EMS@C-LEVEL
As Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company and SCOOP writer, Philip Stoten, continues to talk to EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) executives he learns more about their individual and collective experiences and their expectations for their own businesses and for the entire electronic manufacturing industry.
EMS@C-LEVEL
Electronica 24: Peter Gutschi on How AI is Shaping the Future of Manufacturing
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Join me as I sit down with Peter Gutschi at Electronica 2024 to explore how the future of manufacturing is being reshaped by artificial intelligence. This episode unravels the real-world impact of AI on the shop floor and beyond, uncovering how it's not just another buzzword but a powerful tool driving efficiencies and innovation. Discover how AI is transforming equipment utilization, quality management, and even product design, as Peter shares insights from his extensive consulting work with industry giants like ESCATEC and cutting-edge startups. Learn how AI technologies, such as Luminovo's platform and Cybord's component inspection tools, are handling data at levels far beyond human capabilities, providing companies with unprecedented clarity and control over their processes.
Explore the exciting developments that AI brings to manufacturing, including the ability to more accurately predict supply chain demands and advance sustainability efforts right from the design phase. Reflecting on past supply chain crises, Peter explains how AI's enhanced data visibility and transparency can lead to more reliable and efficient production cycles. Don't miss this opportunity to understand how businesses can leverage AI for smarter decision-making and a competitive edge in today's rapidly evolving manufacturing landscape. Whether you're an industry veteran or a curious newcomer, Peter's insights are sure to inspire and inform.
EMS@C-Level at electronica 2024 was hosted by IPC (https://www.ipc.org/)
EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)
You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.
Hello, I'm Philip Stoughton. I'm at Electronica 2024 and I'm joined by Peter Gucci. Peter, great to see you. It's been a long time. Yeah, what are you doing these days?
Speaker 2Thank you for having me here, Phil. Yeah, what I'm doing these days so one, I'm doing a consulting business, so helping OEMs and startups and scale-up companies to get the business, On the one hand, and I am also supporting some more established or well-established companies and the board, such as Esketech.
Speaker 1Yeah, and you've been doing some interesting things there. What I wanted to talk to you about because I read the blog you wrote about the use of AI in manufacturing and it's a topic of great fascination for me. I think some great opportunities there, but it's quite hard to figure out where the hype is and where the rubber hits the road. Tell me a little bit about what you're seeing in the ecosystem and where you think the opportunity is to really get value out of AI.
Speaker 2Well, yeah, thank you for asking me about that one. So I'm really fascinated by the AI opportunity. I mean, it's literally impacting every area in the industry and particularly when you look at manufacturing, there are lots of spaces it is impacting and, while there is a hype, but the rubber hits already big time the road. We probably just don't see it yet, or don't see it because everyone is just looking to the AI, the superficial AI, yeah, the chat GPT and whatever Chat.
Speaker 2GPT and the one. But if you look to the shop floor or to the manufacturing process itself, there are many AI applications already used, whether this is for planning purposes, whether this is in the quality management, whether this is actually for equipment utilization or asset utilization at all. So the ability of the AI to actually help us structure data which are probably not as easy to be overlooked and seen from a human perspective, it's fascinating. So it gives you a guidance of how to actually plan, where to put priorities. It helps you to identify failures. That simple the visual inspection system which we have today. It has not much to do with the equipment we had 10 or 15 years ago, so it's way more intelligent. It provides way more accurate information. But not only that. It's also when you go into, for example, product design Typically today the EMS industry is generating business by jumping in and engaging with the customer through the design phase and when you can actually help the customer to design their product in an optimal way, that you're designing components which are available and fit for use.
Speaker 1Design for the supply chain. Design for the supply chain. Design for manufacturing process.
Speaker 2Design for manufacturing. And what is very exciting now is also what the other guys do, what I mentioned in the blog Sluicebox they actually help you to immediately see the CO2 footprint. Yeah, so you can, at the design phase, you can impact the sustainability of the product.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's super exciting and I think it's really fascinating and you know we've both seen some examples of where it's working and I know you called one or two out in your article. You mentioned Luminovo, which are creating this platform, right, you also mentioned Cyborg, which are examining components some really interesting opportunities where there's so much data that humanly impossible to manage you couldn't do it in real time? And this is.
Speaker 2this is the fascinating thing. You really can get information real time. You can work with this information that helps you take the right decision and also helps you to answer if you get other customer requests. For example, the typical problem we know in the industry you get a nice request from a customer to build this or that product in that or another quantity, and when can you deliver? So you need to be clear about the supply chain, you need to be clear about your capacity, and AI helps you with that and it helps you to actually commit something which you can, to a large degree, actually can hold up for.
Speaker 1Yeah, and you can action upon it. And I think what I found interesting is we've been through a recent supply chain crisis. I remember the tech wreck of 2000 and the huge inventory overhang that resulted from it. We've done that again and I think with better data and better visibility, better transparency in the supply chain, we should be able to. Even if we can't predict demand at the consumer, we can at least deliver demand signals all the way through the supply chain.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, exactly All the way through the supply grid.
Speaker 1I would say right, because it is multidimensional, it's not just only two dimensions. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2So I think this is absolutely, absolutely right.
Speaker 2So we should be more capable going forward to prevent the situation. We should be more capable to actually, if we cannot immediately prevent it, but to get faster out of the situation. I mean, look, we have been the last year, almost year and a half, we have just been fighting and trying to get the inventory along the supply chain again under control, and if we would use the AI, or if we use it to a larger degree, we could be much more efficient in doing that. So efficiency I think efficiency is what AI drives in all areas is efficiency Whether it's immediately on the shop floor, whether it's on supporting functions for the manufacturing itself, for the core of the manufacturing, or now, more lately to the, I would say, with the large language models and the intelligence of the AI, how it's coming out now, where it's really impacting not only what we see on the shop floor the blue color type of work but it helps also the white color to be much more efficient whether this is procurement planning even to a large degree.
Speaker 2it goes finance for sure already finance and administration, but also when it comes to customer service, understanding customer sentiments. I think this is a very important piece of it, yeah.
Speaker 1Peter, I love your enthusiasm and I love your knowledge and understanding, but I don't see that everywhere in the manufacturing space and I see a lot of gray-haired people like us, and then I see a lot of Stanford graduates doing great things and bringing it into our industry. We need to bridge that gap somehow. We need to create the awareness, and some partnerships are already doing that. You know, Zolna's partnership with Luminovo is a good example.