A Mediaplanet Guide to Business and Automation Technology
Business Artificial Intelligence
Kirk Borne Read the insightful op-ed on the untapped potential of artificial intelligence to enact social good
Discover what Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has to say about the benefits of cloud computing for businesses Learn how employee well-being impacts customer service according to ”Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary DECEMBER 2020 | FUTUREOFBUSINESSANDTECH.COM
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Artificial Intelligence Is Delivering More Personal Service Businesses struggling to keep up with a rapidly changing tech landscape may get an unexpected boost from artificial intelligence, chatbots, and other automated assistants. As they wrestle with myriad cost, operational, and customer service challenges, many enterprises are turning to RPA, artificial intelligence (AI), and other intelligent automation and analytics technologies to alleviate operational pressure and fuel more personalized customer experiences. Intelligent virtual assistant tech such as NEVA (NICE Employee Virtual Assistant) is designed to enable employees to deliver exceptionally intuitive and personalized customer experiences in real-time. Attended robots (like NEVA) reside on the employees’ desktop, monitoring their real-time actions such as mouse clicks and keyboard strokes, with the ability to pop up at just the right moment during a live customer interaction to offer the employee contextually relevant assistance. What’s more, attended bots are natural integrators and can communicate with the organization’s systems and applications. For example, when there is an incoming customer call, the attended bot will immediately identify who the customer is, and the type of assistance that the customer needs, based on their Interactive Voice Response (IVR) selection. The availability of rich data and speech analytics enables the virtual attendant to assist the employee with a deeper real-time understanding of the customer by prompting the employee with real-time guidance on how best to respond to a customer cue at any given moment. An example of real-time guidance that an employee may receive from an attended bot could be to alert an employee to an upsell opportunity, at just the right moment, which will naturally impact the organization’s bottom line. Oded Karev, General Manager, NICE Robotic Automation Solutions
This has been paid for by NICE Robotic Automation.
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Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Weighs in on the Benefits and Risks of Cloud Computing Wozniak tells us about how businesses can transition to the cloud, best practices for security, and using the cloud to enhance productivity and output. How have you most effectively used cloud software in your personal and business life? I use cloud file-sharing software more than enterprise cloud storage today. I speak at a lot of events around the world, so cloud software helps me access and share files no matter where I am. While you still can’t get online over an ocean, it’s definitely a lot easier to use the cloud than to carry lots of hard drives around the globe in my backpack. How have cloud solutions allowed large companies to operate differently? It is usually faster and easier to add cloud storage than another hardware system in a compa-
ny’s data center, so enterprise cloud storage can help engineering teams get new ideas developed faster. This can be a big advantage for an innovative company. The cloud also goes beyond storage. Cloud computing is growing, especially as we are all used to having our mobile devices link us to data wherever we are. Cloud computing puts lots of unused CPU power to work, and the end user gets a great experience.
prise cloud storage is how much it will cost them to move data off that cloud when the time comes. Sometimes this can be very expensive, so doing your homework at the start can save you from surprises later. Companies have spent a vast amount of money over time on infrastructure maintenance alone. How is cloud computing assisting in cutting costs while allowing for IT innovations? Cloud capacity is great for cost savings, but the even better thing about the cloud is that it’s easy for both IT and engineers to deploy and use. I love that it can help engineers get the resources they need to keep working on development of their ideas as fast as possible without having to wait for more local systems. To support fast development and testing for engineers, you can add cloud storage more quickly than buying more hardware when developers need to clone a database for testing. The clone doesn’t have to be on high performance storage, so the cloud is a good option to use when you need to test something quickly and inexpensively.
As companies move toward cloud platforms, what advice would you give to ensure a smooth transition?
Where do you see the big data and cloud storage industry going?
