SUPPORTING INNOVATION

AI isn’t a threat to your team; it’s a chance to help them grow.

By Mike Killeen

Park Industries began manufacturing stone fabrication machines in 1953. By any measure, the company is quite successful, with high customer satisfaction and approximately 300 employees.

On Jan. 1, 2020, the company launched its Advanced Manufacturing Technology group, aimed at implementing artificial intelligence (AI) to steer the company toward a new technological direction. Park Industries Vice President of Manufacturing, Duane Bryngelson, set the group in motion for two reasons. “I could see that we needed to speed up the pace that we could build these types of projects, and for implementing AI projects,” he said. Goal achieved. Using programming created in-house, AI has helped Park Industries eliminate downtime, complete more projects, and increase staff while facing the challenge of a shrinking pool of employees with the necessary skill sets.

By using programming to create logical paths for decision-making, AI can be developed and integrated into the manufacturing process. “What we’re doing is building intelligence into the machines,” Bryngelson said. “We’re teaching the AI programs what kind of materials the machines are cutting, what types of tools they’re using to perform the cutting, and the wear characteristics and tool pressures applied to the material. After we build the material and tooling intelligence into the machine, we then add inspection logic into the machine,” Bryngelson continued. “At that point, an operator can start the machine, walk away and go operate another machine and know that the first machine is monitoring its own quality.”

A Valuable Teammate

Park Industries has made the decision not to displace any workers due to the

Intelligent Numbers

AI adoption in business is growing: 25% of businesses have integrated AI into their operations.

There is opportunity with AI from a marketing perspective: 79% of sales and marketing leaders say AI has helped their companies increase revenue.

implementation of AI. “We are using AI to improve the working environment for our team, so for things that may be boring or don’t enhance the quality of a job, we’ll build intelligence into the machine to perform those types of tasks,” Bryngelson said.

“We’ve done a lot of AI here, and I can tell you we’ve added positions – higher-level positions, more technical,” Bryngelson added. For example, some employees who may have started as machinists have received education through Park and now are high-level technicians. “We had a lot of people say, ‘Can I sign up and can I learn enough skills to take this on?’ We had others who said, ‘I love what I’m doing, can I keep doing that?’ So it worked beautifully both ways,” Bryngelson said.

Quality First

As with any technology, there are challenges to implementing AI. “An old piece of advice when computers first came into existence was ‘garbage in, garbage out,’ ‘’ Bryngelson said. “This highlights the importance of having a logical path in place.” Bryngelson also explained the importance of having a maintenance plan in place for AI tools. “It’s only as good as how it’s built, and it has to be maintained.”

Park Industries has a five-year plan to further integrate AI into its manufacturing process, with the aim of implementing fully automatic machine programming and operation, as well as increasing connectivity for operators. This will include remote monitoring and machine apps to support fully unattended operation.

“Personally, I think it’s critical that you’re looking at AI as a tool in your toolbox,” Bryngelson said.

Mike Killeen is a freelance writer who has written for a number of publications in his over 40-year career.

AI will help improve productivity: 64% of companies that have implemented AI have seen their productivity increase.

Source: Zippia.com