Flutura – Trailblazing Industrial AI Sphere

Krishnan Raman- Flutura

Technological progress has brought many possibilities and applications that are not only changing the reality but also changing the face and functioning of many industries and sectors. The innovation of AI has been nothing less than a revolution changing the decade-old functioning and methodologies. The applications of AI are unfolding now and then as it is relatively new plus its uses expand over different horizons and planes such as Marketing, Automation, etc.

AI and its applications are being applied and used in many industries which is not only saving valuable man-hours which can be used for other crucial tasks, also AI is being used in Manufacturing, Product Design, Retail, Value chain, Supply chain, etc. which changes the game altogether and brings the industries and sectors involved leaps ahead into the future. The applications and new possibilities of AI are unraveling and its uses are equally thrilling and exciting.

Flutura has been leading the sphere of innovation, providing highly sophisticated, advanced yet easy to understand and use applications and solutions in AI. They are the most looked after brand when it comes to Industrial AI solutions which are custom-made and perfected in every detail to make sure their clients receive a wide range of highly innovative and latest solutions all under one roof. Their competition in the market is far behind their learning curve and the respect and name of Flutura in the Industrial AI space needs no introduction.

They specialize in products and services, business models and operational sustainability, etc., and much more making them unparalleled in the industry and leaders of the innovation curve in the AI industry as a whole.

In conversation with the Co-founder and CEO at Flutura, Krishnan Raman. Let’s hear more about Flutura, its service offerings, and its entrepreneurial journey.

Tell us about Flutura and its early days.

Flutura is a visionary in Industrial AI solutions and Cognitive Digital Twins, providing transformational financial outcomes to our customers. ‘Flutura’, means butterfly, inspired by nature’s greatest transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Flutura impacts financial outcomes for our customers, by powering operational excellence and reliability using AI.

Flutura is on a mission to deliver a billion dollars of outcomes to its customers by 2024 through our Industrial AI solution Cerebra. Cerebra today powers mission-critical operations for over 5000 industrial facilities worldwide which include chemical plants, metals and mining operations, oil and gas fields, large-scale transportation, and other heavy industrial assets. Several visionaries and marquee industrial leaders like Shell, ABB, Honeywell, TechnipFMC, Patterson, Henkel, BJ Services, ST Engineering have trusted us as partners in their digital journey.

Operational transformation is a larger canvas where digital transformation is taking prominence. As the industrial revolution enters a new era where industrial companies are forced to rethink – their products and services, business models, and operational sustainability; the key underlying theme which would differentiate the winners versus the rest would be around their Agility to respond to the ever-increasing demands of their customers in a hyper-competitive and connected world.

Digitization and how well companies use their data to drive impactful financial outcomes will become the lifeblood of their operations. Just to put things in perspective S&P predicts that 75% of the S&P 500 will be replaced by 2027. Our world is changing and changing fast.

Flutura was the forerunner in the Industrial AI space and hit the market at a fairly early stage. It took some serious efforts to educate customers of the value that the solutions deliver and get them to pilot the solutions leading to some challenging initial years. However, today those investments are paying off and Flutura is uniquely positioned as a leader to harness the massive growth potential that Industrial AI and Digital Twin markets offer in the post-COVID-19 era. 

A lot of decisions in the industrial space have traditionally been driven by a few experts and tribal knowledge was considered mandatory. Instilling the awareness and confidence to see how decision-making can be sharply solved at scale and democratized using algorithms was a task we had to overcome. Flutura cracked this extremely well with a transparency-led approach and today it uniquely differentiates us from its competitors. 

Flutura is a visionary in Industrial AI solutions and Cognitive Digital Twins, providing transformational financial outcomes to our customers.

Tell us about the services Flutura offers, your plans on taking them ahead and any new additions to the arsenal.

Our product Cerebra has the industry’s most comprehensive suite of tools and technologies to address the end-to-end AI value chain. The suite consists of out of box Digital Assistants for advanced operational diagnostics and prognostics, Cerebra Edge for enabling closed-loop actions in facilities, Vision-based diagnostics for non-intrusive detection of process deviations, and finally Engineer’s Workbench for empowering reliability and production optimization engineers to leverage data science for complex data-driven engineering analysis.

 Most of the products in the market don’t have the intricate features needed for deploying and industrializing AI solutions at scale. These features enable us to provide accurate insights when scaled up. Every subsystem within Cerebra supports massively parallel processing and distributed computing for supporting mission-critical and reliable deployments.  

Flutura has invented and engineered advanced pattern recognition algorithms to harvest critical operational signatures, the industry’s first cognitive digital twin to contextualize the industrial facility to the most granular extent to enable value impacting digital assistants, and last but not the least low-code / no-code self-service workbenches for engineers to calibrate and fine-tune the system to realize the intended business benefits.