No matter which cloud file-sharing or enterprise cloud storage you choose, make sure it can still deliver data seamlessly for users. People expect technology to be transparent today, and as engineers, it’s our job to deliver a great, easy experience. One thing that some companies overlook when adopting enter-
Ease of use and automation will be big trends for enterprise technology. [Adobe] Flash made applications fast, and the cloud makes it easier to scale, but nothing ties these two tiers together yet. The missing link is the ability to manage an application’s evolving needs for more performance or capacity. n
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Publisher Christian Smith Business Developer Abraham Freedberg Managing Director Luciana Olson Lead Designer Tiffany Pryor Designer Celia Hazard Lead Editor Mina Fanous Copy Editor Kathleen Walsh Partnerships and Distribution Manager Jordan Hernandez Director of Sales Stephanie King Director of Product Faye Godfrey Cover Photo Booz Allen Hamilton All photos are credited to Getty Images unless otherwise specified. This section was created by Mediaplanet and did not involve USA Today.
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Employee Engagement Drives Customer Experience More Than You Think Entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary explains the striking correlation between how a company treats its employees and superior customer experience with those well-treated employees.
What’s better than making your customers happy?
Resources for success Today’s modern consumers are becoming increasingly more empowered with improved access and knowledge to the marketplace itself. Through social media and easy, online cost comparisons, now is the time for businesses to invest in the necessary technology and resources to empower employees with the best customer experience solutions possible. Flexibility in the cloud One approach to improving these services for workers is by increasing flexibility for the customer by taking customer service to the cloud. With cloud technology companies can take services that were once restricted to the PC and provide the same services on every digital platform, thus improving business-customer engagement. “The key of the cloud is to be able to access your data from anywhere, anytime,” says “Shark Tank” star and Canadian entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary. With this flexibility, customer service and tech support can respond faster and more effectively. “If you have a customer, regardless of where they 4
are, you can get a lot of profile data about the experience they’re having with your product and service,” explains O’Leary. “As you build that data, the value of that customer goes higher and higher for you.” This is where customer retention comes into play. The better equipped you are to provide service to a loyal customer, the more likely they are to stay with you in the long run. The numerous benefits associated with using the cloud makes it easy to attract customers and, with due diligence, maintain the relationship and thus increase the value of your business. Exploring new territory “There is no question that if you are able to score in the top [range] of customer service quarter after quarter, the value of your brand goes through the roof,” explains O’Leary. This crucial aspect is somewhat new territory for businesses, as social media now provides instant and in-depth customer feedback for all other potential and current customers to read. However, businesses can also take advantage of the information provided by these conversations by adapting to the needs of their client base. “When you launch something that is clearly not being accepted, or is being accepted, you need to know why,” says O’Leary, “you definitely need to be monitoring
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this. The cloud lets you do that instantaneously.” Use it right In order to get the most out of the cloud and social media data management, the question becomes whether businesses need to invest in analytic solutions or if they can just build a database to access this user data on the go at all times. According to O’Leary, “It’s not just enough to collect the data — you have to actually be able to manage it and get useful information from it.” For this, there is a diverse array of dashboards available to cut and review data in multiple ways and maximize benefit. “Having data and not having the ability to analyze or manage it is useless.” With the right analytic tools, associates can summarize daily data reports in as little as a single page. Fortunately, investing in these tools is also becoming increasingly accessible to businesses of all sizes. The average return on investment was once three years, but “the systems are so powerful and the costs have gone down, [so] you can now get your investment return in less than a year,” said O’Leary. This minimizes the risks involved so that even smaller businesses can also take advantage of cloud computing technology and empower employee engagement as well as the customer experience. n Zoe Alexander MEDIAPLANET
... um, happier.
