven and astounding experience of 25+ years in the Engineering and Information Technology (IT) industry. Being an alumnus of NIT-Durgapur and MBA from the University of Melbourne itself speaks volumes about his expertise and knowledge in the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Mr Avnish is a business and technology leader with extensive experience in IIOT, AI, AI-Vision, Cloud Engineering and Product R&D with a successful track record of innovating “out of box” products.

Mr Kumar kick-started his career by being a part of the R&D team in the Telecommunication Industry and had been with Motorola, before moving on to Infosys. After working for Infosys for some time, he switched over to Wipro Technologies, where he worked for 13 years. It is here that Mr Kumar found his true calling and started his journey in the fields of AI and IoT. To explore these fields more, he started creating connected devices in the year 2010 in association with leading ISV and Semiconductor companies and thus went on to develop one of the leading connected TV products for global markets.

However, while working with these companies, Mr Kumar felt that something was missing. Hence, to fill this glaring gap, he decided to start a company along with some of his colleagues who carried an equally esteemed amount of experience. Keeping his IoT journey and experience in mind, Mr Kumar started scanning the manufacturing sector to look for gaps that could essentially be filled by IoT.

It was a phenomenal experience for us to get an interview from Mr Avnish Kumar and here goes his intends for the global aluminium industry in 2021:

AlCircle: How do you foreshadow the year 2021 for the global aluminium industry after all the pandemonium in 2020 due to the COVID-19?

Mr Avnish Kumar: We have a positive outlook for Aluminium Industry from medium- to long-term demand prospects perspectives. There would be strong demand across many aluminium end-use consumption sectors for example automotive sector. The adoption of EVs is going to further drive aluminium demands.

Technology adoption is going to be one of the key focus areas post Covid-19, from bauxite refineries to aluminium smelters, together will discover new ways of working, with a focus on predictive maintenance, process optimization and efficiency leveraging AI and IIoT technologies.

As rebuilding begins, another important aspect would be sustainable aluminium practices. In the post-Covid world, clean energy is only getting cost-effective and reliable. The aluminium industry would find demand for energy optimization and carbon reduction by adapting to digital technologies.

AlCircle: LivNSense is a pioneering Industrial IoT & AI Platform led venture that serves the manufacturing and production industries. What new inventions in regards to technology LivNSense is planning to deliver in 2021 for the global aluminium industry?

Mr Avnish Kumar: LivNSense has invested significantly into delivering IIoT & AI Based Innovations for the Metals Industry, especially with a focus on Bauxite Refineries and Aluminium Smelter Plants. Some of our products under pilot are as below:

Product: Cognitive Smelter4.0 (an AI-Based Smelter Plant of Future)

1. Real-Time Process Simulation and Control for the consistency of Cryolite/Pot Heat Balance
2. AI-Based Optimization of AlF3 with maximum aluminium yield (Excess ALF3%)
3. Real-Time Monitoring and Control of energy utilization (current efficiency)
4. Real-time monitoring of Mass and Heat balance, for near real-time control of the smelting operations.
5. Purity prediction for quality
6. Predictive Instruments Drift Analysis

AlCircle: What will be LivNSense’s paramount focus in terms of investment and expansion in 2021?

Mr Avnish Kumar: LivNSense will continue to invest in Innovations around Process Industry based Use cases in the Manufacturing industry spanning across various Industry verticals - from Energy to Metals (E2M) – with a focus on Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Lifesciences, Metals and Automotive industries.

Our differentiation is the ability to provide Industry Solutions for Business Problems to reduce costs, increase efficiencies, and maximize productivity and we’ve been able to successfully deliver results in our engagements. Our centre of focus is the Value delivered to the client rather than a product or a solution deployment.

We believe the manufacturing industry is still at the infancy stage of holistically adopting Industry 4.0 across the plant value chain. Though Digitalization initiatives have been taken up in some sectors there’s a need for complete digitalization across various functions (Production, Maintenance, R&D, Quality and QA) to derive the complete benefits as the inter-dependencies across various functions need to be part of the Digitalization planning. As a case example, the value chain requires a holistic AI Strategy that can expand across energy optimization across the furnaces to the downstream operations and taking into account the entire throughput across the value chain.

The production losses today for a mid-size aluminium smelter plant can be in the range of $25M - $50M per annum. The industry needs to move from a system of record approach to the system of Intelligence approach which is where our solution Cognitive Manufacturing 4.0 comes into play as it helps transforms the industry value chain with AI/ML/DL libraries, cognitive Digital Twins and a Market Ready solution.

We will continue our investments in enhancing our state-of-the-art IIoT/AI Platform, iSense4i™ which offers Innovative Productized Solutions with PAAS/SAAS based models to solve complex business problems and offer cost & profit drivers to optimize conversion economics (Cost, Quality, Efficiency) with “Safety first” approach.

AlCircle: Could please share the journey of your state of the art platform iSense4i™?

Mr Avnish Kumar: LivNSense endeavour is to provide Higher Efficiency, Enhanced Value and Predictive Safety to manufacturing users, with the vision of the Factory of Future by “Enabling Predictable Outcomes with AI-Led Platform” through its flagship platform, iSense4i™.

