This article is part of an ongoing series on the uses for artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing, starting with our article introducing machine learning and AI, and their relevance to manufacturing. This article will cover how AI can be used for value creation in a manufacturing context.
Is AI for You?
Not all manufacturers are wondering how AI can fit into their operations. They may suffer for this down the line, or see the error of their ways. However, many of them come by this resistant stance because of a misunderstanding of the role that AI can play in their operations.
One of the biggest misconceptions has to do with AI’s relation to your employees. A common, but often wrong, conception of AI is that it will replace customers. This can be true in the case of robotics, where robotic arms can take up a spot in the assembly line.
Even in the case of the robot arm, that does not warrant a full replacement of an employee. The truth is that much of the AI solutions available for manufacturing, among other industries, exist for the assistance of employees, not the full replacement of them.
AI saves employees a lot of time on tasks like transportation planning and predictive maintenance, freeing them up for more human-oriented tasks, or just making those tasks easier and more well-informed, creating a more efficient overall process.
Create Value with Help from Artificial Intelligence
To create value in manufacturing, one must have an awareness of how competitors’ products differentiate from your own, so that you can, in turn, differentiate your own products. This differentiation can be accomplishes through minor or superficial choices, like changing the color of a car, or it can be more complex, like finding a way to make your car safer than competitors’ products.
This, really, is the value that businesses and manufacturers are concerned with, which is how the customer will perceive the value of your product. For manufacturers, however, there can also be a concern for how businesses buying your manufactured products will judge your products’ value. In a way, value creation is the most important aspect of running a business, especially a manufacturing plant where judging the fitness of a product is an essential part of daily operations.
How Value is Created with AI-Powered Services
Our previous articles, such as the one on predictive maintenance, touch on AI-powered processes that can help create value.
For example, AI-powered predictive maintenance can make it easier to keep your machinery running at high efficiency, and forestall any inevitable decline or even breakdowns, keeping your product quality high. This can be a strong selling point for manufacturers trying to convince clients that they can consistently provide high-quality products with a low risk of interruptions in manufacturing.
Product price recommendation can be a major value-creator for convincing customers about the value of your product. Not too low and not too high is the name of the game. AI can use data about market trends and customer behavior to figure out what the optimal price of any given product will be. A price that is competitive with other brands, but still high enough to speak to the quality of the product, is the Goldilocks price. It is ideal because it turns a profit without putting off customers about a price that is too high, or too low.
The same can be said for commodity price prediction, which can increase your value to clients that will be glad to hear that you have lower manufacturing costs than competitors, and fairer prices as a result.
All of these solutions are offered by Findability Sciences, a company that provides top-shelf AI services to clients across a wide variety of industries. This includes, of course, manufacturing. Not only do they offer the services named above, but they also specialize in other optimizing processes such as demand forecasting and transportation planning.
If you have been wondering about how you can boost your value creation companies, then don’t hesitate to give Findability Sciences a call.
Previous Articles in Our Machine Learning for Manufacturers Series:
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