Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing: Real World Success Stories and Lessons Learned

Founded in 1993, The Motley Fool is a financial services company dedicated to making the world smarter, happier, and richer. The Motley Fool reaches millions of people every month through our premium investing solutions, free guidance and market analysis on Fool.com, top-rated podcasts, and non-profit The Motley Fool Foundation. US Steel is building applications using Google Cloud’s generative artificial intelligence technology to drive efficiencies and improve employee experiences in the largest iron ore mine in North America. As noted above, supply chain disruptions are having a significant impact on manufacturers. As well as dealing with these long-term disruptions, manufacturers are increasingly tasked with more responsible, ethical, and sustainable sourcing of materials.

This made the production process more efficient, higher in quality, and safer for the multiple employees working there. Paperless production raises real-time presence and product quality by shifting paper documents to digital records. 60% of interviewed industrialists are applying AI tools for quality monitoring and are said to detect 200% more supply chain disruption than before AI use in manufacturing. In this article, we have compiled the key points of Artificial Intelligence in manufacturing, highlighting statistical insights, prominent use cases, benefits, and successful examples. We’ll also conclude whether AI in manufacturing is here to stay or just another technology with no future. Join us on this journey so that you know what direction to take with your manufacturing business.

Increasingly, technology plays a major role in how products get made on the factory floor. Manufacturing plants can resemble high-tech laboratories with robotic arms handling repetitive tasks and algorithms, ensuring that products are made according to manufacturer specifications. From the first assembly lines to the robotics revolution, the manufacturing industry continually strives to find new ways to boost productivity while lowering costs. Today, major trends are driving the need for further transformation, and generative AI is helping pave that path forward. Organizations can attain sustainable production levels by optimizing processes using AI-powered software.

Today, the relentless pursuit of competitive advantage hinges on a robust technological foundation. Businesses leverage IT solutions to streamline operations, elevate customer experiences, and secure a sustainable Chat PG edge. However, fostering a dedicated internal IT team can be a significant investment in both resources and… The introduced AI solutions can learn by themselves without any connection to the Internet or cloud.

What are the benefits of AI in manufacturing?

For example, a factory full of robotic workers doesn’t require lighting and other environmental controls, such as air conditioning and heating. A digital twin is a virtual model of a physical object that receives information about its physical counterpart through the latter’s smart sensors. Using AI and other technologies, the digital twin helps deliver deeper understanding about the object. Companies can monitor an object throughout its lifecycle and get critical notifications, such as alerts for inspection and maintenance.

To use a hot stove analogy, when you put your hand toward a hot stove, your brain tells you from past experience and from the tingling in your fingers what could possibly happen and what you should do. AI is the technical ability to pull your hand back before you get burned. For example, a manufacturer that employed a process mining tool in their procure-to-pay processes decreased deviations and maverick buying worth to $60,000. 2 The firm also identified process automation opportunities for invoicing tasks by 75%.

AI-driven predictive maintenance is helpful because it catches even small problems that regular checks might miss. Department of Energy data, predictive maintenance can reduce machinery downtime by 35% to 45%. In fact, it is a boon for smart manufacturing as AI not only controls and automates its core processes but also identifies defects in parts and improves the quality of manufactured products.

Manufacturers can select AI-powered process mining solutions to locate and eliminate process bottlenecks. Industrial robots, often known as production robots, automate monotonous operations, eliminate or drastically reduce human error, and refocus human workers’ attention on more profitable parts of the business. Manufacturers can specify each product’s optimal supply chain solution using machine learning techniques.

He advised businesses on their enterprise software, automation, cloud, AI / ML and other technology related decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem’s work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.

Great Companies Need Great People. That’s Where We Come In.

In view of the attention it has received of late, it is easy to think artificial intelligence (AI) is a new discovery. Because it was ahead of the technology then available, it languished on the shelf of “interesting ideas” for years. Despite this opportunity, many executives remain unsure where to apply AI solutions to capture real bottom-line impact. The result has been slow rates of adoption, with many companies taking a wait-and-see approach rather than diving in.