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3 Ways Contact Centers Adapt and Build Your Brand In 2016, 62 percent of U.S. companies considered customer experience a competitive differentiator for businesses. A crucial part of the customer experience is delivered via partnered contact centers, so it’s important to ask: What makes an effective contact center, and how can you tell if yours is successful? 1. Multi-channel hubs When it comes to the contact center’s success, there are two areas of interest, says Lisa Oswald, senior vice-president of customer service at the Society of Consumer
Affairs Professionals in Business. “First and foremost: reliability, performance, quality, and technology.” These are the quantitative points that are measurable on the so-called “hard side of business.” But the most important element is qualitative: the people. “Whether it’s your business partner or internal employee, the team should have 100 percent alignment on company goals and brand values,” says Oswald. “The contact center is the face of your brand.” The role of a contact center is about protecting your brand reputation, which is done through offering great performance, efficiency, knowledge,
and accuracy. But the contact center is “really the heart and soul of any brand’s business,” says Oswald. “That’s where you’re having those conversations with consumers that make or break loyalty and trust.” Those are two factors that can also make or break a business. 2. Supportive partnerships Like the rest of our technology, contact centers have seen dramatic changes over the course of the last decade. One of the most noticeable differences is the wide recognition of cloud-based contact centers as a valuable, strategic business unit that creates loy-
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alty and retention, which in turn drives revenue. “There are so many factors that impact the partnership and quality of contact centers,” says Oswald. When a business is ready to develop a contact center partnership, there are a few key things to look for such as business process expertise, performance, quality assurance, privacy and security, technology, reliability, employee and customer retention, and recruiting. 3. Sophisticated customer response Historically, the industry reviewed contact centers
exclusively by operational metrics such as how fast phones were picked up, average wait times, and average handle times. While these factors are still crucial to overall success, they aren’t the only factors as they ignore the quality of experience the customers are having. “More and more brands have switched to qualitative elements,” says Oswald. “The true measure is how your customer perceives the quality of your service.” So for measuring the customer response, it is important to use member-driven efforts (e.g., customer surveys). n Zoe Alexander
An Expert Warns Businesses Not to Rely Too Much on AI for Customer Service During the Pandemic Senior vice president and general manager of Khoros Care, Mike Betzer, answers a few questions on how businesses have responded to the increased volume of customer service complaints during the COVID-19 pandemic and warns that AI can be helpful but it’s possible to overuse. How have customer expectations changed since the pandemic? What challenges are companies now facing and how should they go about solving them? Customers increasingly expect brands to meet them where they are. About half of consumers who engage with brands on social media are reaching out about customer care concerns. Furthermore,
over 65 percent of social media users across all platforms expect brands to respond, regardless of whether the initial outreach from the consumer was via private messages or public posts. In the past six months, these expectations have only heightened, and many businesses have had to pivot their customer engagement priorities quickly. Many are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize human connections.
What changes do you think are now permanent? The use of AI and bots to help manage increased volume in support calls and social media inquiries. Having a simple automated welcome message makes customers feel supported and helps set expectations from the get-go. Additionally, there are more alternative methods of customer contact besides traditional phone calls. Give
customers the ability to engage with your business on their preferred channel — SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple Business Chat, Google’s Business Messages — and they’ll be happier. However, these communications must be streamlined across channels into a single engagement hub to help agents support customers in less time and effectively solve custo mer issues.
How can companies looking to leverage AI ensure that their connections with customers are effective and authentic? Listen to your customers and understand who they are — and then don’t forget to treat them like a human. Seventy-one percent of consumers say when brands or companies overuse AI, it makes them feel like they don’t value them as a customer. n
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How AI Is Helping Businesses Pick Up the Slack During the Pandemic A conversation with Rashmi Vittal, chief marketing officer of Conversica, which creates virtual assistants, on how artificial intelligence (AI) and other automated software is helping sales and marketing teams during the economic downturn brought about by COVID-19. How have you seen AI and automation help to tackle some of businesses’ biggest challenges during the ongoing pandemic? By leveraging an augmented workforce powered by people and intelligent automation, businesses optimize their sales funnel, scale their operations, and generate revenue to keep things moving even during the toughest times. In your own opinion, what is the most important lesson COVID-19 has taught us about sales and marketing? Get authentic or get left behind. It didn’t take long for leads and customers to tire of emails from strangers reading “Hope you’re doing well in these trying times.” Customers are demanding more authenticity from brands than ever before. And it’s imperative for sales and marketing teams to adapt and provide custom, genuine experiences from the first touch to conversion. What is an intelligent virtual assistant? How can companies leverage artificial intelligence and intelligent virtual assistants to make their outreach more efficient? Traditional, disconnected email and chatbots are only able to do what a business professional tells them to, sending scripted messages and operating off of pre-defined playbooks. Intelligent virtual assistants can independently conduct conversations across website chat, email, and SMS, comprehending responses and crafting messages that determine the next best action with no micromanagement required.
