Published 09/11/2024

AI, Data and the Digital Manufacturing Future

AI has the potential to reshape manufacturing software — but first, it will require data.

Evan Doran

Senior Associate Editor, Modern Machine Shop

Source: Getty Images

Machining technology providers have offered hardware and software for collecting and managing manufacturing data for years, but IMTS 2024 marks what could be a sea change toward the next great leap in digital manufacturing technology: AI. AI is less a single concept than a collection of different technologies relying on automatically processing large data sets, and speakers at this year’s show are addressing the use cases of several AI technologies.

Danny Smith, principal machine learning strategist at Amazon Web Services, will speak about the potential benefits of generative AI in training new employees for highly technical tasks in his talk, “How Generative AI Can Close the Manufacturing Skills Gap,” taking place Thursday, September 12, at 9:00 – 9:55 a.m. in W192-C as part of the IMTS Conference. Theo Saville, co-founder and CEO of CloudNC, will also discuss AI as a tool for streamlining training, with the example of his company’s in-house AI programming tool. Saville’s talk, “Deploying AI to Solve the Manufacturing Skills Gap,” will take place Wednesday, September 11, from 2:00 – 2:30 p.m. in room W196-A as part of TASC – The Automated Shop Conference.

In use cases apart from training, Eric Whitley, director of Industrial Transformation at L2L, will discuss the benefits of AI built upon “Connected Worker” technology, with a talk promising to describe how pairing AI with real-time manufacturing information can lead to bottleneck recognition and the development of proactive solutions to solve them. Whitley’s talk, “Transforming Continuous Improvement: The Role of AI and Connected Worker Technology,” will take place Tuesday, September 10, from 10:00 – 10:55 a.m. in W193-A as part of the IMTS Conference.

Josh Leath, product manager for Thermal Robotics at Yaskawa, and Andy Lonsberry, CEO and co-founder of Path Robotics, will turn the discussion of AI to its connections with robotics and machine learning. They will offer ways that these technologies can help manufacturers excel during their panel, “What’s Next: The Evolution of Machine Learning, AI, & Robotics” on Thursday, September 12, from 3:15 – 4:10 p.m. in room W194-A as part of the IMTS Conference.

AI promises to play a large role in the future of manufacturing, benefiting areas from training to continuous improvement to robotics, but it will require enormous amounts of real-world data in order to properly model manufacturing operations.

With a common theme among these presentations being the necessity of hefty stockpiles of manufacturing data, attendees will also benefit from talks about how to collect this data, as well as about which tools they can use to do so.

Sandvik Coromant’s talk, “The Cutting Edge of Connectivity: How Sensorized Tooling is Driving Manufacturing into the Future,” shines as an example. This panel will discuss tooling that can help measure temperature, vibration, strain and other data points during manufacturing operations. Technical experts from the company will then discuss how to use these data points to gain insight into tool wear and failure, machining parameters and more. Attendees can find this IMTS Conference talk in room W192-C on Monday, September 9, from 3:15 – 4:10 p.m.

Zeiss’ Scott Lowen, software product manager, and Ian Scribner, product sales manager, bring this discussion to metrology in their talk, “Achieving Digitalization Through Data Diversity.” In this talk, Lowen and Scribner will discuss how to choose the best metrology technology for specific applications, as well as how the collected data can connect to digital twins and power continuous improvement initiatives. This talk will take place Thursday, September 12, from 3:15 – 4:10 p.m. in W193-A as part of the IMTS Conference.