Before long, the agent is able to create high-performance schedules and work with the human schedulers to optimize production. Traditional optimization approaches collapse in an attempt to manage significant uncertainty and fluctuation in supply or demand. This problem has become particularly relevant given all of the supply chain issues over the past year. Using scheduling agents based on reinforcement learning,3Reinforcement learning is a type of machine learning in which an algorithm learns to perform a task by trying to maximize the rewards it receives for its actions. For more, see Jacomo Corbo, Oliver Fleming, and Nicolas Hohn, “It’s time for businesses to chart a course for reinforcement learning,” McKinsey, April 1, 2021. Companies

can translate this issue into a question—“What order is most likely to maximize profit?

AI-powered vision systems can recognize defects, pull products or fix issues before the product is shipped to customers. Cobots or collaborative robots are also commonly used in warehouses and manufacturing plants to lift heavy car parts or handle assembly. Often, cobots are capable of learning tasks, avoiding physical obstacles, and working side-by-side with humans.

Successfully creating and maintaining your own AI entails assembling the right people. Since talent of this caliber is in high demand and therefore scarce, companies might consider upskilling current employees, such as data-savvy engineers, or hiring experts from outside. As a first step, industrial leaders could gain a better understanding of AI technology and how it can be used to solve specific business problems. They will then be better positioned to begin experimenting with new applications. With the help of AI technology, manufacturers can employ computer vision algorithms FOR analyzing pictures or videos of manufactured products and components. With smart programs, factories can predict the life expectancy of machines and get them fixed before they break.

Some have owned a manufacturing company, so they understand the language you speak, and the challenges you face. Due to the shift toward personalization in consumer demand, manufacturers can leverage digital twins to design various permutations artificial intelligence in manufacturing industry examples of the product. This allows customers to purchase the product based on performance metrics rather than its design. RTB House goes beyond basic AI-powered marketing campaigns, informing each campaign with deep learning algorithms.

Digital twins allow manufacturers to gain a clear view of the materials used and provide the opportunity to automate the replenishment process. The COVID-19 pandemic also increased the interest of manufacturers in AI applications. As seen on Google Trends graph below, the panic due to lockdowns may have forced manufacturers to shift their focus to artificial intelligence. Implementing AI in manufacturing facilities is getting popular among manufacturers. According to Capgemini’s research, more than half of the European manufacturers (51%) are implementing AI solutions, with Japan (30%) and the US (28%) following in second and third. EliseAI uses an AI-powered assistant to relieve marketing teams of communication duties.

Motorola Solutions offers hardware and software products that support safety and security operations. The company builds AI-enabled assistive technologies that inform human decision making in public safety settings. For example, Motorola Solutions’ conversational AI and natural language processing offerings are able to search databases and provide useful information based on voice commands and transcribe 911 calls in real time. Adept at extracting provisions using natural language processing from legal and contractual documents, it can deliver real-time insights into supply chain performance to help improve decision-making.

How is AI Used in the Manufacturing Industry?

Here are 10 examples of AI use cases in manufacturing that business leaders should explore now and consider in the future. In manufacturing, for instance, satisfying customers necessitates meeting their needs in various ways, including prompt and precise delivery. Manufacturers can keep a constant eye on their stockrooms and improve their logistics thanks to the continual stream of data they collect.

For example, a clothing store can use AI to predict what people will buy. It looks at past sales and weather forecasts to keep the right amount of clothes. The robots read essential parts, check their correctness, and put the info in the money system. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been tagged as one of the most promising technologies after the Internet. Volatility profiles based on trailing-three-year calculations of the standard deviation of service investment returns. Watch this video to see how gen AI helps a transport company fix a problem with a faulty locomotive.

Let’s collaborate to unlock unprecedented possibilities and lead the way into a future where manufacturing knows no bounds. To fix this, Suntory PepsiCo asked a company called Pacific Hi-Tech for help, and they came up with a “Machine Vision” solution. Suntory PepsiCo, a company that makes beverages, has five factories in Vietnam. Toyota has collaborated with Invisible AI and implemented AI to bring computer vision into their North American factories. It looks at orders, plans the best route to pick things, and uses resources well.

