AI for Industrial Operation and Maintenance: Recognition Challenges with Limited Data Condition

A special issue of AI (ISSN 2673-2688).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2026 | Viewed by 736

Special Issue Editors

School of Mechatronics and Vehicle Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing 400074, China
Interests: fault diagnosis; life prediction methods for electromechanical equipment; deep learning; deep neural networks

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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northeast University, Shengyang, China
Interests: prognostics and health management; domain adaptation; machine learning
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Guest Editor
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang 110168, China
Interests: digital twins; deep learning; remaining useful life prediction; fault diagnosis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have transformed industrial operation and maintenance (O&M), enabling predictive maintenance, fault diagnosis, and performance optimization. However, real-world industrial applications often face significant recognition challenges due to limited data availability—such as rare failure events, sparse labeled datasets, and noisy sensor measurements. These constraints hinder the deployment of robust AI models in critical industrial environments.

This Special Issue invites high-quality research addressing AI-driven recognition challenges in industrial O&M under data scarcity. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Few-shot and zero-shot learning for fault diagnosis with minimal labeled examples.
  • Data augmentation and synthetic data generation for industrial applications.
  • Transfer learning and domain adaptation across different machines or plants.
  • Hybrid physics-informed AI models combining data-driven and knowledge-based approaches.
  • Self-supervised and semi-supervised learning leveraging unlabeled operational data.
  • Uncertainty quantification and explainability in low-data regimes.
  • Edge AI and federated learning for distributed industrial systems.
  • Real-world case studies on AI deployment with limited training data.

We welcome original research articles, review papers, and industrial application studies that provide novel insights into overcoming data limitations in AI-based O&M. Submissions should demonstrate rigorous validation in real or simulated industrial environments.

This Special Issue aims to bridge the gap between academic research and industrial needs, fostering advancements in reliable and scalable AI solutions for Industry 4.0 and beyond.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Jialin Li
Dr. Yongchao Zhang
Dr. Chengying Zhao
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • industrial artificial intelligence
  • predictive maintenance
  • few-shot learning
  • fault diagnosis
  • data-efficient learning
  • transfer learning
  • digital twin
  • uncertainty quantification

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 2367 KB  
Article
A Synergistic Multi-Agent Framework for Resilient and Traceable Operational Scheduling from Unstructured Knowledge
by Luca Cirillo, Marco Gotelli, Marina Massei, Xhulia Sina and Vittorio Solina
AI 2025, 6(12), 304; https://doi.org/10.3390/ai6120304 - 25 Nov 2025
Viewed by 461
Abstract
In capital-intensive industries, operational knowledge is often trapped in unstructured technical manuals, creating a barrier to efficient and reliable maintenance planning. This work addresses the need for an integrated system that can automate knowledge extraction and generate optimized, resilient, operational plans. A synergistic [...] Read more.
In capital-intensive industries, operational knowledge is often trapped in unstructured technical manuals, creating a barrier to efficient and reliable maintenance planning. This work addresses the need for an integrated system that can automate knowledge extraction and generate optimized, resilient, operational plans. A synergistic multi-agent framework is introduced that transforms unstructured documents into a structured knowledge base using a self-validating pipeline. This validated knowledge feeds a scheduling engine that combines multi-objective optimization with discrete-event simulation to generate robust, capacity-aware plans. The framework was validated on a complex maritime case study. The system successfully constructed a high-fidelity knowledge base from unstructured manuals and the scheduling engine produced a viable, capacity-aware operational plan for 118 interventions. The optimized plan respected all daily (6) and weekly (28) task limits, executing 64 tasks on their nominal date, bringing 8 forward, and deferring 46 by an average of only 2.0 days (95th percentile 4.8 days) to smooth the workload and avoid bottlenecks. An interactive user interface with a chatbot and planning calendar provides verifiable “plan-to-page” traceability, demonstrating a novel, end-to-end synthesis of document intelligence, agentic AI, and simulation to unlock strategic value from legacy documentation in high-stakes environments. Full article
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