SOURCE: Kay Sever | December 31, 2025
After being on an AI learning curve for the past several months, I have decided it’s time to write about my observations, insights and possible ways to selectively apply AI within the optimization framework to create a better result. Therefore, our topic for 2026 will be the intersecting points of Optimization and AI as they relate to productive assets, the organization and the management system. We are told that AI will “know all”, so we expect to find it helpful no matter the question asked or problem to be solved. I will state now that I have found areas where I believe AI cannot assist decision-makers when solving problems or improving performance. These areas involve optimization metrics, practices and strategies at the management level. You are free to decide if my points are valid as you progress on your AI integration journey.
In this first article, I am sharing some of the topics we are likely to cover. I developed this list based on “knowns” I have discovered in my optimization work over the past 25 years. As additional questions arise, we will do our best to cover them.
Section 1: General overview topics that apply to any company:
- We hear about which AI systems are leading the pack. These rankings change frequently. How are AI systems “scored”/ranked best to worst? What do those metrics mean to us at this point in the world-wide AI development and implementation?
- Our assumptions about AI capabilities are shaped by the information currently output by different AI systems. Are our expectations for how AI can be used to increase profit valid?
- Is there a good fit for AI in some functional groups but a poor fit in others? If so, we will dissect AI’s strengths and weaknesses as they pertain to financial performance, workforce collaboration and management credibility and leadership strengths.
- How does AI define optimization? Given that definition, can the information it shares be linked to the causes for hidden operational and financial losses at your site?
- If your goal is achieving optimization/”best possible” performance, can AI share information that will help you achieve that goal?
Section 2: Management topics that apply to any company that produces products:
- Does AI have access to metrics for optimum values for production equipment? If not, can it tell you how to develop those metrics?
- Can AI discover/identify problems that cause production losses or higher costs?
- Can AI calculate financial losses caused by problems with equipment or people?
- Can AI identify organizational inefficiencies that are causing unreported financial losses? Similarly, can AI identify organizational siloes?
- Does AI understand how the management system’s design and/or execution can cause financial losses?
- Can AI identify management system weaknesses that may cause operational or financial losses?
- Can AI help you influence leaders to incorporate different data in their decision-making processes?
- Can AI give feedback on budget targets that exceed process capability?
- Can AI reveal excess hidden capacity within a production value stream?
- Can AI assist with finding the optimum bottleneck in a production value stream so expansion capital is applied at the right place?
- Can AI help build collaboration between departments?
- Can AI tell management teams what they need to change to the way they communicate or what they communicate to unite people and reduce financial losses?
Next month we will begin with Section 1 topics. I will share my early insights on how AI could interface with the production value stream, the organization and the management system. I will also research some of these questions on AI and share the information that is returned.
Kay Sever is an Expert on Achieving “Best Possible” Results. Kay helps executive and management teams tap their hidden profit potential and reach their optimization goals. Kay has developed a LIVESTREAM management training/coaching system for Optimization Management called MiningOpportunity – NO TRAVEL REQUIRED. See MiningOpportunity.com for her contact information and training information.
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- About Us
Kay has worked side by side with corporate and production sites in a management/leadership/consulting role for 35+ years. She helps management teams improve performance, profit, culture and change, but does it in a way that connects people and the corporate culture to their hidden potential. Kay helps companies move “beyond improvement” to a state of “sustained optimization”. With her guidance and the MiningOpportunity system, management teams can measure the losses caused by weaknesses in their current culture, shift to a Loss Reduction Culture to reduce the losses, and “manage” the gains from the new culture as a second income stream.