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Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for Social Good Our world’s challenges — incurable illness, climate change, food insecurity, and inequality — often seem insurmountable. Yet our shared humanity inspires us to not accept these challenges as fate, but rather to strive for solutions. Artificial intelligence (AI) can help. Where insufficient data once limited our ability to understand the root causes and nuances of society’s biggest challenges, now we have the opposite problem: more data than we could ever hope to manually analyze. Untapped, data is useless, but through analysis it may reveal hidden insights to help shape solutions. When applied with a disciplined approach using guidance from experts, AI has the potential to enable the development of revolutionary solutions for our toughest challenges. Untapped potential AI has the power to analyze larger amounts of data than any human could previously imagine. Consider water quality. Many waterways, like the Chesapeake Bay, face threats to their continued existence. Without the bay, we would lose not only a cherished ecosystem and a natural safeguard from floods and erosion, but also tourism and agricultural business. For seven weeks in 2020, data scientists, developers, designers, and AI practitioners partnered with the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative in the first federally supported citizen science water quality data initiative. Data scientists explored previously unanalyzed, nontraditional water quality data and geospatial information. Building on the cooperative’s expertise, AI engineers used machine learning to analyze potential causes of pollution and build models to predict water health. By shedding new light on one of the most studied watersheds in the world, AI provided insight into the health and well-being of the Chesapeake Bay, and demonstrated the ability to support a wide range of environmental and conservation efforts. Advantages in speed and accuracy AI can diagnose anomalies in complex data much more quickly — and accurately — than even a human expert in their field. Each day, 1,500 people in the United States alone are diagnosed with heart failure. Doctors aim to identify declining heart function early, using gold-standard magnetic resonance imaging technology. But this process is time-consuming. Skilled cardiologists require up to 20 minutes per patient to read these images, sometimes days after the radiologist submits the imaging for analysis. In 2015, the Data Science Bowl® challenged data scientists to create an algorithm to automate this assessment. Using data from the National Institutes
of Health and Children’s National Medical Center, analysts developed solutions in just three months, which is an incredibly quick timeframe in the health industry. These algorithms have the potential to allow doctors to diagnose heart conditions faster and earlier, providing doctors more time with their patients to proactively create robust treatment plans when a heart problem is found. At the close of the competition, the winning algorithm was released publicly to allow cardiologists and researchers to explore its integration with diagnostic technologies. This is but one example of how AI can empower doctors to help people live longer, healthier lives. Supporting human minds Collaboration between subject matter, data, and AI experts can build AI solutions to empower better human decision-making. In 2019, there were more than 34 million activations of Emergency Medical Services in the United States. That’s one emergency response every second. The emergency medical technicians answering those calls know slow response times can have life-threatening outcomes. In Fairfax County, Virginia, medical technicians aimed to respond in under four minutes. But reducing response time can be challenging. How do you improve performance with immovable stations, a growing population, and calls coming from anywhere, anytime? Booz Allen donated time and expertise to the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department in a collaborated effort to tackle this challenge. Emergency medical technicians walked the AI team through their dispatch center, explaining how 9-1-1 calls are answered and EMS crews are deployed. Using what they learned, machine learning engineers trained an AI model to optimize allocation of the department’s resources. This AI solution provides insights to aid in the redeployment optimization of fire station assets, thereby improving response times. AI enables us to innovate across a wide variety of disciplines using previously untapped data, providing insights to help shape advanced solutions. In a world increasingly awash in data, AI can empower researchers, innovators, and leaders to develop revolutionary solutions for our toughest challenges. What was once insurmountable can now be overcome with AI guiding our way. n Kirk Borne, Principal Data Scientist, Booz Allen Hamilton MEDIAPLANET
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in higher-value tasks or – said another way – engage in more meaningful work. “This allows businesses to focus on what matters most,” says Jeff McKenzie, Vice President, Product Marketing, BPA at Quadient. “By adding automation, you not only save time but ultimately increase employee engagement and improve the overall quality of work, win-win.”
