Welcome to the future of manufacturing, where the industrial world meets the software world — or, rather, where any manufacturing company can benefit from Generative AI. Yes, you read that right. Generative AI is no longer confined to Silicon Valley; it’s now an integral part of the manufacturing industry, transforming processes with unprecedented efficiency and creativity. Ready to dive into a world where man, machine, and AI collaborate?
Real-World Applications of Generative AI
Generative AI is like a Swiss army knife for manufacturers. Whether it’s optimizing the supply chain, enhancing productivity, or predicting maintenance needs, there’s a use case for every challenge. Let’s explore some real-world Generative AI manufacturing use cases.
Productivity Unleashed
In big organizations, employees spend a lot of time searching for information from internal documents (regulations, guidelines, manuals, cases, etc.) with queries that could differ between individuals. For instance, a new engineer would like to check the recommended guidelines for safety procedures. LG Chem turned to Generative AI to supercharge their productivity. By providing a search engine powered by RAG architecture to facilitate access to specialized responses tailored to their internal content rather than general responses from ChatGPT, their employees can now focus on higher-value-added tasks, improving work productivity.
Predictive Maintenance
Machines, like people, can have off days. Using the power of Generative AI combined with traditional machine learning (ML) and data science, maintenance teams can get quick, accurate suggestions to commonly asked questions in the moments that matter most. For instance, reliability engineers can ask questions such as what pieces of equipment have the highest chance of failure, and maintenance supervisors can easily access the maintenance jobs planned for the coming months.
Supply Chain Optimization
Over the past years, ML has started to supercharge supply chains by providing more reliable forecasts, optimizing inventory allocation, and improving dock activities planning. Generative AI offers additional value in supply chains by enhancing demand forecasting and automating contract intelligence. It speeds up response times, boosts revenue through continuous demand response, and improves team collaboration. It also streamlines contract management by extracting critical data from complex documents, reducing the need for specialized legal skills.
Sales Effectiveness
It is traditionally hard to identify potential customers as business development can be very informal and manual (i.e., searching on Google, brainstorming, phone calls, etc.). With the rise of Generative AI, some companies have tested innovative approaches to automate this process. Heraeus has developed an innovative approach which identifies sales leads and fact-checks them thanks to external knowledge. Given that the former sales lead identification process was immensely manual and time-consuming, the estimated time saved with the new process that leverages large language models (LLMs) is 60%-70%. Heraeus has been able to identify targets they would not have been able to without the tool, demonstrating the efficiency of the use case and the quality of the results.
Competitive Intelligence
Companies must monitor technological progress and potential market disruptions to stay competitive. With many different sources of information, such as industry news, proprietary articles, and patents, it can become challenging for employees to review all the information available to help them make decisions.
Ørsted was facing this kind of situation and, as such, several people were in charge of creating summaries of proprietary articles for their executive management. Thanks to LLMs, they have generated two versions of a daily news digest: an executive version for senior management featuring the ten most relevant articles and a 360 edition with more details available to senior management and the rest of the company. This AI-driven news digest now gives the business an enhanced understanding of market dynamics.
Customer Satisfaction
The explosion of user-generated content, such as customer reviews, social media posts, and feedback forms, presents both a challenge and an opportunity for businesses. This data's sheer volume and unstructured nature make manual analysis impractical and unscalable, but critical insights into customer preferences, opinions, and emerging trends lie within this vast sea of text.
Leveraging advanced tools like LLMs for automated text analysis allows companies to transform unstructured data into actionable intelligence. Specifically, by analyzing customer reviews, businesses can quickly and efficiently identify their customers' key topics and sentiments. It provides a deeper understanding of customer needs and expectations, driving more informed business decisions.
The Dataiku Advantage
Imagine being a chef with all the best tools at your disposal. The Dataiku platform equips you with everything needed to build sophisticated AI models. It’s user-friendly, collaborative, and integrates smoothly with your existing systems, making the power of Generative AI accessible to everyone in your organization.
Dataiku supports the entire data pipeline, from data preparation to model deployment. It’s like having a sous-chef who handles the grunt work, allowing you to focus on innovation. The best part? Dataiku democratizes AI so engineers, scientists, supply chains, and financial analysts can build real-world applications faster and provide real value for the business.
The Future Is Now
Manufacturing has always been a playground for technological innovation, and Generative AI is the latest game-changer. Embracing this technology ensures staying competitive and leading the way into more intelligent manufacturing, an efficient supply chain, and a more sustainable future.
Next time you see a flawlessly designed product or witness seamless factory operations, remember that AI might be the unsung hero behind the scenes. With platforms like Dataiku, embarking on this transformative journey towards Everyday AI is easier than ever. Ready to revolutionize your manufacturing process? The future is here!