AI for Engineers

“I felt I didn’t know enough about AI – it is important to understand how it can benefit our industry and specifically the engineering team. There is no doubt some of our competitors are using AI to assist their engineers. I can see the benefits AI can provide to any business, including ours. 

“Like any organisation, we need to provide value for money to our customer. In our case, it’s primarily in regard to providing sustainable, reliable and efficient rolling stock. One way we can do that is to reduce downtime on trains and we have digital teams working on that. I believe AI also has a role to play. For example, in my area of railway maintenance, we collect a lot of data, and as an industry we haven’t really pushed and progressed what we do with that data. However, in my organisation we have a dedicated digital team that are already working on the many ways to utilise this information.

“One of the issues we face is that some of the data is within text fields in large reports. At the moment, we have to read through all the reports to check them. I wanted to know if Large Language Models (LLMs), such as Chat-GPT, could help us to analyse hundreds of pages of text and categorise these thousands and thousands of lines of data. Ideally, we would just drag and drop a file into a programme that would pick out the right information to indicate when a train might fail. That’s the blue sky thinking.”

“It was clear that the two-day course was well-received by everyone who attended. The trainer, Ali Parandeh, is highly knowledgeable and engaging. He has the ability to make complex subject matter accessible through useful analogies and descriptions. There were certainly areas that really made you think. For example, the way LLMs work was fascinating but also really useful for me to understand the possible applications in our industry.

“We looked at specific AI tools and platforms that are commonly used in the rail industry, and the practical application of AI in engineering contexts, such as predictive modelling, data analysis, data-driven decision making and AI implementation strategies. These are all directly relevant to Porterbrook’s goals of improving efficiency and reducing costs.

“The course also examined the ethics behind the use of generative AI – it was interesting to note how some industries are hesitant to adopt AI while others are already using it on a daily basis. I think the latter will become commonplace in my sector.

“We looked at some of the bad press AI gets and how warranted it is. For example, the belief that people with no domain knowledge will become experts in other fields needs to be outweighed by the actual real-life benefits Chat-GPT can give when used by the right person, in the right way. This context and understanding really helped me to understand how, where and when we might be able to make best use of Chat-GPT, without putting our proprietary knowledge at risk.”

1 “It will open up the possibilities for AI in your business and enable you to understand what is out there.”

2 “It will displace some of the common fears of AI and help you see which tools will be useful to you, both in your professional and personal life.”

3 “You need to do this course because it’s not about getting ahead of your competitors, it’s about keeping up.”

“Porterbrook were very supportive of me going on the course and I presented a report on it to my colleagues. It generated good interest, and we will examine how we can use AI best. It’s important for any business to ensure there is value for money when using any new technology. The business case on AI is certainly gaining momentum.

“The trainer recommended other courses for those who were interested and I have now completed the Foundation Python for Mechanical Engineers, also delivered by Ali. I’m sure our industry already sees the potential of AI and will likely make some bigger commitments in the coming years. I want to keep my own knowledge in this area up to date. I can see the benefits AI can offer our engineering team.”

1. “Have a play with a few of LLMs such as Chat-GPT, Gemini or Claude, so that you can see what they are capable of.”
2. “There is some pre-course work, mostly watching a few YouTube videos. Some of them are quite in depth and they will definitely benefit your prior understanding.”
3. “Turn up with an open mind and enjoy it. At times, the content is rather like hearing about quantum physics for the first time – it opens up new worlds.”

“We are looking at what we can do as an organisation. It might mean we would need to change how we collect some of our data and the type of data we collect so that it can be used in AI workstreams.

“There are potentially huge benefits, such as reduced maintenance costs and decreased downtime through using more predictive maintenance and less unpredicted maintenance. It may also improve our decision-making capabilities during the early stages of projects.

“Adoption of AI tools could be beneficial not just for engineering but all departments – procurement, finance, HR and so on. However, making sure we can do this safely, without compromising sensitive business information is critical.”