Real-time data enables new levels of innovation and the rise of smarter factories when combined with powerful tools like edge computing, AI/MLand continuous analysis. Data is revolutionizing manufacturing.
Forward-thinking companies combine advantage and artificial intelligence (AI) with operational technology (OT) to deliver use cases that drive impressive benefits.
The evolution of smart manufacturing
The production environment, also called “the edge” in manufacturing, is where data is generated by cameras, sensors, machines and assembly lines. Companies collect and translate data from these sources, or from automation control systems linked to these sources, using advanced computing technologies. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and streaming data analytics are used to examine data to provide rapid insights for rapid decision-making and action. However, even as user expectations for real-time information increase, growing data sets, including new data types in new edge locations, may become too difficult for cutting-edge technology to handle.
AI at the forefront of manufacturing
AI can improve your organization’s ability to protect workers, improve production quality, avoid maintenance issues, and close skills gaps with artificial intelligence. The benefits of AI in action at the edge include:
- Lower number of defects: AI can track parts entering and passing through the factory. Computer vision helps accelerate and automate work in progress throughout the production cycle. Defects can be identified, reported, and traced back to individual processes or components in real time for immediate correction, rather than after a defective product is discovered.
- Minimal breakdowns: AI-based predictive maintenance systems use sensor data and IoT data to identify the exact location of maintenance needs, saving technicians a lot of time in diagnostics and enabling the organization to predict and proactively prevent future equipment failures.
- Addresses knowledge gaps: Augmented reality (AR)-based AI systems allow off-site specialists to virtually tour the factory, using the AR interface to directly assess a situation and guide or train on-site workers. AI can also understand situational context and load standard processes for recommended actions, with each step clearly demonstrated in AR, allowing untrained workers to perform complex tasks in cases where specialists are not available .
Use cutting-edge AI to drive more value
Moving AI to the edge of manufacturing promises many tantalizing benefits, but it also poses unique challenges that must be overcome for AI deployments at the edge of manufacturing to be successful.
Organizations must establish a solid foundation of back-end infrastructure and consulting services to fully understand the entire journey from ingesting cutting-edge data to achieving the desired business outcome, from start at the end.
To further simplify deployment, integration, security and management, configured systems built by manufacturing AI experts can accelerate time to value with solutions designed specifically for smart manufacturing use cases. Choosing an engineering-validated AI solution can help businesses overcome adoption barriers, including lack of on-premises AI expertise. Validated designs are tested and proven configurations, designed from the ground up to dynamically meet needs based on specific use cases.
Results-Driven Use Cases
Edge computing with AI and streaming data analytics is increasingly deployed for use cases such as predictive maintenance, computer vision, production quality, and digital twins, all of which require analyzing vast volumes of multi-dimensional data such as images, audio and sensor readings from connected sources. devices and equipment and other assets. Some use cases, such as those that enable the connected worker to be more productive and safer, rely on high-speed, ultra-low latency connectivity, such as Wireless and cellular, to provide just-in-time information on productivity and safety.
Together, these technologies and use cases can help manufacturers give their customers what they want when they want it: innovative, high-quality products at competitive prices while meeting increasingly stringent targets. in terms of profitability, sustainability and safety.
By leveraging the power of cutting-edge AI, smart manufacturers are realizing the very tangible and measurable business benefits of having more accurate, faster information where they need it. This intelligent approach to manufacturing gives them the ability to differentiate and compete in a competitive global marketplace.