In a recent Manufacturing Leadership Council executive briefing, Cummins senior leaders and Axion’s CEO Daniel First explained how our partnership is redefining uptime, warranty performance, and proactive customer support in industrial markets. Cummins has long been revered for its uncompromising reliability in the heavy equipment sector, supplying engines and power systems for high-stakes environments such as mining, marine, and rail applications. As digital technologies become ever more central, reliability can be augmented by harnessing disparate operational and service data.

The Stakes of Availability

For Cummins, availability is critical. Mining trucks and heavy-duty engines are major investments, and their performance directly affects productivity and profitability. As technology evolves, so do the number and complexity of potential failure points. Rapid diagnosis and repair become crucial, especially when commodity prices create additional pressures in sectors like mining, marine, and rail.

Transforming Unstructured Data Into Action

Modern machinery generates vast amounts of operational data. But for many years, the challenge was not about the volume - it was about visibility. Cummins faced the same hurdles as many manufacturers. Justin Blomenberg, Customer Experience Leader noted: “There was a point at which an engineer trying to put thousands of lines of data into an Excel spreadsheet and create pivot tables was just no longer efficient... we’ve got all this great data, but we can’t do anything with it. It’s just sitting on a server someplace,” .

Axion's technology bridges this divide by processing massive volumes of semi-structured and unstructured data, including IoT logs, technician notes, and service requests—unlocking latent value from their growing data. From this, faster, more robust decision-making is now possible as actionable intelligence is delivered directly into daily workflows, eliminating weeks of manual investigation.

The Evolution - Why AI Over Traditional BI Tools?

Legacy BI tools were built to analyze numbers, not meaning. Kevin Brittain, Digital AI and Modelling Director at Cummins, emphasized: “There’s just a massive data set… and a lot of our data are not just numbers. They’re details from a wide variety of sources - inputs that lack standardization, differ regionally, and cannot be harmonized with classic analytics tools alone. In fact, Power BI and Tableau reached their limits with Cummins' diverse data.

​Axion’s AI-driven approach, cross-analyzes multiple data types, from sensor metadata to field notes, enabling both granular root-cause analysis and broad thematic trend detection. This new depth of insight equips Cummins to proactively surface emerging issues before they can affect uptime or customer experience.

A Shift from Reactive to Proactive

At Axion, we are leading the future of customer-centric manufacturing. Traditional analytics can only tell you what already happened, but our solutions empower real-time risk identification and mitigation. This means equipment failures are resolved in hours rather than days. We provide confidence that no matter how geographically scattered or linguistically diverse the dataset, issues will be surfaced and resolved promptly—cementing Cummins' reputation for reliability.

"We went from weeks to minutes"

Why Purpose-Built AI for Manufacturers Matters

Generic cloud AI platforms offer broad utility, but manufacturing environments demand specialized expertise. Axion designs solutions that detect, investigate, and counter high-impact field issues alongside custom workflow integration for each industry. Axion’s value comes from two pillars:

• Adoption and Workflow Integration: Axion builds industry-specific workflows supporting quality assurance, engineering, and field service, enabling rapid problem scoping, investigation, and remediation.

• Customized Algorithms and Human Expertise: Axion incorporates industry knowledge—failure modes, operational contexts, and technical nuances—via human-in-the-loop methods, building in early detection to radically improve problem-solving accuracy.

Rather than a one-size-fits-all model, every Axion deployment is built to fit the client’s environment, facilitating high levels of engagement and usability. The result is an agile, rapidly-adopted system that adapts as manufacturing needs evolve.

Quantifiable ROI  -  Millions Saved

Business value must be measurable. Early Axion pilots at Cummins yielded a ten-fold return on investment within the first year, making digital transformation an essential strategic advantage. “We're saving millions of dollars a year right now based on what we're able to do with Axion. And I think that that number is just gonna continue to grow as we get smarter about how to use the tool,” said Blomenberg. Axion drives engineering team productivity, faster customer response, and scalable competitive advantage. Every hour saved on manual analysis translates to hours gained for innovation and strategic decision-making.

"We're saving millions of dollars a year right now based on what we're able to do with Axion."

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Scaling Adoption and Collaboration Drive Competitive Differentiation

Innovation succeeds only when it is adopted. At Cummins, initial skepticism soon gave way to enterprise-wide demand. “We went from a very early stage of, hey, we think we've got this really cool tool, let's roll it out. People tried it and all of a sudden now we're being overwhelmed with requests for additional use... Now it's working for warranty data. Hey, can we apply this over here with this other data set? And we try it and yeah, it works,” said Blomenberg. This surge of adoption is the hallmark of technology delivering true value to the business.

"People tried it and all of a sudden now we're being overwhelmed with requests for additional use…"

Collaboration extends beyond Cummins—OEM partners and end-users are now asking for integration, recognizing the transformative benefits of Axion’s approach. By bringing “a little bit of the best of everybody,” we foster collective problem-solving and drive competitive differentiation.

​Data Security and Industry Impact

Protecting customer and operational data is non-negotiable. At Axion, we embed safeguards and security protocols at every stage—from architecture to day-to-day workflow. Cummins’ rigorous standards for confidentiality and risk management are met and exceeded in our integrated deployments, ensuring trust at all levels of the value chain.

​Axion is proud to support manufacturers across verticals from electronics and aerospace to logistics and consumer products, with each deployment fine-tuned for reliability gains, warranty cost reduction, and iterative product improvement.

Learn More

• Learn how Axion connects disparate data and surfaces insights that help manufacturing teams fix product issues at the first signal here.

• Watch the full video: MLC Data Mastery, Governance & Analytics DC - The AI Advantage: How Cummins is Leveraging Axion

• To start your journey with Axion, and gain the ease of analysis, reveal hidden insights, save millions, and improve customer experience, sign up here to explore a custom demo on your own data.