At IMTS 2026 in Chicago last week, manufacturing ERP-software provider Syspro showcased its new industrial AI platform that the company said can work with any ERP to help manufacturers improve operations.  

Company officials said that the platform, Torque, aims to help their customers address challenges in their ERP systems. Users can describe what they need an agent to do within a chat feature in Torque, and the platform can build that agent, without the need for manual coding, according to Syspro. 

The platform can work with any ERP and combine that context with order, inventory, production schedule, supplier and shop floor data already in the ERP. It can also connect to MES, SCADA and warehouse systems already on the floor.

Company leaders said that they followed a “glass house” principle when developing Torque, focused on giving manufacturers the greatest amount of visibility as companies continue to adopt AI.  

“When we think about the small and medium-size manufacturing base, with trusting and adopting AI, I think there's some reservations there,” Dan Abramson, senior vice president of Americas at Syspro, told Automation World at IMTS. “What we think about is, how do we help our customers leverage the tool and move up the maturity curve when it comes to AI?” 

Creed Grimm, vice president of pre-sales at Syspro, said another aspect of Torque that makes it different from other platforms is the degree of completeness that it offers customers. “We talk a lot about the AI maturity curve, and so we can help customers that are wanting to have information served up for them about how to make better procurement decisions, but they don't want an agent to go make those purchases by themselves. We can meet them where they are."

Abramson highlighted that the company is launching Torque as manufacturing companies across industries implement AI, although implementation often comes with uncertainty. Scaling AI platforms, using the correct data and ensuring ROI are top concerns for manufacturers, he said, and Torque aims to give users more certainty when developing their own agents.  

Additionally, global trends such as labor shortages, tariffs and supply chain uncertainties make the landscape even more uncertain for manufacturing companies, which Abramson said is part of their emphasis on visibility.  

Torque provides manufacturers with an upfront cost estimate for each workflow before it runs, set the cadence that fits their operation, and track what each agent delivers, according to Syspro.  

“The glass house aspect of it is that whether it's the trust, the governance, [or] the decisions behind the AI, we expose all of that to our customers, so understanding who made a decision, how much a workflow costs from a tokens and credit standpoint, providing that visibility is really a big aspect of our differentiation,” Abramson said.