LivNSense “Out of the Box” Industrial AI platform iSense4i™, converts continuous process industry with standard electronic systems into Cognitive Living Equipment, thereby significantly lowering the cost of operations, improving efficiency and reducing the carbon footprint.

The Platform is in development since 2018 and has been successfully deployed for diverse industrial equipment including Steam/Gas/Coker/Induction Furnaces, Process Instrumentation, Welding, AI Vision-based vehicle safety systems and other discrete and process equipment.

We have successfully launched Cognitive MFG 4.0 platform for Chemical, Oil & Gas and Metals Industries to target Reliability, Process optimization and Safety with KPIs driven outcome model.

iSense4i™ opens up a whole host of Digital Revenue Streams for OEMs, MROs, and EPCs with its comprehensive in-built use case library. It leverages real-time streaming data from OT systems and sensors in a distributed mesh network, with a plugin-based messaging layer, with powerful data-crunching capabilities and rules engine that can be easily customized to deliver revolutionary insights for the industry. It starts at the top from the “Enterprise layer”, all the way down to the time-series data points in a shop floor, and from over other sensors inputs like Temperature, Pressure, Energy Feed, Gas Flow, Vibration etc. Given how automated it is, the platform deployment is extremely rapid and becoming even more so as the deployment and configuration process is primarily GUI driven with ready AI libraries for predictive and prescriptive outcomes.

AlCircle: What is the insight of LivNSense “out of box solution” for 2021?

Mr Avnish Kumar: Our "Out of the Box solutions” are Market Ready solutions built through strong domain expertise, IoT and AI-led Platform with Digital Twins and offered as PAAS/SAAS business models.

Our out of box solution - Cognitive MFG4.0 uses cognitive computing, the Industrial IoT, and advanced analytics to optimize manufacturing processes in ways that were not previously possible, with uniquely positioned IP led products:

1. Cognitive MFG4.0, An AI-enabled Edge to Cloud Platform, with a balanced combination of SmartEdge™ connectors for plug-play connectivity with IT-OT systems, soft sensors and AI platform for the sensor to outcome journey - a cloud and devices agnostic with on-premises, hybrid and cloud deployment options. It provides cross-functional insights and predictive foresight by creating "live digital twins" of the collected data along with predictive, prescriptive outcomes.

2. ViCAS™, AI-Vision led Augmented Intelligent Safety Platform for collision avoidance and overall workers safety. The solution supports both moving vehicles and stationary vehicles. The product is successfully piloted across customers in India and the USA in construction, metro construction and other areas. Developed patented IPs for real-time proximity detection with a high level of accuracy.

3. WELDSENSE™, an award-winning patented product, is aimed at helping the industries to move from an ‘automation centric production’ to a ‘knowledge-centric production’. WELDSENSE™ creates value through machine learning insights - insight into WPS compliant welding quality, production/efficiency, personnel qualifications, consumables, and much more.

4. SmartEdge4.0™ - Real-time data connectivity with EdgeAI  – industrial IoT connectivity to securely connect to the production line assets and capture data in a central time-series repository from Plant historians, SCADA/DCA systems using SmartEdge™  Connectors

Our solutions convert continuous process industries with standard OT/Electronic systems, into Cognitive Living Equipment and are an enabler for the “SMART Factory of Future”.

AlCircle: How was LivNSense performance in 2020 and how do you forecast 2021?

Mr Avnish Kumar: We added 5 new customers during 2020 despite Covid-19 across the industry – Oil & Gas, Lifesciences, Metals (Aluminium), Construction and Automotive across the USA and India.  

LivNSense launched CCR4.0 (Cognitive Chemical Reactors 4.0) for lifesciences industries in 2020 and won a national award from Aegis Graham Bell (and Niti Aayog) for the AI-Innovation.  We also expanded our footprint into workers health and Safety for the industries.

In 2021, we are focusing to expand our footprint across Petrochemicals and Metals (Aluminium) with the launch of Cognitive Furnace and Cognitive Smelters products with a focus on energy optimization, carbon emission reduction and improving yield. We are targeting to cross $1M revenues in 2021 and market expansion into Europe and the Middle East. We have started operations in London, UK and Sales Presence in Oman to cater to these regions.

AlCircle: Which industrial sector, according to you, will drive the growth of aluminium in 2021?

Mr Avnish Kumar: We believe that the growth of the aluminium industry would be driven by the Automotive and Construction sectors.

The aluminium sector would go through an exciting time in mid to long term perspective with soaring consumption mainly due to electric vehicles as one of the key sectors. The estimated increase in manufacturing and sale of EVs by 2030 - for every 1Mn vehicles sold the aluminium demand will be 0.25M tonnes, with an average aluminium content of 250 kg/EV. Therefore, the demand for aluminium will skyrocket as the manufacturing and sale of electric vehicles increase.

The second sector would be construction, which is primarily driven by the development of smart infrastructure and the creation of alternate manufacturing hubs across the globe (like India, South East Asia and Africa). As rebuilding begins with a focus on Green Compliance for sustainability, the aluminium industry can find an opportunity for a low-carbon variant of metal.