Once a driver has connected their vehicle, they can simply drive in and drive out. AlphaSense created an AI-powered financial search engine to help investment firms gain an informational edge. Using a combination of linguistic search and natural language processing, the program can analyze key data points across various financial institutions.

To enable this, visibility across the supply chain is the top priority for supply chain executives. Using gen AI, manufacturers gain an efficient method to match requirements to the specifications of products they buy, and provide the same service to their customers. Predictive maintenance is the best-practice strategy that identifies and rectifies possible equipment failures before they happen.

No wonder 82% of organizations considering or currently using gen AI believe it will either significantly change or transform their industry (Google Cloud Gen AI Benchmarking Study, July 2023). Quality assurance may be the main benefit of artificial intelligence in manufacturing. Businesses can employ machine learning models to spot deviations from typical design criteria, flaws, or consistency issues that a normal person might miss. Manufacturing data’s prominence is fueled by AI and machine learning work well with it. Machines can more easily analyze the analytical data that is abundant in manufacturing. Hundreds of variables impact the production process, and while these are challenging for humans to examine, machine learning models can forecast the effects of individual variables in these challenging circumstances.

• AI solutions with high value and low cost are more available than many smaller manufacturers believe.
• Manufacturers often struggle with having too much or too little stock, leading to losing revenue and customers.
• Some tools are specifically designed for predictive maintenance, ensuring the seamless operation of machinery, while others excel in quality control, enhancing product precision.

While manufacturing companies use cobots on the front lines of production, robotic process automation (RPA) software is more useful in the back office. RPA software is capable of handling high-volume or repetitious tasks, transferring data across systems, queries, calculations and record maintenance. AI is now at the heart of the manufacturing industry, and it’s growing every year. AI has the potential to transform the manufacturing industry completely.

Manufacturers use AI to analyse sensor data and predict breakdowns and accidents. Synthetic intelligence systems aid production facilities in determining the likelihood of future failures in operational machinery, allowing for preventative maintenance and repairs to be scheduled in advance. Predictive maintenance enabled by AI allows factories to boost productivity while lowering repair bills.

The company uses artificial intelligence to develop and enhance the technology and software that enable its vehicles to automatically brake, change lanes and park. Tesla has built on its AI and robotics program to experiment with bots, neural networks and autonomy algorithms. The company builds a variety of autonomous vehicles designed to meet the needs of drivers, including individuals, rideshare drivers and large trucking companies. With an advanced suite of sensors, each Waymo vehicle collects data and uses artificial intelligence to decipher what will happen next. Thanks to AI, Waymo vehicles can analyze situations and make safe predictions for optimal next moves.

Zeta Global is a marketing tech company with an international presence that reaches from the United States to Belgium and India. It incorporates AI into its cloud-based platform that brings together solutions to support customer acquisition and retention strategies. For example, Zeta Global’s predictive AI capabilities help businesses target the right customers and recommend actions that will foster strong customer relationships. PwC is a global company that consults with business clients on tech solutions in a variety of areas, including AI. PwC has invested significantly in continuing to expand its AI capabilities. The company’s sensors use fiber lasers that give a self-driving car’s AI system an in-depth look at the world around it.

Manufacturing Innovation, the blog of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), is a resource for manufacturers, industry experts and the public on key U.S. manufacturing topics. There are articles for those looking to dive into new strategies emerging in manufacturing as well as useful information on tools and opportunities for manufacturers. It’s painful and expensive to migrate once you have all your data in a single cloud provider. Manufacturing is one of the highest-risk industrial sectors to be working in with more than 3,000 major injuries and nine fatalities occurring each year. The involvement of robots in high-risk jobs can help manufacturers reduce unwanted accidents.

Artificial intelligence is improving the manufacturing process in many ways. More correctly than humans, AI-powered software can anticipate the price of commodities, and it also improves with time. AI for manufacturing is expected to grow from $1.1 billion in 2020 to $16.7 billion by 2026 – an astonishing CAGR of 57 percent. The growth is mainly attributed to the availability of big data, increasing industrial automation, improving computing power, and larger capital investments. AI’s share in industrial robotics is expected to reach 10.72 billion USD in 2024 and a market volume of 20.64 billion USD by 2030.

