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AI is highly effective at removing manual work in manufacturing software — reading enquiries, extracting data, summarising history and flagging unusual cases. Decisions with commercial, safety or contractual consequences, such as final prices, margins and engineering feasibility, should still rest on deterministic rules and human approval. The best systems use AI around a reliable rules engine, not instead of one.
Key takeaways:
■ Use AI to remove typing and surface risk; use rules and people to make commitments.
■ Anything you must explain to a customer, auditor or regulator needs a traceable basis.
■ The EU AI Act adds transparency and oversight obligations that affect how AI features are designed and disclosed.
■ Ask vendors exactly what their AI decides, and what it only suggests.
Where AI genuinely earns its place:
Task | Why AI works well here |
|---|---|
Reading RFQs, emails and PDFs | Converts unstructured requests into structured data for review |
Suggesting a starting configuration
| Speeds up the first draft; a person confirms it |
Flagging unusual quotes | Spots margins, discounts or quantities outside normal patterns |
Summerising history | Turns hundreds of records into a readable account |
Structuring technician reports | Turns a photo and a short note into a complete job record |
Surfacing maintenance patterns | Highlights assets with rising failure frequency |
Where AI should not decide alone:
■ Final prices and margins. You must be able to explain every figure to the customer. That requires rules, not probability.
■ Engineering feasibility. Whether something can be built safely is an engineering judgement.
■ Contractual terms. Commitments on delivery, penalties and warranties need accountable human approval.
■ Safety-related maintenance decisions. Deferring work on critical equipment must be a considered, recorded human choice.
The design principle: intelligence around a reliable core:
A dependable approach separates the system into two parts. A deterministic core — parametric BOMs, pricing formulas, validation rules, approval limits — produces every number the business commits to. An intelligence layer around it reads inputs, suggests, summarises and warns. People review what the intelligence layer produces and approve what the core calculates.
This is the design behind AI-powered Elevate and AI-powered Simplix: AI removes the manual effort, while prices, rules and approvals stay explainable and auditable.
What the EU AI Act means for buyers
The EU AI Act introduces obligations that depend on how an AI system is used and the risk it carries, including transparency requirements — such as informing people when they are interacting with an AI system or seeing AI-generated content — that apply from August 2026. For most quoting and operations tools used in manufacturing, the practical implications are:
■ Know which features in your software use AI and what they do.
■ Ensure people are informed where they interact with AI or receive AI-generated content, as required.
■ Keep human oversight over consequential decisions.
■ Ask vendors for documentation of their AI features and their approach to compliance.
Organisations in the UAE and GCC selling into Europe, or using European-built software, will increasingly encounter the same expectations. Take specific legal advice for your situation.
Questions to ask any vendor claiming AI
1. What exactly does the AI do in this product?
2. Which outputs are suggestions, and which are decisions?
3. Can every price or recommendation be traced to its basis?
4. Where is our data processed, and is it used to train models?
5. How do you measure whether the AI features are accurate?
Frequently asked questions
Can AI generate manufacturing quotes automatically?
AI can speed up quoting considerably by reading enquiries and suggesting configurations. The final price should come from explicit pricing and BOM rules that can be explained and audited, with approval by a person for non-standard work.
Does the EU AI Act apply to manufacturing software?
It can, depending on how AI is used and the level of risk. Transparency obligations apply from August 2026. Most quoting and maintenance uses are not high-risk, but buyers should understand which features use AI and take legal advice where needed.
Is our data used to train AI models?
It depends on the vendor. Ask directly, and confirm the answer in the contract and data processing agreement.
AI that you can explain
AI-powered Elevate and Simplix use AI to remove manual work while keeping prices, rules and approvals transparent. We are happy to walk through exactly what the AI does — and what it does not.
Written by
Nilanjan Mukherjee
Chief Executive Officer
