IMTS 2024, CHICAGO – New technologies and customer demands are driving change to business models no matter what the industry, but in manufacturing the change is happening fast.
Anyone on the show floor at the massive IMTS show in Chicago this week saw the impact artificial intelligence (AI), digital transformation, private networks and IoT are having. The event offered an up close and personal view thanks to all kinds of machinery hissing from hydraulics; water gushing in enclosed cabinetry that showcased automated drills, cutters and welders; and giant robotic arms lifting up cars and swinging them around like toys (see image below).
According to the IMTS event organizers, AMT, this year's event had 40 million pounds of machinery on exhibit. Rumors circulated that attendee numbers hit 100,000 — as big as, if not bigger than, Mobile World Congress.
Off the show floor, down in the bows of Chicago's McCormick Place, manufacturing executives from GE Appliances, Xometry and Google Cloud delved into how AI is reshaping their industries. The panelists shared insights on evolving business models, supply chain resiliency and the future of manufacturing.
According to all three execs, customer expectations are driving major changes in manufacturing business models. Praveen Rao, managing director at Google Cloud, said key trends for the sector are: online sales, customization and product interconnectivity.
"More and more customers are buying goods online...they want customized work, they want everything to be interconnected," he explained.
Data deluge
These customer demands are driving a shift in the way manufacturers must respond to everything from product design to shipping, according to Marcia Brey, VP of logistics at GE Appliances. She said her company has doubled output and revenue in recent years, requiring a shift to be more data-driven — and the best way to manage that data has been through using GenAI.
"We have more data than you could possibly imagine," said Brey. For example, she said GE has been working with Google Cloud to help manage data to understand and manage supply chain issues.
"How can you information that is in the heads of these 12 people, and then know how to connect multiple data sets together to be able to answer a simple question, like, 'What's the health of this particular SKU?'" Brey said. "Using large language models, [they] can ask, what's the health of the SKU, and they're going to get a very specific answer."
AI enables GE Appliances to predict and address supply chain issues before they become problems, added Brey. "AI gives us the ability to predict and see where we're missing as we are hitting different nodes in the supply chain, and that is really a game changer for us, to be able to address problems before a customer pays the price."
But it's not just GE that is using GenAI to build supply chain visibility and resiliency. Randy Altschuler, CEO of Xometry (XMTR:NASDAQ), an AI-based marketplace for custom manufacturing, explained how AI algorithms are used to optimize supply chains and create more durable partnerships with manufacturers: "AI is actually playing a very important role there."
Approximately $2 trillion worth of custom-manufactured parts are purchased every year around the globe, according to Altschuler. "We have a very fragmented supply chain that makes those parts, hundreds of 1,000s of small manufacturers spread out across the United States and across the world."
Altschuler said his customers can get instant pricing of their custom-manufactured goods. "So think of a satellite company or a medical device company having something manufactured for the first time, they can get an instant price and instant lead time," he said. "We also use AI to create prices for the manufacturers. So, what used to be a very opaque, inefficient and slow process that could take days or weeks, now can happen within minutes" thanks to AI.
He added that Xometry's AI-powered pricing and matching algorithms have improved accuracy and lead times for customers. "Over time, our ability to actually predict what that cost is has increased substantially."
Measuring the value and ROI of GenAI
Understanding data and supply chain management are just several of the ways manufacturers are benefitting from GenAI. Google Cloud's Rao shared survey results showing that early adopters are benefiting significantly, with over 60% of customers having at least one AI use case in production. "They were recording or on a path to the core ROI within a year," he said.
In addition, Rao foresees a shift towards more technologically advanced manufacturing workers. "Their profile is going to change significantly. They're going to be more technocrats. So, they are going to walk around with sophisticated gadgets, very similar to IT workers," he said.
With this shift, Brey hoped for AI tools that are more accessible to non-experts, allowing employees to incorporate AI into their daily work.
"I think as we continue to learn and learn from each other, we have to rewire the way we think about just everything we do, how we approach problems and opportunities and how AI can [be a] partner," she concluded.