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The word automation stirs different reactions in different people. Intuitively, automation is synonymous with the elimination of manual work. For CFOs, that spells cost savings by replacing people with machines or software. For some employees, it signifies the potential loss of their job and being replaced with technology. Those who have studied the impact of Business Process Automation (BPA) and its effect on administrative processes, see this technology as a win-win for both the organization and its employees. The win-win of Business Process Automation starts with the understanding that humans want to be a part of something. In other words, employees are more engaged when they are doing meaningful work versus performing tedious and redundant tasks. Many people may be willing to take on manual and administrative jobs because they “need the work.” But over time, low-level employee engagement ultimately risks the long-term growth of the organization. When employees are not engaged, businesses stagnate, costs increase and innovation disappears. These results may be considered the long-term impact of low engagement,
however, some short-term impacts are worth highlighting. A recent study, conducted on behalf of Quadient, aimed to understand how much time could be saved by automating the sending of invoices. That is, how many hours it took a person to print, fold, stuff, and mail invoices versus how long it took when using automated software and hardware. The results were not that surprising. More than 90% of the time spent on this administrative process can be saved when using technology. However, that is only part of the story. Taking this study a step further, each participant was interviewed to understand how they ‘felt’ about the manual work they performed. Every response was similar: boring and redundant. Participants stated they felt the work they were doing was not meaningful and they would prefer to do just about anything else. This lack of engagement was evident in the number of errors produced as 60% of participants were more focused on finishing the tasks and getting them out of the way, than taking the time to doublecheck their work. This is bad for business on many levels. This leads us to the win-win of automation. Businesses win when employees are engaged in finding new ways to better serve customers. We call this; ‘innovation around the customer experience’. Therefore, as manual business processes are eliminated, high-value employees are freed up to engage
Take this example in practice using a recent deployment of Quadient’s Business Process Automation technology. Groov-Pin is a leading manufacturer of precision turned components selling to a variety of industries. The shift to a work-from-home environment because of the COVID-19 pandemic quickly put a spotlight on process issues related to the distribution of both physical and digital invoices. Due to the limitations of an outdated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, Groov-Pin was emailing customer invoices one at a time. These factors combined with working remotely created a bottleneck in the invoicing process. In addition, special invoicing requirements for key accounts mandated a separate process. While the time associated with these processes was a concern, the primary motivation for a new solution was to eliminate low-value tasks to refocus resources and time on higher-value customers and revenue-generating activities. Groov-Pin was able to achieve its objective, plus gain significant time savings. GroovPin’s Controller Ed Fox stated, “We have been pioneers in the lean manufacturing system, which is a production methodology that focuses on minimizing waste while maximizing productivity. Our commitment to lean manufacturing allows us to provide better quality products faster and at a lower cost. Quadient’s Hybrid Mail is a perfect fit with our program.” Implemented the right way, Business Process Automation should elicit a similar reaction in both business leaders as well as employees by delivering a host of benefits from improving job quality to optimizing processes to enhancing the final output. In the end, everybody wins, the organization, the employee, AND the customer.
