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This paper presents a comprehensive step-wise methodology for implementing industry 4.0 in a functional coal power plant. The overall efficiency of a 660 MWe supercritical coal-fired plant using real operational data is considered in the study. Conventional and advanced AI-based techniques are used to present comprehensive data visualization. Monte-Carlo experimentation on artificial neural network (ANN) and least square support vector machine (LSSVM) process models and interval adjoint significance analysis (IASA) are performed to eliminate insignificant control variables. Effective and validated ANN and LSSVM process models are developed and comprehensively compared. The ANN process model proved to be significantly more effective; especially, in terms of the capacity to be deployed as a robust and reliable AI model for industrial data analysis and decision making. A detailed investigation of efficient power generation is presented under 50%, 75%, and 100% power plant unit load. Up to 7.20%, 6.85%, and 8.60% savings in heat input values are identified at 50%, 75%, and 100% unit load, respectively, without compromising the power plant's overall thermal efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]