Manufacturing knowledge, passed down from skilled, experienced workers to new, inexperienced workers, is a very important component of maintaining a successful, profitable enterprise. But that void is becoming more and more difficult to fill as older workers retire or leave the business. In fact, that loss of real-world understanding and experience threatens the very future of manufacturing in general. Murray Mentor has been created to help forward the deep, tacit knowledge of large and small insights of factory operations through the use of Artificial Intelligence to new employees and across the enterprise.
In the very simplest terms, the system captures the insights of seasoned employees and allows them to be available for training and technical questions of less experienced staff, as if a live mentor were there to provide answers and impart knowledge to a new generation of workers in a conversational format.
Paul Boris, the CEO and co-founder of Murray Mentor AI, says, “There’s not been a more exciting time in industrial operations. We’ve tapped into a core problem, and just based upon the pure simplicity from a user’s perspective, we’re able to deliver value to customers. AI is not the solution, but a facilitator to the solution.”
Foundation for Successful Knowledge-Sharing
With a decades-long background in both factory work and technology, Boris is well positioned to fully understand the dynamics of manufacturing and to facilitate improved productivity in the workplace. Murray Mentor is much more than just using simple numbers to enhance efficiency. It translates that specialized experience that gives intimate knowledge of what works, and what doesn’t, and why, in a format that can easily be passed down to others. That deep tacit knowledge is especially critical to quality and throughput in a manufacturing environment.
The system is much more useful than a video or manual that might only skim the surface of operations, rather than providing the in-depth knowledge needed for success. It captures the reasoning behind decisions and operations, and is able to exploit that in a collaborative fashion through departments and divisions, and even in multiple languages. Much more complex and useful than an AI chatbot giving information from a manual, it provides a combination of general subject knowledge, overlaid with the specific historical knowledge of the company to create a full picture of problems and solutions.
Human Based, AI Driven
There are no forms to fill out, and no information to input, but rather just the normal conversations between workers on how to solve a problem provides the information needed for Murray Mentor to pass that solution on to others, allowing it to flow directly into the operation. Further, the data is there in perpetuity and is kept evergreen, so the assistance is always there for reference, and the information is secure within the company, as there is never any crossover to competitive businesses.
While all this benefit may, at first glance, seem to add complication to a business, just the opposite is actually true. Boris says, “When we talk about simple, it is just about as simple as it can get. All the complexity is in the architecture that we’ve built. We can deploy AI in any manufacturing environment in literally one or two hours, and scale it up in days to weeks because of the way the application is built.”
The company’s deployment engineers are seasoned manufacturing and engineering veterans with over thirty years of experience, who can quickly assess how each customer can get the most benefit in the fastest time from the system. While there are a number of companies offering various Artificial Intelligence systems to assist manufacturers in improving their bottom line, Boris believes they do not have the depth of knowledge or provide the security Murray Mentor offers. He says, “We think we’re unique in this space right now, definitely, if you look at autonomous collaboration, we believe collaboration starts where training ends.”
Seamless Technology Integration
That idea of “autonomous collaboration” is the key to passing knowledge down through the data collected and analyzed in Murray Mentor. Most users prefer simple voice operation of the system, although it can also be accessed through computer or phone keyboards as well. That natural, conversational input and output of information is what makes the system so successful as a tool to improve efficiency and quality, without added complication.
After selling a previous AI company that he started, Boris was consulting with a manufacturing company owned by Susan Murray about finding a way to pass on knowledge to the next generation through the use of Artificial Intelligence. Murray Mentor grew from those efforts a few years ago as it became readily apparent that this was a very widespread issue among manufacturers. The successful development and deployment of the program they created led to pushing forward to market the system to other manufacturers. Murray’s own decades of experience and advocacy for American manufacturers now has her holding Murray Mentor’s COO position, in addition to her other business endeavors and positions with Purdue’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership and Conexus Indiana.
Since their official start earlier in 2026, Murray Mentor’s business has been growing exponentially just through word of mouth, but they are now beginning a marketing push to get the word out to attract new business through attendance and demonstrations at conventions and symposiums around the country.
Boris sums up the Murray Mentor’s mission by saying, “Honor the people that have come before to build these things, and build the future. It’s not about getting rid of people. This is about making them less stressed in their jobs; this is about helping them rise through the ranks faster and to make more money faster, because their skills evolve faster, and that’s really what we do as an organization.”
