# Industrial Intelligence

## What It Is
Industrial intelligence is the structured use of plant signals, process features, rules, and optional AI methods to improve operational visibility, diagnosis, and decision support in real manufacturing environments.

## Why It Matters
Factories often already have data, but the data is fragmented, inconsistent, difficult to interpret, or disconnected from process meaning. Industrial intelligence creates a usable engineering layer on top of the available signals.

## Core Variables
- machine states
- process variables
- alarms
- contextual run data
- derived KPIs
- abnormality indicators
- baseline comparisons

## Typical Industrial Problems
- raw data without process meaning
- weak visibility into drift before alarms
- poor link between process behavior and operator action
- disconnected signals across machines
- overreliance on static dashboards without diagnosis

## Engineering Approach
Industrial intelligence should be:
- lightweight
- edge-friendly
- grounded in engineering logic
- compatible with legacy plants
- modular enough to add AI later without replacing deterministic rules

## Related Docs
- [./er-labs.md](./er-labs.md)
- [./process-diagnostics.md](./process-diagnostics.md)
- [./system-architecture.md](./system-architecture.md)
- [./extrusion-ai-profile.md](./extrusion-ai-profile.md)