The use of artificial intelligence can be witnessed in various businesses – healthcare, education, travel and tourism, finance, e-commerce, and many others. Even manufacturing industries are using AI to make things better, faster, and seamless. The recent innovations of cloud computing and big data storage and analytics have made the use of artificial intelligence even more productive.
Several top businesses and leading brands across the globe are using AI in their manufacturing (production) environment. The use of artificial intelligence in manufacturing offers valuable insights to managers and enables them to make informed decisions, thus increasing productivity and efficiency in manufacturing.
The global AI market is expected to witness a rapid growth in the coming years, with a forecast of reaching USD 126 billion by 2025. It is also predicted that the global AI market for manufacturing will cross USD 9.9 billion by 2027 due to increase in demand by various industries worldwide.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the systems which have been specifically designed, engineered, and trained to mimic the intelligence of humans and act just like them.
- The system may be a software or a machine that have machine learning capabilities.
- Driverless cars, vacuum cleaning robots, and digital assistants are all using AI as a part of their functioning.
Here are the different ways in which productivity can be increased in manufacturing using AI.
Simplifying procurement
- Using AI can help quickly transform the way businesses procure various good and services.
- Through a combination of data analytics and machine learning, the use of AI can make procurements of raw materials and other items simpler, faster, and efficient.
- The use of artificial intelligence will also help to automate the tedious and boring job of procurement.
- With the power of artificial intelligence, a procurement task can be completed in a few minutes, rather than requiring several hours and days for days.
- A McKinsey report indicates that those using AI in supply chain reported a reduced cost of 61 percent, and an increase in revenue of 53 percent, with the inventory costs coming down by almost 75 percent.
Optimize the manufacturing process
- Machines have always been an integral part of manufacturing and engineering.
- However, until recently with the rise of the latest technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, they were not smart enough to perform the manufacturing process on their own.
- With AI powered machines that run on ML algorithms, manufacturing productivity can be increased.
- With the power of artificial intelligence, machine automation can be converted into a reality.
- Such an AI system will first work on the ‘operator assist’ mode to see how the human mind functions in terms of decision-making.
- Once the machine understands how humans work, it can perform and process several tasks without needing any input from humans.
- The use of intelligent AI powered machines can help to cut down on the time required for production by almost half or even more than that, thus increasing productivity.
- Smart machines can work tirelessly 24/7 which is impossible for a human being.
Predictive maintenance
- In order to increase productivity, predictive maintenance is crucial for businesses who are into manufacturing.
- AI-based predictive maintenance makes use of IoT sensors fitted on the machines.
- In predictive maintenance, the pattern finding powers of AI are used to analyze information related to the performance of machines, temperature, vibrations, motion control, and others.
- The datasets generated through machine learning algorithms are useful to evaluate the health of machines, and identify when it is going to stop functioning.
- With the data and valuable insights of machine functioning, maintenance can be scheduled before complete breakdown.
- Using AI in predictive maintenance helps in increasing productivity, preventing expensive downtime, and also avoiding any possible accidents due to faulty machinery.
Precise demand forecasting
- AI-powered demand forecasting helps businesses to learn about changes in demand from customers.
- Using the forecasting, they can optimize the operations of supply chain, sales, and marketing to prevent surplus stock.
- Precise forecasting of demand through mathematics models and datasets enables businesses to avoid inefficiencies in demand and supply, thus saving time, increasing customer satisfaction, and improving accuracy.
- According to McKinsey, using AI in demand forecasting can help to lower the chances of supply chain errors by 50-80 percent.
Hyper-personalization
- The use of artificial intelligence and other technologies allow companies to take personalization to a completely new level.
- By using AI, it is possible for businesses and brands to create products and services tailor-made and relevant to an individual customer.
- The popular brands Adidas and Nike allow customers to customize the shoes, which are then manufactured according to the individual’s preference.
How can productivity be increased in businesses? The use of AI has answers to this question. Wherever artificial intelligence is being used, an increase in productivity can be witnessed. Both AI and productivity go hand-in-hand. The scope for AI and the future of businesses, especially in the manufacturing sector, is quite promising in the years to come.
