Page 45 - Plastics News Issue September2025
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FEATURE NEWS
TOP 5 THOUGHTS ON IMPLEMENTING AI
IN MANUFACTURING
rtificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise, productivity, and the avenues it presents for
again. The discipline began in the 1950s tackling the skilled labor shortage.
Abut fell out of favor in the 1970s. In the
1980s, AI became popular again, with expert 1. Generative AI Creates Content
systems that contained comprehensive knowl- Artificial intelligence has quickly gained accept-
edge in fields like law and medicine. Once more, ance among some users who create content like
however, AI fell out of favor. Now in its third in- images, videos and text. Image creation tools
carnation, begun in the late 1990s and ramping like MidJourney and text generators like Chat-
up dramatically in the 2010s and 2020s, artificial GPT are standalone applications that tap into
intelligence seems to have gained sufficient trac- their massive stores of art or language to serve
tion and permeated enough industries to have up novel artwork or written output. In addition to
staying power. Here, then, are a few thoughts on creating output, artificial intelligence can be ap-
AI as it has become a powerful tool in US manu- plied to analyze and interpret huge collections
facturing. of seemingly unruly data. The Harvard Business
AI Implementation Is Taking Hold Review article, “How Generative AI Can Aug-
ment Human Creativity,” 2 describes how busi-
According to an industry survey conducted by nesses can use AI – MidJourney, Stable Diffusion
manufacturing device and software maker Fluke and ChatGPT, specifically – during the creative
Reliability, cited in Manufacturing Business Tech- process to brainstorm and fine-tune innovative
nology’s “Survey: Manufacturers Leading the ideas.
Charge in AI Adoption,” 1 implementation of AI is
rising dramatically in US, UK and German opera- “In the past two decades,” write the article’s
tions. Of over 600 senior decision-makers and authors, “companies have used crowdsourc-
maintenance professionals surveyed in those ing and idea competitions to involve outsiders
countries, 90% of senior decision-makers and in the innovation process. But many businesses
80% of maintenance managers stated that AI have struggled to capitalize on these contribu-
will be a priority during their 2024-2025 calen- tions. They’ve lacked an efficient way to evalu-
dar. When respondents who plan to invest in AI ate the ideas, for instance, or to synthesize dif-
in the coming year were surveyed, some promi- ferent ideas.” Generative AI can help overcome
nent benefits for implementing AI rose to the top those challenges by supplementing the creativ-
of the list, including the technology’s usefulness ity of employees and customers to help them
in developing new products and services, its val- produce novel ideas – and improve the quality
ue in addressing data processing and analysis of raw ideas. “Specifically,” the authors write,
needs, its applications for improving customer “companies can use generative AI to promote
service, its resources for upping efficiency and divergent thinking, challenge expertise bias, as-
September 2025 PLASTICS NEWS 45
