The News: Cloud enterprise software company IFS announced in late August that it had signed an agreement to acquire Falkonry, a California-based industrial AI software company that provides automated, high-speed data analysis to the manufacturing and defense industries. The acquisition is expected to be completed in Q4 2023. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Press Release with details of the acquisition is available on the IFS site.
IFS to Acquire Falkonry, a Provider of AI-Based Anomaly Detection Tech
Analyst Take: IFS announced in late August that it had agreed to acquire industrial AI software provider Falkonry, with an expected completion date sometime in Q4 2023. The acquisition follows the June 2023 announcement of the IFS acquisition of Poka, a provider of connected worker technology focused on enhancing the productivity and safety of factory and field workers.
Falkonry Acquisition Shores Up IFS’ Capabilities with AI-Generated Anomaly Detection
IFS offers its customers a wide variety of solutions targeted at industrial customers, including enterprise asset management (EAM); enterprise resource planning (ERP); manufacturing execution system (MES); planning, scheduling, optimization (PSO); field service management (FSM); and enterprise service management (ESM). IFS provides enterprise simulation and AI-based scheduling and optimization capabilities through each of its solutions, and the Falkonry acquisition will provide customers with even more functionality and visibility into asset-intensive operations.
Falkonry’s automated self-learning anomaly detection solution continuously monitors large volumes of IoT data from industrial or manufacturing equipment or environments to discover and analyze unusual behavior, which can be used to pinpoint the causes of failures, inefficiencies, defects, or other problems. The solution is designed to democratize intelligence, enabling operational users to quickly take actions to prevent asset downtimes, monitor and respond to quality issues, address emissions violations, and automate process and workflow improvements, without needing to involve data scientists or programmers.
The addition of Falkonry’s self-learning anomaly detection solution to IFS’ existing enterprise capability is in line with the company’s strategy of leveraging AI across its entire product platform to provide end-to-end intelligent insights that improve worker, process, and asset productivity. This addition should provide IFS with a significant market advantage, as the company believes it will be the only vendor with leading ERP, EAM, FSM, and ESM functionality now able to provide AI-generated anomaly detection to drive automation and optimization of processes and workflows across its entire platform.
Adding Functionality Without Complexity
The Falkonry acquisition will provide IFS with a scalable, low-cost solution that can be applied to a wide variety of industrial applications and use cases. The AI-enabled anomaly detection solution does not require data scientists and is technology-agnostic, allowing it to be deployed across a range of equipment and control systems.
Anomaly detection has been a key method of addressing a wide range of conditions within a manufacturing or industrial setting that might affect quality, operational efficiency, speed, waste, and accuracy, among other attributes. The solution captures data taken from a system to train itself on what to expect when operations are normal. Once trained, if the solution detects data variations or anomalies that fall outside the norm, Falkonry provides an alert that either generates an automated response or is sent to a human operator for further investigation.
Falkonry has a long history of operating and using AI in this market, having been founded in 2012, and is well regarded. It has worked with customers that have strict operational and data security requirements, including defense organizations such as the US Navy and US Air Force, as well as commercial manufacturing customers, such as a Ternium, North American Stainless, Harbour Energy, and SSAB, among others.
The combination of IFS cloud with Falkonry, and the earlier acquisition of Poka, makes IFS a compelling choice for industrial and manufacturing companies seeking to infuse AI into their operations.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Image Credit: IFS
Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is VP & Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
