How to Run a 30-Day Pilot of an AI Knowledge Tool

A pilot should answer one question: does this help our engineers fix things faster? Many don't, because nobody decided in advance how to tell. Here is a simple way to run a 30-day trial of an AI knowledge tool so that you end up with a decision, not an impression.

Before you start

Pick one site and a few problem machines

Choose the equipment that stops most often, or that has the most calls to experienced people. Three to five machines is plenty.

Gather the documents you already have

OEM manuals, SOPs, maintenance logs, drawings, notes. Don't tidy them first. If the tool can't cope with your real documents, you want to find that out in week one.

Write down ten real questions

Ask your engineers for the questions they actually ask: "How do I clear fault E14?", "What's the torque on the main bearing housing?", "How do I start this machine up from cold?" Include a few hard ones. These become your test.

Take a baseline

For those ten questions, record how long it takes to find the answer today, and who gets called. A rough figure is fine.

During the 30 days

Let engineers use it on real faults as well as the test questions.
Check the sources. Every recommendation should point to the document and page it came from. Open them and verify. Any tool that can't show its source shouldn't be trusted with a safety-related procedure.
Note the misses. Where was the guidance wrong, incomplete or missing? That tells you as much as the hits.
Try capturing a fix on video or in a note, and see whether the next person can find and use it.

How to judge it

At the end of the month, ask:

For the ten questions, is finding the information faster than the baseline?
Did engineers choose to use it without being asked?
Were the sources reliable when you checked them?
Did it reduce calls to the experienced people, on and off shift?
Would the night shift have benefited?

If the answers are mostly yes, you have a case to move forward. If not, you've lost a month, not a year.

What to avoid

Piloting across the whole company at once.
Starting with a data-cleaning project.
Measuring only enthusiasm.
Skipping the baseline.

Our trial

The Machine Mesh trial is free for 30 days. It includes up to 10 users, 300MB of uploads and full onboarding. After 30 days you stop with no fee, or move to a paid installation. If you don't continue, your data is deleted completely and immediately.