Many of the industrial companies have large-scale operations, assets, and customer bases. But very few companies have real-time insights into last-mile operations across various business processes. This is where we see the next level of efficiency improvements. 

There are several themes we have identified in terms of how this space would evolve. A few of them are – increased investments will happen to measure microeconomic factors influencing operations, focus on system-level optimization, investments into self-service tools, investments into cognitive assistants, investments into lowering carbon footprint, and many more.

This space will continue to evolve, and we believe every step from now on will be towards Large Scale Autonomous Operations which will become all-pervasive and AI will take center stage. You can imagine the disruption which will happen through this evolution. Cerebra’s product roadmap has been aligned to the above themes and we have identified the key capabilities needed for the next 5 years. 

Flutura is super excited to introduce Engineer’s Workbench a game-changer for the industry to empower reliability and production optimization engineers to leverage data science and AI for data-driven engineering analysis. This tool would eventually help companies to industrialize data science adoption within the enterprise via cognitive assistants to support operational decision-making and set the stage for autonomous agents.  

Flutura’s customers have used the tool for performing a wide variety of analyses such as root cause analysis for valve failure, calibration of a fuel injection system for optimizing fuel consumption, alarm rationalization, pipeline integrity analysis, operating and avoidance range baselining, and many more. Flutura sees infinite possibilities in front of them.

Please tell us about your professional experience.

I have had the privilege of spending a very delightful and extremely nourishing three decades in the Technology industry. These decades have been the most fabulous period for the Information Technology industry as the industry and the players have had to grow at breakneck speed while embracing change like never before. The very essence of what we call the VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous), constantly learning, adapting, leading, keeping my resilience and conviction, were all something I experienced every day in my career. 

I have been fortunate to cover a wide spectrum of organizations and worked for global technology majors IBM and Microsoft, each uniquely different in the cultural context and the principles of management. Learned the threads, nuances, and agility of start-ups serving Mindtree. 

My formative years were with IBM, learning the ropes of technology, sales, creating the right value and impact with customers. Served 16 years as a key member of the Executive Leadership team at Mindtree. Built and led the Global Digital Business as the Executive Vice President and established Mindtree as a significant partner for Global clients to “Make Digital Real” for their businesses. 

Till 2019, was leading Digital and Services in Microsoft India and as a member of the India Leadership team driving the transformation and adoption for customers to the Cloud and Digital world. The current journey with Flutura is most exciting as I have been fortunate to be in the hot area of AI & IoT, massively impacting customer outcomes and working with an exceptionally talented and passionate team.

At every point in time, I have had the empathy to understand and know what exactly is going through the mind of the person I am dealing with.

Krishnan Raman- Co- Founder & CEO

Your take on employee relations and the factors that make your team unique.

Health, both physical and Mental. Regular yoga & meditation. For their knowledge enhancement, we encourage them to join courses and participate in different competitions, events, etc. Teams are super talented and their talent makes them unique.

I love working with people and my DNA is tuned to be caring and emotional! So, every team I work with has been incredibly special to me and has been my extended family. I believe I have always made every team member and every stakeholder feel they can be just themselves, with their best and the “not so best” aspects of them. Giving the team the freedom to operate, make mistakes, imagine and experiment is crucial to me as a leader. 

At every point in time, I have had the empathy to understand and know what exactly is going through the mind of the person I am dealing with. Every team of mine has always been eager to create a “larger vision” than ordinary, passionately giving their best, and looking at the business with their heart, head, and mind equally. Creating the ‘smell of the place” that is just as comfortable as your home to share, fight, help … just be Authentic and let others bring their authenticity… that has made all my teams unique. 

Flutura focuses a lot on the mental and physical fitness of its team members. For this, we regularly conduct yoga and meditation sessions. We also try to bring in curated knowledge material to expand their potential.

Your views on the rat race going on in the market.

I have never seen my profession or the corporate as a rat-race at all. If you step into the corporate world with a view of owning a title before so-and-so age, you fail to absorb the learnings, and even if you learn, you fail to enjoy the journey. 

I have truly loved every work I have done. My genuine care and passion for people have stood me well equally with my teams as with my customers. I stay curious every day to learn something new and the mad world of technology constantly excites me. It is not the nuances of technology, but the use of it and how well it can impact our businesses and life that keeps me moving with cheer every day.  If one sees this as a rat race and gets into the complicated chakravyuh of comparisons, we might make money and perennially be unhappy! The best is to just be curious and enjoy every moment of success or failure equally.  

Did You like the post? Share it now: