Generative AI: A Solution for the Manufacturing Skills Gap?

How Generative AI Is Transforming Manufacturing

Leveraging generative AI solutions for the manufacturing skills gap isn’t the only way the technology is reshaping the industry. GenAI use case examples span product design and prototyping, predictive maintenance, quality control, and supply chain optimization.

Design and Prototyping

Product design is the key use case for generative AI in manufacturing, highlighted by Deloitte, Gartner, AWS, McKinsey, and many more. It’s also the leading AI use case in production, according to the fresh MIT Technology Review Insights Survey.

Autodesk, a leading product and project design solution, has already incorporated GenAI capabilities into its software. General Motors already uses GenAI to optimize vehicle parts and reduce vehicles’ weight.

Coupled with digital twin technology, GenAI can create product designs and prototypes based on any number of input variables, including available equipment and raw materials. This speeds up time to market and enhances the business’s agility.

GenAI can also easily solve complex design problems, making it well-positioned for tackling chip design in particular.

Leveraging this use case, however, requires additional generative AI workforce training to ensure your employees can make the most out of the technology. A human in the loop should also be present to verify the output reliability.

Predictive Maintenance

Combined with Industrial IoT data and analytical AI/ML, GenAI can aid in monitoring the equipment state and predict when failures become likely. The recommendation system can then schedule maintenance before those failures can occur.

GenAI enhances predictive maintenance systems with step-by-step guidelines and requirements for maintenance, all generated automatically. The technology can also generate instructions for any experience level, allowing relatively inexperienced technicians to complete maintenance. This is one more way how generative AI in manufacturing skills can aid in closing the skill gap.

U.S. Steel, for example, uses MineMind to facilitate equipment maintenance by supplying optimal solutions for present mechanical problems.

As a result, manufacturers can avoid unexpected downtime and reduce maintenance costs with more effective predictive maintenance.

Quality Control

Both computer vision and advanced data analytics are already used to identify defects on the assembly line more accurately than a human could. Generative AI can further augment these quality control tools in three ways:

• Synthetic data generation. Advanced analytics tools have to be trained on a vast pool of data which may be hard to get by. GenAI can create the said data for training the model.
• Natural language output. GenAI can communicate potential root causes for defects, as identified by ML-powered analytics, in easy-to-understand language.
• Report and documentation generation. Following a major product defect, a GenAI tool can produce a detailed report in a matter of seconds.

Supply Chain Management

Combined with advanced analytics, GenAI can boost employee productivity with chat-your-data and report-generating solutions.

For example, instead of scanning through multiple dashboards and spreadsheets, supply chain managers can simply ask when the shipment from XYZ is bound to arrive. The chatbot promptly responds using data from the database.

As a result, supply chain managers can do more without the drudgery of locating the right database entry. This puts the organization one step closer to operational excellence and optimizes costs.

How to Overcome 4 Challenges of GenAI in Manufacturing

Leveraging generative AI for the manufacturing skills gap isn’t without its challenges, from integrations with existing systems to scalability across operations. Let’s break them down, along with best practices for tackling each challenge.

1. Integrations with Existing Systems

Technical debt can make integration challenging, as is the case for 45% of manufacturers seeking to adopt AI. To make the most out of GenAI, you need to integrate the new solution with the application stack so that the data can flow back and forth unobstructed in real time.

Integration issues can stem from hastily coded features, outdated technologies, poorly thought-out architecture, unsuitable infrastructure, and more.

Solutions

• Address technical debt. Consider all the existing technical debt, from architecture to design and code debt, and remove the biggest obstacles to AI implementation.
• Standardize your data. Ensure all the data follows the same standard to prevent compatibility issues during integration.
• Choose the right integration method. You can integrate your new GenAI solution with APIs, webhooks, or middleware. Legacy systems typically require integration middleware to work with modern technologies like GenAI.

2. Lack of Quality Training Data

In a surprising twist, higher-revenue manufacturers are less likely to find data suitable for training AI models. But whether you’re planning to use generative AI for workforce training in manufacturing or predictive analytics for preventative maintenance, you need that data — and a lot of it.

Solutions

• Standardize your data. The root cause usually isn’t the lack of data, per se — it’s data quality. Ensure your data is standardized everywhere and flows seamlessly across the application stack.
• Prepare your data. Training data should reflect the diversity of use cases and scenarios that the future model will have to deal with. Ensure it’s clean, reliable, and objective, too.
• Consider synthetic data generation. If your data isn’t enough or can’t be used due to privacy or IP concerns, you can train the model on synthetic data.

3. Scalability Across Large Operations

As manufacturers leverage generative AI, they may struggle to scale the technology’s use across large operations. The number one reason for that is the shortage of specialist skills and talent, both in engineering/R&D and factory and production. Inadequate governance, cloud limitations, subpar data quality, and AI model maintenance costs can also hinder scaling.

Solutions

• Secure the right talent. Navigating the Great Attrition means offering meaningful work and growth opportunities and inspiring value propositions. If the local talent pool is too limited, consider manufacturing software development services from experts like Bits Orchestra.
• Ensure data quality. Diverse and complex datasets are key to making the AI models applicable to a variety of scenarios.
• Ramp up cloud capabilities. GenAI models have to live in the cloud. Ensure your data can flow seamlessly to the cloud and choose a provider that can handle large volumes of computations and big data.

4. Output Reliability

Generative AI tools can’t stop making headlines for their biased and flat-out inaccurate outputs. (In one case, a New York City chatbot even suggested businesses break the law.)

The reality is, there’s always a risk of unreliable output with GenAI. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use generative AI for manufacturing skills gap, however. You need to mitigate that risk during development — and train end users to be mindful of them.

Solutions

• Embrace responsible AI tenets during development. Responsible AI is a set of principles that underscore algorithms’ explainability, fairness, robustness, transparency, and privacy.
• Use diverse, high-quality datasets. Diverse and representative data minimizes the risk of biased and inaccurate outputs.
• Keep a human in the loop. Establish a robust governance framework and ensure end users understand the limitations of their GenAI tools.

How Bits Orchestra Helps Manufacturers Achieve Operational Excellence

Ready to leverage generative AI to enhance manufacturing skills? Bits Orchestra has the secret sauce to help you close the skill gap while optimizing training and upskilling costs.

As a manufacturing software developer with 130+ projects under our belts, we’ve helped numerous clients achieve cost savings and secure productivity and efficiency gains. Check out our case studies in inventory management and supply solutions for manufacturers to see our expertise in action.

Ready to Close the Manufacturing Skills Gap?

Leveraging generative AI for the manufacturing skills gap can help you upskill and reskill your workforce faster and more cost-efficiently, all while improving learning outcomes and trainee engagement. Its key use cases include:

• Generating custom learning materials
• Capturing undocumented expertise
• Dynamically personalizing training modules
• Making knowledge repositories chattable
• Providing real-time feedback on learning
• Creating digital twins to enhance learning experiences

On top of workforce training, GenAI innovations are poised to enhance quality control, preventative maintenance, product design, and supply chain management.

However, manufacturers must navigate multiple challenges to reap all the benefits of GenAI. Those include integrations with existing systems, lack of quality data, scalability, and output reliability.

Lacking the right expertise to overcome these challenges and launch a GenAI solution? We can lend you our expertise to fast-track your transition to Industry 5.0. Contact us to discuss your goals and needs in detail — or browse our blog for more insights on manufacturing and cutting-edge technology.