This convergence has enabled factories and industries to harness the power of artificial intelligence for optimizing operations, making data-driven decisions, and creating intelligent, adaptive systems. Some forecasts estimate that the opportunity in artificial intelligence will be worth trillions of dollars. If you’re looking to invest in AI manufacturers, you can consider some of the stocks above or take a look at other AI stocks, machine learning stocks, or AI ETFs.

Marketing teams can then quickly compile and organize complex data, segment and target specific audiences and determine the best platforms to reach their ideal buyers. RTB House also offers interactive banners for online environments, so companies can place ads, gather feedback and refine their marketing tactics. Prosodica’s contact center technology offers customers a voice and speech engine that provides insight into customer interactions.

Using historical flight and hotel data, Hopper will also recommend to the user whether the booking has reached its lowest price point or if the user should hold out a bit longer for the price to drop. Here are a few examples of how artificial intelligence is changing the financial industry. Well develops a personalized health plan for each customer by collecting data on pre-existing conditions, ongoing health concerns and gaps in general health knowledge.

In other industries involving language or emotions, machines are still operating at below human capabilities, slowing down their adoption. Fintech and peer-to-peer payment platform Cash App powers a number of its features using artificial intelligence. Users can interact with customer support chat bots that are developed using complex natural language processing, or NLP, techniques. As for security, the company uses machine learning and AI to help mitigate risk and prevent fraud on the platform. We were engaged to create and install real-time optimizers in the company’s core assets—the kiln, vertical raw mill, and finishing mills. A network-based representation of the system using BoM can capture complex relationships and hierarchy of the systems (Exhibit 3).

• PwC has invested significantly in continuing to expand its AI capabilities.
• The agent’s performance is scored based on the cost, throughput, and on-time delivery of products.
• Using AI and other technologies, the digital twin helps deliver deeper understanding about the object.
• Even ChatGPT is applying deep learning to detect coding errors and produce written answers to questions.
• AI can either do these tasks automatically or package them into user-friendly tools, which engineers can use to speed up their work.
• An appropriate example of AI in manufacturing is General Electric and its AI algorithms, which were introduced to analyze massive data sets, both historical records and up-to-date data sets.

AI-powered analyses also enable SmarterTravel to find discounts and other travel information relevant to each consumer. Betterment is an automated financial investing platform and a pioneer of robo-advisor technology that uses AI to learn about an investor and build a personalized profile based on their financial plans. Betterment’s robo-advisors use algorithms to automate tax loss harvesting, trading, transactions and portfolio management. Morningstar’s family of fintech brands and products supports investors on a global scale.

Many original equipment manufacturers are pushing requirements down their supply chain and the smaller manufacturers are in a bind. You have this pressure but don’t have the resources to implement the technologies. Between the MEP Centers in every state and Puerto Rico and our 1,400 trusted advisors, the MEP National Network offers assistance within a two-hour drive of every U.S. manufacturer. When you call your local MEP Center, you’ll speak to seasoned manufacturing professionals who understand SMMs.

With the addition of artificial intelligence, an industrial robot can monitor its own accuracy and performance, and train itself to get better. Some manufacturing robots are equipped with machine vision that helps the robot achieve precise mobility in complex and random environments. Slack’s AI uses a data structure called the “work graph” to gather information on how each company and its employees use the tool and interact with one another. Data from the work graph can then be used to train AI models that make Slack more user-friendly. Slack also uses machine learning and natural language processing in a feature called “Highlights” to move more relevant messages to the top. Additionally, advanced machine learning is likely to prove critical in an industry that’s under pressure to protect users against fake news, hate speech and other bad actors in real time.

The solution you need is based on understanding your process and tweaking based on your priorities. A digital twin can be used to monitor and analyze the production process to identify where quality issues may occur or where the performance of the product is lower than intended. Cobots are another robotics application that uses machine vision to work safely alongside human workers to complete a task that cannot be fully automated.

