{"id":91,"date":"2026-05-03T09:43:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T09:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/projects\/kobai\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T15:38:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T15:38:44","slug":"kobai","status":"publish","type":"tb_project","link":"https:\/\/www.tb-software.ch\/ai\/en\/projects\/kobai\/","title":{"rendered":"KOBAI \u00b7 Distributed company knowledge becomes findable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Award:<\/strong> Digital Game-Changer Award 2024, <strong>st place jury and 1st place audience<\/strong> \u00b7 <strong>Customer:<\/strong> Schott Pharma Schweiz AG \u00b7 <strong>Time period:<\/strong> 2023-2024 \u00b7 <strong>Status:<\/strong> in productive further development, roadmap 2026 for broader use within the group<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The problem you probably know<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In every technical organization, knowledge accumulates over years, distributed on local drives, in SharePoint, in emails and attachments, in tickets, in manuals, in Excel files, in wikis, in old project folders, and in the minds of individuals. A question about a component, machine, or specification typically starts a chain of phone calls, tickets, meetings, and supplier inquiries, although the information usually already exists somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The result: the same questions are asked multiple times, documents are created anew even though the knowledge is already there, and employees bind each other in research chains. At Schott Pharma, in the pitch <strong> minutes to 4 hours of time loss per employee per day<\/strong> quantified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What KOBAI solves<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>KOBAI is a <strong>semantic search and answer layer over the distributed data stock<\/strong> of an organization. It does not replace existing systems. It makes the existing knowledge discoverable, combinable, and verifiable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An employee asks a question in natural language. KOBAI searches the released sources meaningfully (not just keyword-based), provides a comprehensible answer, and links the original sources. The answer is not made up but derived from actually found evidence, with source cards, evidence status (<em>well documented<\/em>, <em>partially documented<\/em>, <em>no sufficient source<\/em>) and version information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A concrete example from practice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Initial situation at Schott Pharma:<\/strong> Camera 4065 on the inspection machine AK2000 is discontinued. A replacement must be evaluated for inventory and new machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Without KOBAI:<\/strong> Machine technology requests hardware procurement. Search in old and new folder structures remains incomplete. SAP, KnowHow Crew, ServiceNow, archive, and project folders are checked separately. Several people are involved, a ticket is passed on, discussed in meetings, suppliers contacted. In the end, new documentation may be created although parts of the knowledge were already available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>With KOBAI<\/strong>, question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Is there an alternative to camera 4065 for AK2000 and what documents support that?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>KOBAI points to similar projects, displays SAP order information, finds archive and SAT documents, links relevant tickets or change requests, names open points for pre-study and approval, and marks which sources are old or not approved. From half a working week becomes a solid pre-study on the same day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What employees experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Search by meaning instead of just keyword-based.<\/strong> In Jira there might be <em>Tilt angle<\/em>, in the manual <em>Alignment gauge<\/em>, in the test protocol <em>Tilting<\/em>. KOBAI recognizes the semantic proximity and delivers all three sources.<\/li>\n<li><strong>See sources, don\u2019t guess.<\/strong> Every answer links to the original documents. Those who want more details can click through.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Status of evidence at a glance.<\/strong> Answers are marked as <em>well documented<\/em>, <em>partially documented<\/em> or <em>no sufficient source<\/em> , those who need to prepare decisions in a substantiated manner know immediately what they\u2019re dealing with.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Version and validity notice.<\/strong> Outdated or unreleased documents are marked as such instead of being quoted without warning.<\/li>\n<li><strong>History and favorites.<\/strong> Find previously asked questions again, save important answers or documents, even for the team.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Interfaces that we typically connect<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tb-software.ch\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/kobai-knowledgebase-ai.jpg\" alt=\"Buchgestaltung mit Aufschrift Knowledgebase AI und einer stilisierten Hirn-Grafik, umgeben von Symbolen typischer Datenquellen.\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">KOBAI brings together the typical data sources of an organization without replacing them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Local drives and shared network drives (even very old ones)<\/li>\n<li>SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams channel storage<\/li>\n<li>Email archives (Outlook PST, Exchange)<\/li>\n<li>Wikis, Confluence, internal documentation portals<\/li>\n<li>Ticket systems: Jira, ServiceNow<\/li>\n<li>SAP and ERP exports (CSV, JSON, REST)<\/li>\n<li>DMS and quality document storage<\/li>\n<li>PDF, Office, and scanned documents with OCR<\/li>\n<li>Active Directory or Entra ID for groups and permissions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>New sources are added through clearly defined connectors. Pragmatically first (the main thing is that the pipeline runs) and later cleaner API-wise, when the source allows it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Usable modules<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Chat and semantic search.<\/strong> Ask a question, receive an answer plus source cards, run parallel search tasks.