Successful applications of AI in manufacturing industry

The manufacturing industry has exploited the use of AI technology, and in particular knowledge-based systems, throughout the manufacturing lifecycle. This has been motivated by the competitive challenge of improving quality while at the same time decreasing costs and reducing design and production time. Just-in-time manufacturing and simultaneous engineering have further required companies to focus on exploiting technology to improve manufacture planning and coordination, and on providing more intelligent processing in all aspects of manufacturing. This paper looks at five examples of the use of this technology in various stages of the manufacturing lifecycle. In each case the goal is to improve quality, to reduce costs, and to speed up the design and manufacturing process. These applications include Nippon Steel´s Quality Design Expert System, Ford´s Technical Information Engineering System, a semi-articulated lorry trailer configurer; vibration analysis in rotating machines and Ford´s Expert System for Claims Authorisation and Processing