When we started our first AI project with a large consumer goods manufacturer the welcome on the shopfloor wasn’t exactly warm. The staff feared that within a few weeks or months, a lot of them would lose their job. We realized quickly that the algorithms or data wouldn’t be the main challenge, AI change management […]
4 AI Change Management Challenges to Be Aware of Read More »
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the future of manufacturing. Many of the issues that continue to plague the industry – too expensive, too much scrap, unplanned downtimes, lack of personnel for both specialized and routine tasks – can be addressed with this new powerful technology. AI has come a long way over the last few years
AI Implementation: Don’t Let These 4 Data Challenges Slow You Down Read More »
We recently gave a presentation about AI in Manufacturing to an audience at Cyberlago, a German organization in the Lake Constance region that promotes digitization, digital transformation, and IT. Here is the link to our presentation titled KI in der Fertigung (in German) and an annotated pdf version. KI in der Fertigung CyberLago final annotated
Video: KI in der Fertigung (AI in Manufacturing) Read More »
If you are looking for a perfect application to start deploying AI in manufacturing, look no further than visual inspection. The role of AI models visual inspection cannot be overstated: they can significantly outperform conventional methods by bringing automation, speed and accuracy to visual inspection processes. In this blog, we’ll talk about why AI is
The Role of AI Models in Visual Inspection Read More »
Admittedly, we stole that headline (hence the quotation marks), or rather borrowed it, from a recent article published on the MIT Sloan website. It was done in the spirit of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. The original article introduces a framework to help readers decide when to swap out human labor in favor
4 Questions to Ask Before Swapping out Human Labor For AI Read More »
One of the main problems we encounter when speaking with manufacturers about the use of AI in manufacturing for quality control, predictive maintenance, predictive analytics or human-machine interface simplification is not a technical one: it’s trust. “How do we know that the algorithms give us the correct answer?” “Doesn’t the model just tell you what
Maintaining critical manufacturing equipment isn’t all that different from changing the oil in your car: the manufacturer and your local repair guy tell you to do it every 3,000 miles but your experience tells you that the oil will likely last 6,000 miles – which will save you a decent amount of money over the
A Good Way to Get Started: AI for Predictive Maintenance Read More »
Recently Facebook served up a sponsored post in my feed that caught my immediate attention: an article about the work of John Carrier, a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan, about the challenges of manufacturing companies transitioning to Industry 4.0. This drew my attention, not just because I am a Sloanie myself, but because helping companies
Transitioning Manufacturing to Industry 4.0 – Perspective from the Shopfloor Read More »
AI models learn by seeing examples. That’s AI’s defining superpower; instead of painstakingly defining an object at the pixel level you can just show it some pictures and it will learn to identify that object. However, even if it is a superpower, it doesn’t come without challenges. The challenge lies in the word “some”. “Some”
Transfer Learning – Your Shortcut to Custom AI-Models Read More »
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) manufacturers deal with a challenging set of demands and constraints related to quality inspection: they operate very high-speed lines with cycle times in the tens or hundreds of milliseconds and they are under constant pressure to reduce cost. Can AI help CPG manufacturers address these issues? CPG Quality inspection now Currently,
Better, Faster, Cheaper – AI for CPG Manufacturers Read More »
One of my colleagues led a workshop on AI in manufacturing recently and a comment of one of the participants deserves a deep dive. “We don’t need expensive ML servers,” she said, “we can just code this up in SQL.” At the heart of this comment is a fundamental misconception that artificial intelligence equals expert
Expert Systems are the ASCIs of AI – Machine Learning the CPUs Read More »
There is a secret to a successful AI deployment in manufacturing and it is not cool algorithms – it’s data. In fact, 80% of the effort of an average AI implementation is getting the data needed in the right format so you can start training the algorithms. Generating, collecting and cleansing data is a decidedly
Data – The Secret to Successful AI Deployment in Manufacturing Read More »
Accella AI develops tools that enable the rapid implementation and easy management of artificial intelligence models for manufacturing applications. Our mission is to make AI-empowered solutions in quality control and predictive maintenance economical for manufacturers.