The most accurate predictions make it to the top of the leaderboard and are awarded more tokens. Pager uses artificial intelligence to help patients with minor aches, pains and illnesses. The company deploys machine learning to analyze clinical and claims data to discover gaps in a patient’s healthcare treatment. In addition to making healthcare recommendations, this concierge-like service helps patients chat with doctors and nurses, schedule appointments, fill prescriptions and make payments.

Once the knowledge graph is created, a user interface allows engineers to query the knowledge graph and identify solutions for particular issues. The system can be set up to collect feedback from engineers on whether the information was relevant, which allows the AI to self-learn and improve performance over time. Some of the most difficult challenges for industrial companies are scheduling complex manufacturing lines, maximizing throughput while minimizing changeover costs, and ensuring on-time delivery of products to customers.

AI uses this massive data set to constantly learn about the best safety measures, driving techniques and most efficient routes to give the rider assurance they are safe. Takeda has been working to responsibly incorporate AI technologies into its operations for applications like making drug discovery more efficient. Healthcare has long suffered from skyrocketing medical costs and inefficient processes. Let’s take a deeper dive into other artificial intelligence examples further demonstrating AI’s diverse applications. For example, today’s downsized teams of control-room operators are expected to manually monitor a multitude of signals on numerous screens and adjust settings as needed.

In fact, artificial intelligence is seen as a tool that can give travel companies a competitive advantage, so customers can expect more frequent interactions with AI during future trips. Liberty Mutual is a global insurance company that’s been in business for more than a century. As the industry takes note of AI’s efficiency and accuracy, it is rapidly implementing automation, chatbots, adaptive intelligence, anti-fraud defenses, algorithmic trading and machine learning into financial processes.

Edge analytics uses data sets gathered from machine sensors to deliver quick, decentralized insights. Reach out to us for high-quality software development services, and our software experts will help you outpace you develop a relevant solution to outpace your competitors. With over 10,500 stores, clubs, and e-commerce websites across almost 20 countries, Walmart decided to introduce Artificial Intelligence to improve their customer and employee experience globally. They began phasing in AI several years ago and recently launched AI-driven mobile applications and e-commerce innovations like… To prevent delays and additional production expenses, they started using the Machine Vision solution, which uses cameras to quickly read, check, and correct smudged or missing labels. If humans had to do the same, it would take more time, while with AI, mistakes and expenses are fewer.

They also can detect and avoid obstacles, and this agility and spatial awareness enables them to work alongside — and with — human workers. To reap the benefits of ai in manufacturing, it is essential to incorporate AI as soon as possible. However, doing so demands a substantial investment of time, effort, and resources, as well as the upskilling of your workforce. Finishing pilot projects to be scaled up rapidly and out of the pilot phase is crucial. The window of opportunity to integrate AI into production processes is closing for those who still need to do so. According to studies, manufacturing companies lose the most money due to cyberattacks because even a little downtime of the production line can be disastrous.

Handling big data efficiently requires powerful new tools for data visualization, data cleaning, data classification, and data model design. If top data-science talent is hard to attract and retain, easy-to-use data-wrangling and AI design tools can fill the void and, in doing so, upskill your in-house engineering talent. If you’re ready to harness AI’s transformative power for your manufacturing needs, look no further. In the ever-evolving landscape of manufacturing, AI stands as the game-changer, reshaping efficiency, quality, and innovation. A technology called ExtractAI from Applied Materials uses AI to find these killer defects.

AI-powered chatbots are rapidly changing the travel industry by facilitating human-like interaction with customers for faster response times, better booking prices and even travel recommendations. Cruise is the first company to offer robotaxi services to the public in a major city, using AI to lead the way. The company’s self-driving cars collect a petabyte’s worth of information every single day.

In fact, GE employees required only 48 hours to analyze the movement of fluids in a turbine blade and engine part design. Then, they developed a model to assess millions of design deviations in 15 minutes. Ultimately, this allowed them to intensify the creation of the company’s next product line. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. https://chat.openai.com/ Operators who applied artificial Intelligence in the manufacturing industry reported a 10% to 15% boost in the production process and a 4% to 5% increase in EBITA. 30% of businesses are turning to Artificial Intelligence tools for their bookkeeping and management of retail chain operations.