Article
Three ways AI is changing the manufacturing industry
Jan. 3, 2024 · Authored by Cindy M. Bratel
Artificial intelligence (AI)
AI offers the manufacturing industry further ways to stay competitive and efficient in an ever-changing landscape. Transforming the way the industry operates and functions, manufacturers are seeing more ways to optimize operations and boost productivity, while reducing costs. While AI helps to utilize digital technology and improve manufacturers core operations by integrating seamlessly within the era of smart manufacturing, it also enables more efficient work by augmenting human abilities to enable humans and machines to work together, instead of replacing human workers.
AI within the manufacturing industry is another addition in the era of smart manufacturing, working with other digital enhancements such as the digital twin model, Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT). However, generative AI is revolutionary in the ways it can continuously update these models and reflect an ever-changing production environment with smarter processes to progress the manufacturing industry even further.
Three ways AI is changing the manufacturing industry
1. Operational efficiency
AI increases operational efficiency for manufacturers by minimizing, or completely removing, repetitive tasks. Employees can focus on high-value activities that require more resources, while AI reduces the time spent on low-value tasks to increase the speed of production and business output.
Operating with more streamlined processes targeted at each manufacturers’ unique system reduces downtime to ensure there is an optimal resource allocation to provide significant efficiency and operational gain. AI helps reduce unnecessary energy consumption through efficient scheduling of processes within high-resource times with less delays or long response times. Using predictive maintenance to schedule repair works to quieter hours and understanding downtimes contributes to lower operational costs too.
Manufacturers can utilize their business insights with AI to operate more efficiently, based on the information their business already provides.
2. Greater agility and quality
Agile manufacturing refers to the ability of manufacturers to adapt to a changing market and demands, manage, and navigate unexpected disruptions and remain fluid through shifts in requirements. AI offers manufacturers greater agility in how they face industry changes and business requests by learning and understanding information that humans could overlook, promoting a smoother collaborative process between teams and departments to help automate complex production activities and improve quality control.
