Production and quality.
WHERE IT IS USED
Visual quality inspection Predictive maintenance Production scheduling Demand forecasting Process optimisation
VISUAL INSPECTION
A strong application. Consistent, tireless, and frequently better than human inspection for defined defects.
Provided the defect type is one it was trained on.
THE LIMITATION
A new defect type it has not seen may pass as acceptable.
Periodic human inspection remains necessary.
PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE
Detecting patterns preceding failure, from sensor data.
Genuinely valuable where downtime is expensive and data exists.
WHAT IT REQUIRES
Sensor data over time, including examples of failures.
Most smaller operations lack the data more than the technique.
FOR SCHEDULING
Optimisation is a well-established application.
WHAT MUST REMAIN HUMAN
Safety decisions Quality release, for anything where failure causes harm Anything with regulatory consequence
FOR SMALLER MANUFACTURERS
Start by recording data properly. You cannot analyse what you did not measure.