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Document viewer.<\/strong> Preview for Word, PDF, Excel, email attachments, images. Hit locations are highlighted, deep link to the original system.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Q-manual.<\/strong> Quality-relevant documentation filtered and searchable, release status taken from the source system, original remains leading.<\/li>\n<li><strong>History and favorites.<\/strong> Personal history and team favorites, including a note when sources have been updated since the last answer.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Usage statistics.<\/strong> Search time, response latency, document status, hit quality, top topics, performance and optionally API costs in a dashboard.<\/li>\n<li><strong>User and permission management.<\/strong> Groups, roles (User, Power User, Source Owner, Admin), hierarchical inheritance with overrides on individual elements.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Document generator.<\/strong> Structured drafts from found sources for summaries, lessons learned, project profiles or ticket responses. Approval process remains outside.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Feedback loop.<\/strong> Thumbs up\/down, comment, report incorrect source, Source Owner is notified.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What reassures the IT department<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>No migration.<\/strong> Data stays where it is.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No system conversion.<\/strong> No existing software needs to be deactivated or changed.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Your own local server.<\/strong> Web interface, indexing, vector search and retrieval run on your hardware. External cloud only where you explicitly want it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Groups and inheritance.<\/strong> Sources are assigned to groups, users too, KOBAI adheres to this.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Audit log and traceability.<\/strong> Every answer has sources, every action is traceable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How the time savings add up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In the pitch, a time saving of <strong> minutes to 4 hours per employee and day<\/strong> scheduled. Conservatively calculated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li> daily users per business unit<\/li>\n<li> hours savings per user and day<\/li>\n<li>2 working days per month<\/li>\n<li>results in about <strong>20 hours per month<\/strong>, approximately <strong>,640 hours per year<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>that corresponds to about <strong>10 working days per year<\/strong> at 8.5 hours per day<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>With multiple business units, the effect scales accordingly. The numbers are an estimate; the actual effect will be measured during pilot implementation per source and team, via KOBAI\u2019s own usage statistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Expansion to proactive actions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>KOBAI starts as a search and answer layer. Those who want more can expand depending on the settings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Preliminary studies and project templates<\/strong> automatically generated as soon as an event arises (discontinued component, new SOP requirement, audit preparation).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ticket drafts<\/strong> prepare with source list, the editor checks and sends.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Update reminders<\/strong> for outdated documents, the source owner receives a notice, not the seeker.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Onboarding paths<\/strong> for new employees (curated entry sources per role\/machine).<\/li>\n<li><strong>knowledge gap detection<\/strong>: conflicting sources are marked and reported to the responsible parties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">award<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>KOBAI gewann beim internen Schott <strong>Digital Game-Changer Award 2024<\/strong> sowohl den 1. Platz der Jury als auch den 1. Platz des Publikums. Die L\u00f6sung wurde seitdem produktiv weiterentwickelt, mit einem Konzeptupdate im Jahr 2026 f\u00fcr eine breitere Unternehmensnutzung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Erkennst du deine Organisation darin?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Wenn ja: Wir werden auch f\u00fcr dich etwas \u00c4hnliches bauen. Wir beginnen mit einer einzelnen Pilotdatenquelle, oft nur einem Netzlaufwerk oder einer Datenbank. Wir zeigen messbar, wo Zeit gespart wird. Dann erweitern wir Schritt f\u00fcr Schritt, in deinem Tempo, mit deinen Datenquellen, ohne dass du bestehende Systeme stoppen oder ersetzen musst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"mailto:info@tb-software.ch?subject=KOBAI%20f%C3%BCr%20unsere%20Organisation\">info@tb-software.ch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Award: Digital Game-Changer Award 2024, 1st place jury and 1st place audience \u00b7 Customer: Schott Pharma Schweiz AG \u00b7 Time period: 2023-2024 \u00b7 Status: in productive further development, roadmap 2026 for broader use within the group The problem you probably know In every technical organization, knowledge accumulates over years, distributed on local drives, in SharePoint, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":439,"menu_order":10,"template":"","class_list":["post-91","tb_project","type-tb_project","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tb-software.ch\/ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/tb_project\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tb-software.ch\/ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/tb_project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tb-software.ch\/ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/tb_project"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.tb-software.ch\/ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/tb_project\/91\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445,"href":"https:\/\/www.tb-software.ch\/ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/tb_project\/91\/revisions\/445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tb-software.ch\/ai\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tb-software.ch\/ai\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}