Tag: technologies

OM in the News: Manufacturing and Early AI Adoption

Manufacturers are betting artificial intelligence (AI) can help address pressing challenges, from supply chain volatility to the shortage of skilled workers. Three-quarters of  manufacturing executives say that adopting emerging technologies such as AI is their top priority in engineering and R&D, says Industry Week (Oct. 4, 2024)

AI is a broad term that encompasses basic data analytics (Module G in our text), machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI. Adopters are using AI to solve key problems in procurement, assembly, maintenance, quality control, and warehouse logistics. Some are deploying generative AI to synthesize huge volumes of unstructured data. Others are experimenting with AI service bots that partner with field technicians, for instance, to recognize more quickly when maintenance is required and to improve the quality of that work.

AI can also report supply chain bottlenecks in real time and predict potential disruptions in advance. In manufacturing it can include: minimizing assembly defects and improving quality control; boosting productivity; and streamlining warehouse management.

For example, one manufacturer adopted AI-based video processing to track manual assembly activities and automate quality checks of those activities,. This reduced failures in the assembly process by 70%, while also cutting down efforts for quality checks by 50%.

Another firm adopted an AI-powered industrial copilot that converts natural language into code and translates old programming languages into natural language, completing both tasks faster and better than human developers. Engineers using this AI solution were 5% more productive.

AI can also help ensure that warehouses operate at top efficiency, carrying items that meet demand and minimizing extra inventory. One company adopted an AI-based inventory management system that helped it minimize overstock while still fulfilling all orders. AI also provides more flexible job production planning so that companies can allocate specific assembly activities to the most relevant assembly expert at a given time to maximize productivity.

As a growing number of companies experiment with and deploy new AI solutions, they are raising the industry bar for productivity and performance. The article suggests that  companies that defer investing will need to run twice as fast to keep pace.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Summarize the AI advantages noted in the Industry Week article.
  2. Provide additional examples of potential AI use in manufacturing. In services.

Good OM Reading: Seven Technologies Remaking the World

A new report by MIT Sloan Management Review (March, 2018) identifies 7 core technologies and describes their implications for commerce, health care, learning, and the environment.  You can use it as a guide  for discussion with your OM students to understand today’s business frontiers.

“Technology provides the spark that enables us to push beyond the established boundaries of our world,” says the report. The mechanized spinning of textiles, large-scale manufacturing of chemicals, steam power, and efficiencies in iron-making sparked the first Industrial Revolution (1760-1840). Railroads, the telegraph and telephone, and electricity and other utilities sparked the second Industrial Revolution (1870-1940). Radio, aviation, and nuclear fission sparked the Scientific/Technical Revolution (1940-1970). The internet and digital media and devices sparked the Information Revolution (1985-present). In each instance, appearance of new technologies fundamentally reshaped key aspects of the OM world.

Here are the 7 technologies in brief:

Pervasive computing delivers information, media, context, and processing power to us. It is characterized by vast networks of connected microprocessors embedded in everyday objects.

Wireless mesh networks are ad hoc loops of wireless connectivity in which only one device requires an internet connection. These are smart networks of wireless devices that can form, disperse, and re-form at the user’s command.

Biotechnology is the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make products. Today, advances in digital technology, genetic engineering, informatics, cell technology, and chemical sciences are greatly expanding its boundaries.

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, transforms a digital blueprint of an object into a physical finished good.

Machine learning covers a broad context of technologies and capabilities, including cloud computing, big data, and AI.

Nanotechnology is a radical engineering science that is designing and manufacturing incredibly small circuits and devices that are built at the molecular level of matter.

Robotics is the design and development of mechanical systems that can operate autonomously or semi-autonomously.

This report, about 20 pages long, might be the basis for student reports on specific applications to operations.