When the Pandemic Disrupted the Normal Supply Chain, AI Stepped In Software company GEP’s vice president of artificial intelligence (AI), Saratendu Sethi, explains how the pandemic revealed weaknesses in the global supply chain and why businesses are turning to AI for solutions. In your own opinion, what is the most important lesson COVID-19 has taught us about supply chain management? COVID-19 has had many teachable moments, but it certainly put a spotlight on the need for resiliency. At the start of the pandemic, it quickly became obvious that the supply chain was not prepared. Many enterprises realized that their supply chains were more vulnerable to external risks and global disruptions than what they had thought and planned for. Where are you seeing AI make the biggest impact in supply chain management? Enterprises are sitting on top of massive amounts of data that are siloed by function and walled within legacy systems. These systems weren’t designed to manage today’s complex, multi-national supply chains. This is where AI is making the biggest impact on the supply chain through its ability to analyze enormous amounts of data to create a clearer picture of the many activities and interactions that take place and enable businesses to make better decisions as things change.
Supply Chain Careers Offer Opportunity In a Time of Economic Downturn Though unemployment rates have remained high throughout the pandemic, the need for supply chain workers has grown.
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OVID-19 has put the global supply chain in the spotlight as never before in recent memory, and with it a closer look at an already understaffed industry whose need for professionals is only growing as the pandemic continues. The global supply chain refers to a normally invisible process by which goods and products make their way from the manufacturer to distributor to consumer. COVID-19 disrupted this flow as consumer-facing businesses and manufacturing plants alike responded to social distancing mandates and drastically shifting consumer demand. Prior to COVID-19, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that demand for supply chain professionals exceeded supply by a ratio of six to one. As the workforce is reshaped by this pandemic, the need for supply chain professionals will only continue to grow. “The role of the supply chain professional has evolved into a
strategic imperative essential for every aspect of a company’s operations to provide the goods and services needed for the economy to thrive,” said Association of Supply Chain Management (ASCM) CEO Abe Eshkenazi, CSCP, CPA, CAE. “While supply chain professionals have always known their work was contributing to something bigger than themselves, consumers are now more keenly aware of the direct impact supply chain has on their daily lives.” In a time of such widespread economic downturn, supply chain management as an industry’s desperate need for additional workers could turn out to be an unexpected opportunity. Indeed, ASCM’s recently completed career survey report revealed high levels of employee satisfaction, as well as competitive salaries and benefits. The report indicated that 88 percent of supply chain workers have a positive outlook on their careers and 85 percent would recommend working in the field
to others. What’s more, the survey indicated a median salary of $78,750 per year among workers with a bachelor’s degree, which is 24 percent higher than the national median salary. A large majority of respondents, over 90 percent, reported receiving additional compensation like raises, bonuses, and profit-sharing, while 79 percent reported feeling satisfied by the benefits offered. Millions of Americans were laid off in 2020, and unemployment claims have remained high since March. In the week ending December 5 alone, over 800,000 people filed for unemployment. But while the pandemic has decimated industries across the country, supply chain workers have become essential to the nation’s survival and, unlike other business sectors, have been hiring more workers to keep up with demand. As essential workers, supply chain professionals have taken on increased risk during the pandemic. However, as the rollout of new vaccines for the coronavirus continues, risk to essential workers may be lessened, even as our new way of life keeps demand for these professionals high. In this way, supply chain careers could represent a life-changing opportunity to those affected by the pandemic recession, as well as an opportunity to keep the country at large safe. n Lynne Daggett
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AI On the Manufacturing Floor Means More Productivity, Less Downtime For manufacturers, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is all about the data. Inexpensive sensor technology and widely available connectivity on the shop floor have created a flood of product and process data. So, what data is the most critical, and where to begin? Is it technology in search of a problem or are there tangible business benefits for manufacturers? A 2020 study on digital transformation by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) found that 96 percent of manufacturers see digital transformation (including AI) as revolutionary technology in improving competitive advantage, but 46 percent say their organization is just keeping up or lagging in technology implementation. AI and machine learning (ML) have tremendous impact because of the ability to predict when specific events will occur, and to allow for optimal time between capital expenditures, maintenance, and product inspections. AI can increase manufacturing productivity and performance, improve quality, accelerate product development cycles, and increase safety. “In addition to having faster production times, the ability to use AI and ML in historical data sets to predict patterns of production costs by reducing errors, post-processing, and material processing time yields a real-time control over the fabrication process,” said Dima Elissa, CEO and founder of VisMed3D, a global Healthcare TechnologyTM research and consultancy firm based in Chicago. AI is moving manufacturing operations from a reactive world to a more proactive and predictive
