Use Cases — How to Use It, When
This section is not a feature list but a guide. It picks out moments you actually run into in the field and describes what to put into PlantPulse AI and what you get back. If this is your first time, it's fine to read just the one page for your own job.
How to read this
Each use case is laid out in the same five columns.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Who | Who this use case fits |
| When | The moment you'd reach for this |
| What you put in | What you type to Ask, the photos you attach, the screen you tap (Suggestions · Automation) |
| What you get | The shape of the answer, along with the evidence that comes with it |
| Caution | Where the result may differ from expectation — especially that if it's not in the data, the answer is "I don't know" |
Ask in your own words
You don't need to shorten things to something like "look up temperature tag." Say it the way you'd actually describe the situation — "Unit 3's mold temperature has been climbing all morning, what's going on?" — and the AI picks the right lookups, analysis, and search on its own.
Pages by role
| Role | Representative use cases | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Operations · Field | Today's tasks, asking current status, reading gauge photos, checking today's work against customer PO slack, handing off watch items to Automation (condition monitoring) | Operations · Field |
| Maintenance | Diagnosing equipment with a flood of alarms, finding past actions, reading nameplates, verifying recurrence, approving maintenance request drafts | Maintenance |
| Quality · Engineering | Drawing tolerances and position/limits, asking about design change impact, correcting AI judgments (dismissal reason · accept/reject · effect) | Quality · Engineering |
| Drawings — Shipbuilding · Heavy Industry · Plant · Defense | Asking for the latest drawing revision before work, comparing revisions, finding tolerance locations, asking about a region in the viewer, tracing drawings by part number, upcoming features | Drawings |
| Production · Planning · Plant Manager | Weekly report (Automation) and summarizing the Done tab, asking about customer POs at delivery risk, predicting order completion, delivery impact and recovery plan · approving reminder drafts | Production · Planning |
| Safety · Training | Asking about isolation/permits before work, finding that scene in a training video, asking by voice | Safety · Training |
| Automation — 14 templates | Condition monitoring, morning arrival briefing, shift handover notes, recurring failure causes, nagging reminders for open incidents, weekly equipment report, delivery-risk POs | Automation |
What's common to every use case
- You see the evidence alongside the answer. Click the sources below the answer (documents · drawing location · queried tags) to check them. Documents, drawings, and videos open in the right-hand panel while the conversation stays open. A number without evidence is a number you shouldn't trust.
- If it doesn't know, it says so. If something isn't in the indexed documents, you get "not found"; if a photo is blurry, it refuses to read it. The principle is that an empty answer beats a made-up one.
- AI does not operate equipment. Action drafts · maintenance requests · recovery plans are drafts only; nothing reaches the source systems unless an approver writes a reason in Suggestions and approves it. Who can approve is governed by permissions → Access Control
- Some features must be turned on. Drawing search, video · voice (video search and ask-by-voice), and some analysis tools are off by default. Use cases that need them are marked "Admin setup required" — see Configuration · MCP Gateway.
- There are three things you do here — Ask · Suggestions · Automation. Asking a question and getting an answer is Ask; approving and closing out something the AI found is Suggestions; handing off a recurring check is Automation. The sidebar has, from top to bottom, New Chat · Suggestions · Automation, and Ask lives under New Chat and the home screen. The old «Today · Diagnosis · Resolution · Report · Watch» screens no longer exist → Copilot Screen Map
- Digital Thread · MES · ERP connections are optional. Even without a connection, all three screens work as is; once connected, Ask and Automation gain more tools to use (today's work · delivery dates · readiness · recovery plans) and Suggestions gains more draft types. Use cases that need this are marked "Installation with Digital Thread connected."