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While the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform the manufacturing industry is not new, ongoing experimentation has not yet led to widespread commercial benefits. New Google Cloud research, however, reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic may have spurred a significant increase in the use of artificial intelligence and other digital enablers among manufacturers. According to their data, which surveyed more than 1,000 senior manufacturing executives in seven countries, 76% turned to digital enablers and disruptive technologies, such as data and analytics, cloud and artificial intelligence due to the pandemic. Another 66% of manufacturers who use AI in their daily operations report that their dependence on AI is on the rise.
Moving from borderline cases to traditional business needs
The top three subsectors that use AI to assist in day-to-day operations are automotive / OEM (76%), automotive suppliers (68%) and heavy machinery (67%). Google Clouds research shows that companies currently using AI in day-to-day operations are looking for business continuity assistance (38%), helping to make employees more efficient (38%) and being useful for employees in general (34%). AI / ML technology can increase the efforts of production employees by providing prescriptive analysis such as real-time guidance and training, reporting safety hazards, or detecting potential defects on the assembly line.
In terms of the specific AI use cases that the research calls, two main areas emerged: quality control and supply chain optimization. In the quality control category, 39% of manufacturers surveyed who use AI in their daily operations use it for quality inspection and 35% for product and / or production line quality checks. Using the AI vision, production line workers can spend less time on repetitive product inspections and can instead focus on more complex tasks, such as root cause analysis.
In the supply chain optimization category, manufacturers said they leveraged AI for supply chain management (36%), risk management (36%) and inventory management (34%) ).
The use of AI differs by geography, but not for the reasons you might think.
The extent to which artificial intelligence is already being used today varies greatly from one geographic area to another. While 80% and 79% of manufacturers in Italy and Germany, respectively, report using artificial intelligence in daily operations, that percentage plummets in the United States (64%), Japan (50%) and Korea (39% ).
While it’s the most common barrier, only a quarter (23%) of manufacturers surveyed believe they don’t have the talent to leverage AI properly. Cost also does not appear to be an obstacle (21% of respondents). Rather, the missing link appears to have the right technology platform and tools to manage a production-grade AI pipeline.
Looking to the future: the golden age of AI for manufacturing
The key to widespread adoption of AI lies in its ease of implementation and use. As AI becomes more pervasive in solving real-world problems for manufacturers, Google Cloud sees the industry move from “pilot purgatory” to the “golden age of artificial intelligence.” The manufacturing industry is no stranger to innovation, from the days of mass production, lean manufacturing, six sigma, and more recently, enterprise resource planning. Artificial intelligence promises to bring even more innovation to the forefront.
To find out more about these findings, download the full report here.
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