QAD | Redzone launches Manufacturing Intelligence, outlines how AI agents go to the shop floor

QAD | Redzone launched Manufacturing Intelligence, which is designed to work across manufacturing processes, workflows and systems, as it brings together its enterprise resource planning system, AI agents and new features for frontline workers and global trade. The company also said it will integrate Nvidia's technologies into its platform.

In the big picture, QAD | Redzone is planning to use AI to move its platform from a system of record to one that revolves around action from the back office to the shop floor. Manufacturing Intelligence is built on data from 6,000 manufacturing plants and will incorporate Nvidia's NVDinoV2 vision foundation model for quality inspection. QAD | Redzone said the plan is to use Nvidia's NVDionV2 model and a downstream reasoning layer to explain what is detected and what it means for production orders, quality and workflows.

QAD | Redzone said it will also explore Nvidia technologies across cloud, data center and edge to optimize inference. The company added that it is evaluating Nvidia NeMo Switchyard to connect manufacturing AI decisions to local models for lower costs and data sovereignty.

The company's strategy was outlined at its Champions of Manufacturing conference in Chicago. QAD | Redzone certainly has the components to carry out its plans. Manufacturing Intelligence brings together QAD | Redzone's Adaptive ERP, Redzone Connected Workforce, Supply Chain and Champion AI to connect systems, people, processes and enable better decisions to drive value for manufacturers.

According to QAD | Redzone, Manufacturing Intelligence will do the following over time:

• Combine the company's manufacturing expertise with manufacturing data, workflows and AI to identify changes.
• Provide tools to understand the implications of changes and correct responses.
• Extend QAD | Redzone's technology stack into the broader ecosystem across multiple environments so customers don't have to rip and replace systems.

Sanjay Brahmawar, CEO of QAD | Redzone, said manufacturers "don't need more AI for the sake of AI. They need better outcomes, to protect margin, respond faster to disruption, improve execution, and to help their people perform at their best."

“We've been totally focused around speed to value how to get those outcomes into the hands of customers. Think through the agents, not from the perspective of building solutions, then finding a problem. It's really about what is that particular outcome that we can achieve and help a customer to achieve,” said Brahmawar, in a conversation with Constellation Research CEO R “Ray” Wang.

QAD | Redzone will phase in its Manufacturing Intelligence vision with a set of tools and practical steps to meet customers where they are, said Brahmawar. Brahmawar said QAD | Redzone will preview Manufacturing Intelligence in demos, workshops and a test environment at its Champions of Manufacturing conference with availability in the Spring of 2027.

Manufacturing Intelligence also builds on QAD | Redzone's 2025 advances. Here's that recap:

• QAD | Redzone aims to fuse AI, process intelligence to reinvent manufacturing
• QAD | Redzone acquires Kavida.ai to add procurement AI agents
• Constellation ShortList™ Product-Centric Cloud ERP

As for QAD | Redzone's launches to kick off Manufacturing Intelligence, here's a look at the new offerings.

Champion Assist, a copilot that will work across QAD | Redzone's Adaptive ERP system. New persona-based Champions are focused on procurement, sales, sourcing and accounts payable. Champion Assist is a conversational interface inside of Adaptive ERP.

The new Accounts Payable Champion can manage invoice-to-payment workflows. Accounts Payable Champion can pull invoices from email, portals and EDI and read them and check against purchase orders and receipts. Invoices that match go to payment and mismatches go to a human to resolve.

QAD | Redzone said invoice processing costs can be halved. The company added that the AI agent can work across multiple ERP systems including SAP, Infor, Epicor and QAD ERP.

Lynx Champion, an agentic AI application that speeds up ERP modernization by analyzing legacy customizations and speeding up deployments.

QAD | Redzone said Lynx Champion is designed to understand legacy customization in ERP systems and the business logic behind them to decide what to modernize, retire and rebuild.

According to QAD | Redzone, the approach with Lynx Champion is to retire technical debt and encode the processes that led to the customization. The company said Lynx Champion has created clear paths for more than 60% of flagged customizations and compressed upgrade schedules by 25% to 60% relative to traditional consulting and re-implementation projects.

A set of purpose-built frontline AI agents in QAD | Redzone's Champion portfolio. Roles include: Line Lead, Ops Manager, Inspector, Kaizen, Yield, Recognition, and Skills agents. These frontline AI agents are enabled by integration between Redzone, QAD ERP and other systems.

Additions to the frontline Champion AI agents roster include:

• Line Lead Champion, which flags upcoming changeovers early and drafts ready-to-use work orders for recurring downtime.
• Operations Manager Champion to turn ideas into action quickly.
• Inspector Champion, which uses OCR and contextual AI to reduce defects and rework.
• Kaizen Champion, which focuses on continuous improvement.
• Yield Champion, which prevents quality issues.
• Recognition Champion, which surfaces highlights of exceptional team and individual performance.
• Skills Champion, which assesses worker performance and recommends targeted coaching and training.

QAD | Redzone said it has also launched a set of new Implementation Agents to speed up time to value. The frontline agents are bolstered by integration partners including AWS IoT.

QAD | Redzone said it has expanded integration between Connected Workforce and QAD Adaptive ERP in a better together strategy. Under the integration plan, QAD | Redzone will use Redzone to connect frontline workers with the intelligence from QAD's ERP platform. Champion AI is the glue between the two systems.

Boomi is powering the integration in the QAD | Redzone portfolio as well as frontline and backend systems. For instance, operators will be able perform maintenance with equipment data, keep better tabs on inventory levels and teams can work from on version of the truth.

With the integration, QAD | Redzone said manufacturers can adopt components in phases.

A dedicated Champion focused on global trade compliance. Trade Compliance Champion is a set of specialized AI agents for product classification and document automation. QAD | Redzone said global trade compliance has become a boardroom issue due to tariffs and volatile trade rules.

Manufacturing and AI

In his conversation with Wang, Brahmawar said manufacturing is well positioned to use AI to run 24/7 at machine scale. AI agents can boost productivity dramatically.

“Manufacturers traditionally have been more conservative, so they're not the ones to rush to adopt the first, let's say, the first fad in technology. But they do think through how technology can help them achieve,” said Brahmawar. “You are literally managing constraints to the best possible outcome. And so they do really think about how AI can support managing of those constraints.”

The QAD | Redzone CEO also noted that the massive push in manufacturing in the US are also going to be driving AI agents and more intelligence in manufacturing.

“We're agents talking to agents. We started building agents for humans, but we're now at machine scale. And machine scale means that machines are talking to machines. Humans are managing machines, machines are managing humans and we have a very interesting kind of digitized environment,” said Brahmawar.

Brahmawar added that QAD | Redzone is seeing traction for AI agents in procurement, inbound processes, and working with multiple supply chain partners. The other promising area for manufacturing intelligence is the shop floor to run inbound flows, optimize production and plan.

The era of manufacturing intelligence will also likely mean more jobs as the US scales its manufacturing efforts. “We don't see a reduction in manufacturing jobs based on AI. There’s a deficit. AI can help address that capacity shortfall. There's a lot of ambition around manufacturing and in what the US wants to do,” said Brahmawar.