From steam engines to conveyor-belt assembly lines and robots on the factory floor, the manufacturing industry has long been a pioneer of new technologies. Artificial intelligence now looks set to become the next and, perhaps, biggest leap forward. But what will it mean for jobs over the next decade? Use cases: controlling plants, recommending equipment fixes, designing products, assembling parts. Manufacturing is already highly automated, with sensors, software and computer networks monitoring the output, data, pressure and temperature of factory machines and industrial processes. Such connectivity has become essential on sites that are sometimes square miles wide. “In a refinery or petrochemical plant, there can be thousands — if not tens of thousands — of instruments, equipment and valves [needed] to, for instance, manage 250,000 to 500,000 barrels of oil per day and process that into gasoline,” points out Jason Urso, chief technology officer in the software division of Honeywell, a US industrial conglomerate. Within 10 years, more than 80 per cent of manufacturing facilities could be using AI to help run these “control systems” and fix problems with them, he forecasts. If, for example, a machine emits an unusual sound, a factory worker can ask the AI software to analyse that sound, summarise the problems associated with it and recommend remedial action, Urso says. Some manufacturers already invest in this type of AI. United States Steel Corporation, for example, has said it will use generative AI software from Google to guide its workers through truck repairs and ordering parts. AI is also playing a bigger role in product design. For example, AI-powered software can help automotive engineers make multiple three-dimensional vehicle designs in minutes instead of days, says Stephen Hooper, vice-president of software development, design and manufacturing at US software supplier Autodesk. “You [can] build 3D [computer designs] of styling for new vehicles in a fraction of the [current] time,” he notes. “You can control characteristics like the wheelbase, the vehicle type . . . and [the AI] will derive hundreds, if not thousands, of alternatives”.
Special report : How ‘Humanoid’ robots could change the way manufacturing assembly lines look.