reality. Predictive maintenance is a key advantage of AI — allowing manufacturers to balance their equipment cost, performance, and risk with data-driven decisions. Data analytics combine historical and real-time data to reveal previously unknown patterns and processes. Imagine a time when it is commonplace for a shop floor supervisor to report, “The robots called, they replaced the tooling and we’re back online.” Machine reliability and wear can vary greatly depending upon the process used, how quickly a part is machined, the hardness of the material, inherent vibrations, temperatures, and more. Often the same type of machine can wear differently. AI for predictive maintenance allows real-time machine data gathered by sensors and data analytics to accurately predict exactly when machines need maintenance versus performing regular preventive maintenance or experiencing breakdowns that hamper productivity. Data can confirm common drivers of downtime and in some cases, the machines can repair or reset themselves remotely, as needed. Quality data is ubiquitous in manufacturing, and products can be easily inspected via non-destructive evaluation techniques including machine vision, CT scans, 3D scanning, coordinate measurement and more. Product data is abundant, and it can be challenging to understand where the greatest improvement opportunities lie. AI provides data insights via predictive analytics that can identify defects before a product leaves the factory, and machine learning can correct the defect or reject the flawed item automatically. This “as-built” data is fed back into the manufacturing process to drive
overall improvements in real time and improve AI accuracy. And amid the recent pandemic’s disruption of production and supply chains, data-driven manufacturing organizations have increased their competitive edge, so the need to implement these advanced technologies is more urgent than ever. In fact, ASME is working to spread the word about AI and other advanced digital technologies by convening engineers with data scientists and other experts in a series of upcoming events. One such event is The Digital Twin Summit, to be held virtually in spring of 2021, which will feature experts sharing success stories of how digital transformation has accelerated product development, improved product quality, and reduced operation and maintenance costs on the manufacturing floor. Given this rapidly changing landscape of manufacturing, ASME recognizes the need for up-and-coming engineers to understand how AI will impact their day-to-day jobs and career opportunities. Ashley Huderson, Ph.D., ASME director of engineering education and outreach, said her team works with mechanical engineering department heads at universities across the United States to “keep them updated and abreast of the latest innovations and research on engineering education, helping to drive and innovate curricula.” Huderson encourages engineering students to “be flexible but intentional with their academic career. Being flexible will allow them to see the interdisciplinary nature of AI with other subjects, embrace it, and help innovate it.” n
The Next Industrial Revolution Is Here & It’s Happening in AI There is an automation revolution under way — and it will have the same level of impact on our economy and way of life as the invention of the internet did at the turn of the 21st century. Automated technology is already transforming the way we work, and we will likely see more change to the workplace in the next 10 years than we have for the past century. But does this mean that automation will wipe out all jobs and there will be nothing left for humans to do? Not quite. At the heart of this revolution is the fact that all systems can be made to interoperate through digital workers. The Blue Prism enterprise class automation platform generates an expansion of services, higher rates of service quality, greater flexibility in working, such as when coping with the COVID19 pandemic, and most of all, speed and scalability. And the Blue Prism Digital Worker is software that attempts to get as close as possible to a human worker. The digital worker is neither script nor bot, but in fact runs multiple scripts and bots on a large scale in order to seamlessly automate business processes. Like a human worker, the Blue Prism digital worker is trained by a business user and makes use of any tools and third-party technologies it needs. By choice, necessity, or taste, the digital worker makes use of any novel, routine, or classic machine learning or AI algorithm required for the task. The large human-powered business service companies begin to look old fashioned in this new context. They will need to pivot and COVID-19 will likely accelerate all these changes. We already claim that any business processes worthy of the name can be automated. So, buckle up. Jason Kingdon, Chairman & CEO, Blue Prism
Deborah Holton, Managing Director of Industry Events, ASME MEDIAPLANET
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