Artificial Intelligence: A game changer for the manufacturing industry

Manufacturing is a robust industry that requires high levels of accuracy, continuous improvements in

the production quality, and the best possible maintenance processes. Artificial intelligence has been steadily supported these processes, giving manufacturers the opportunity to increase productivity as well as profits. The benefits of applying artificial intelligence solutions to the manufacturing industry are numerous, and here we will show several cases to see how far AI has come.

1. Predicting maintenance issues
Maintenance is one of the most critical parts of the manufacturing industry. Instead of guessing and causing potential issues in the production process, predicting when machines need maintenance will prevent unplanned downtime. Sensor technologies and advanced analytics incorporated into the machinery enable fast and reliable information about potential machine issues. In the UK alone research shows that 3% of all working days are lost annually due to defective machines that cost manufacturers over 180 billion pounds. Many different variables affect downtime and by implementing artificial intelligence solutions such as machine learning, many production facilities have seen cost-effective results.

2. Increasing the overall production quality
Complex production processes and shorter time periods to market launch have certainly pressurized companies since it’s getting more difficult to maintain high levels of quality and, at the same time, respect strict regulations and standards. Additionally, consumers and customers have little or no patience for faulty products and push manufacturers to level-up their quality so that their brand image doesn’t get negatively affected. In this case, artificial intelligence uses algorithms to notify teams of potential faults such as a change in materials, abnormalities in machine behavior or other deviations that need analysis and immediate action. Some professional, online tools such as business intelligencesend out analysis in real-time and notify the user as soon as an anomaly occurs. That way, the production quality minimizes risks of delivering faulty products and manufacturers can save costs (and their brand image).

3. Improving products with computer vision
While there are human inspectors that investigate product flaws, artificial intelligence goes a level deeper and improves the possibilities of the human eye. That means that cameras equipped with sensitivity levels that the human eye could never process alone give inspectors the possibility to immediately spot if the product needs corrections. A company in the US developed such a machine-vision software that uses computer vision in order to spot microparticles and surface defects while enabling the computer not only to see but to process and learn from the data it collects. This helps to improve inspection processes and ensure operators are augmented with extremely useful AI features that, ultimately, improve the final product.

4. Adapting to market changes – faster
The core element of Industry 4.0 is certainly artificial intelligence. Not just in operational levels of production processes but also in optimizing manufacturing supply chains, looking for patterns or analyzing consumer behavior. That way, the management of a company can anticipate market changes, develop strategies, or simply monitor specific metrics and automate analytics through sets of dashboards for production, quality or cost management processes.Moreover, AI algorithms can formulate estimations and based on that information, manufacturers have the opportunity to optimize staffing, the supply of raw materials, and inventory control, among many other processes critical for the industry. Although AI is in its infancy, we can already see how much has changed and improved manufacturing companies and the overall sector.


What will the future bring?
Artificial intelligence will certainly lead the way in the manufacturing industry and continue to grow with its many applications. The potential is enormous and we can see that manufacturers already use AI to extend the capabilities of humans while businesses will become more productive and efficient. “Modern machine learning allows us to unravel patterns that would be difficult or impossible for people to identify,” stated the co-founder and chief data scientist of Fero Labs in an article for Intel. Those who don’t adopt AI and strategies based on data will certainly be left behind.


About the author: Sandra Durcevic is a content manager at datapine, a software company in Berlin, Germany. Her expertise is focused on business intelligence, data, analytics, and technology while striving to deliver the most knowledgeable and useful information to readers. You can contact the a

via email or LinkedIn.

'Undermines the importance of Mumbai': Sharad Pawar condemns Centre's decision to shift IFSC to Gujarat

A political slugfest has erupted in Maharashtra over the central government's move to station the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) authority in Gujarat. After Congress and Shiv Sena, now the president of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Sharad Pawar, has raised his objection on the decision and requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revisit the issue.

NCP Chief Sharad Pawar.

"The Centre’s decision to locate the newly created International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) Authority at Gujarat's Gandhinagar will not only cause financial damage to the country but also bring international discredit by undermining the importance of Mumbai," Pawar said in a letter to PM Modi on Saturday, released on Sunday (May 3).

Pawar said the Centre's move to set up the headquarters of IFSC at Gandhinagar would be taken as an act of undermining the strategic importance of Mumbai that boasts as the nation's financial capital and even the financial institutions worldwide will be taken aback by this shocking decision.

He pointed out that in the general psyche of the business community, bankers and other financial institutions, Mumbai is their natural choice for setting up such a unified authority, and fervently urged the Prime Minister to reconsider the decision.

On April 27, the central government had issued a notification declaring Gandhinagar in Gujarat as the headquarters of the IFSC Authority, at the Gujarat International Financial-Tech (GIFT) City.

While Maharashtra's ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress was left rattled by the move, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis defended the Centre's move.

Shiv Sena leader and Industry Minister Subhash Desai said it is natural for the IFSC to be in Mumbai, which is acknowledged as the country's financial capital. "Just giving a name does not make a financial capital. The world knows Mumbai and its financial might," Desai said.

State Congress President and Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat termed the decision as intended to lower Mumbai's stature, and wanted to know why the state BJP was silent on the issue. "The Centre must rescind the decision. After all, Mumbai is the financial hub of the country," Thorat said.
Source: Zee Newsroom. Written By: DNA Web team.

4 Ways Video Technology Can Improve Your Customer Support and Operations

Living in a world where remote work is now common, more companies are leveraging video technology than ever before to keep in touch internally and with customers. Be it company-wide staff meeting or leadership calls, video has become an important part of how we work. So, how can businesses make the most of video technology to improve their customer support and operations? Here are four ways:

1) Save time by showing solutions instead of telling – Support interactions have traditionally happened on two channels in the past: email and phone. Live chat has emerged as a fast channel for solving simple problems, but more companies are turning to video technology to assist in solving complex issues. For example, a software company will now schedule 15 minutes for a video call with a customer to show a resolution to their issue instead of trying to walk them through the process for an hour over the phone. Who doesn’t want that additional 45 back? It’s a win-win for both parties!

2) Inform entire groups of people visually at the same time – Sometimes, support issues are important but they aren’t always urgent. When several issues with a customer fit these criteria, a quick working session with a support agent and a group of employees at the same company can be scheduled to resolve everything through video technology. Encourage your contacts to invite relevant colleagues and make it a fun Q&A more than an issue-solving marathon. The more people that are involved and knowledgeable about your product, the better.

3) Create a video information library for your customers – Let’s say your support agent just had a great Q&A session and solved a few problems along the way. What’s the next step internally? Take the video recording from your session and quickly splice it to make referenceable videos. This way, should your customer hire a new employee, you’ll have custom videos on different topics ready to share with them on how they should work with your company. It’s an excellent value add to customers because you can help do the heavy lifting involved with training new hires.

4) Use video for internal knowledge and training – Even if you’re positioning these videos as customer-focused assets, they do have another purpose. The recordings created from support conversations can be used to not only get team members in support up to speed on an account but also other departments including sales, onboarding, customer success, and marketing. For example, if your sales team is trying to upsell a customer on a new feature, they can review a previous video recording from a support agent where the customer goes into detail on their need for this exact feature. It can provide the salesperson with the intel required to address the pain point right out of the gate and hopefully improve their chance of landing the sale.

The big takeaway is making sure you maximize all aspects of the technology. Not only is it an aid to help solve customer issues faster, but the recordings that are created from video conversations can reduce ticket volume (the information library) and assist in sharing vital internal knowledge to hopefully drive revenue.

By: Matthew Brown.