“AI is in a ‘golden age’ and it is correctly solving the problems that were once the realm of sci-fi”
- Jeff Bezos
Can you think of any industry that is currently not investing or is already using AI? No, right? We neither. In the contemporary world, businesses have realized the benefit of AI and it is spreading in every industry like a wildfire. In fact, if we take a look at the statistics, the number of businesses utilizing artificial intelligence experienced a fascinating growth of 270% since 2015.
While all industries have incredible benefits to reap from AI, the manufacturing sector has its unique share of AI-driven advantages. Today, AI is significantly making its space in the manufacturing industry making the industry more scalable than ever before. To substantiate, the market size of AI in the manufacturing industry is anticipated to be USD 16.3 billion by 2027.
Looking at the future predictions, it is safe to say that AI is leading the industrial revolution 4.0 and it is revolutionizing every aspect of manufacturing. So, let us dive right into the blog and understand how exactly artificial intelligence is transforming the manufacturing industry for good.
5 Effective Ways AI Will Change The Manufacturing Industry
- Enhanced popularization of Chatbots
Right from Alexa and Siri now almost every business has its own virtual assistant that is helping it in enhancing its efficiency of performance. Although chatbots are majorly known for providing extraordinary customer service, it has also done some exceptional miracles in the manufacturing industry.
AI chatbots have the efficiency to scan large inventories and find the desired products in a fraction of seconds. This will not only save the time of humans to find the products manually but can also enhance the overall speed of the processes.
Along with this, there are some hazardous tasks that are often performed by humans in the manufacturing industry, and many humans often face accidents and injuries while completing the tasks.
That being the scenario, AI is taking up the charge for performing these tasks more efficiently. Now dangerous tasks can be performed by the AI chatbots which will assist in saving the lives of humans.
- Effective quality assurance
It is no hidden fact that quality assurance is the main facet that determines the success of every manufacturing unit. This implies that no matter how much money you spend on the manufacturing units if the quality of your products is low, you will never be able to sustain yourself in the competitive market.
Hence, it is really essential that your quality assurance should be up to the mark to gain competitive advantages over your competitors. Besides, thanks to artificial intelligence, you can enhance your quality check in the most efficient way possible.
To elaborate, it can take the charge of assuring the quality of your products during the production cycle or after the whole slots have been produced. AI with its efficient performance can detect the defective pieces and take them out so that only high-quality products can be passed on to the clients.
- Management of Supply Chain and Inventory
AI along with its different branches such as machine learning has the ability to analyze the inventory in a fraction of minutes and can generate some strong insights. These insights can assist you in restocking and status of multiple supplies available in the inventory.
These insights can assist in identifying the key strengths that are boosting and the weaknesses that are decreasing the efficiency of your inventory. After analyzing you can eventually boost up your strengths and eliminate your weaknesses to make your inventory management more efficient. This way, identification of the factors will assist in contributing to the self-improvement of the manufacturing processes.
Along with this, AI chatbots can also analyze the status of supplies and can solve complex queries such as how many items can be produced from raw materials supplies and so on.
Moreover, AI also has the ability to predict the future trends and demands of the public. Manufacturing units can manage their supply chain and inventory based on these predictive analyses. This will not only save you the damage of wasting resources but will also enhance the overall revenue of the company.
To substantiate, as per the report, AI can improve forecasting accuracy in manufacturing by 10-20%, which translates to a 5% reduction in inventory costs and a 2-3% increase in revenues.
These kinds of prior pieces of information will assist you in maintaining your supply chain and inventory will also assist in predicting the production time and delays. Furthermore, AI can also automate various processes in the inventory that can assist in enhancing the overall efficiency of the supply chain and inventory management.
- Minimization of operational costs
We all are very well aware of the fact that how those unpredicted machine downtimes can impact the cost of overall production and can cause losses to the company. However, AI can intangibly analyze the signs of failures prior to humans and indicate possible failures.
These indications can assist manufacturing companies in collecting information on prior bases. This can assist manufacturing units in making more informed decisions about the replacement or maintenance of the manufacturing units.
Along with this, it will also assist in saving up the cost that might go into the unnoticed damage. Moreover, AI can also accelerate the production cycle and enhance the overall efficiency of the production unit.
You can take help from various manufacturing KPIs to measure the overall performance and growth of the manufacturing unit after implementing the AI of business operations.
- Assistance in product development
A product of a business reflects its efficiency, reliability, and reputation in the market. Till now we have discovered the fact that every process involved in the manufacturing industry is transformed by the introduction of AI and so is the case of product development.
From the front-end design of the prototype to the final production of the product, AI can assist speeding up the process and making the product a better version of itself. For instance, UI and UX designers can take assistance from AI in order to create the design as per the requirements of the audience.
Furthermore, AI-based interactions and previous history can assist the audience in enhancing the efficiency of the final product. This way AI will be able to transform the product development process.
To conclude, it is no hidden fact that AI is making its space in every industry and almost every industry is availing the benefits of AI. Moreover, the above-given description clearly explains that if AI continues to make more space in the manufacturing industry then it will completely revolutionize the whole face of the manufacturing industry in the coming future.