BusinessWest Workshop Series to Address Potential of AI

Joining the Revolution

When asked to generalize about how much manufacturers know about artificial intelligence (AI), Scott Longley said, “well, they know the letters. Beyond that…”

Elaborating, he said most manufacturers understand that AI is coming at them fast, that it will be revolutionary in its impact (if it isn’t already), and that they need to get on this train — and soon — to remain competitive. But they don’t yet understand how it works and, more importantly, how it can work for them.

“The total impact of AI … I don’t think anyone knows what it is,” said Longley, a manufacturing expert in residence for FORGE, a nonprofit with a mission to help innovators navigate the journey from prototype to commercialization and impact at scale. “It’s going to impact all industries with regard to manufacturing; they’re talking about the concept of ‘lights out factories,’ and it’s very realistic.”

Manufacturers will learn just how realistic that concept is and, more importantly, how they can learn how to put this technology to use at the first in a series of workshops on the broad subject of AI to be presented by BusinessWest, with a number of partnering organizations, including FORGE.

The series, called StratAI — its tagline is “Practical AI Strategies. Smarter Operations. Stronger Growth.” — begins on Thursday, March 26 from 4:30 to 7 p.m. at the Brian Corridan Center in the Technology Park at Springfield Technical Community College, and will feature pitches from those in the industry as well as breakout sessions, where participants can “get their hands dirty,” said Paul Silva of of Innovate413, another of the partners in this endeavor.

Paul Silva

“Manufacturers, especially Western Mass. manufacturers, have had their hands so full dealing with the regular chaos of the economy that taking time for new technology has never been at the top of the priority stack, and understandably so.”

Future workshops — dates and locations to be determined — will address the impact and potential of AI in other sectors of the economy, including professional services such as law, accounting, and financial services; and the service sector, said Kate Campiti, associate publisher of BusinessWest, adding that the program was created to address what she called a “seismic force” in business.

“AI will impact every business, large and small, and in every sector,” she said. “It’s more than the proverbial ‘next big thing’ — it’s game-changing technology on many levels, and business owners need to understand the many ways it can impact them; help build efficiencies in repetitive, time-consuming tasks; and create time for planning and growth.

“StratAI was created to be educational, but also to give participants tools they can put to work the next day,” she noted, adding that, when it comes to AI, knowledge is power.

The manufacturing workshop will feature breakout sessions led by experts on manufacturing and AI technology, including:

• Ali Usman, founder and CEO of PixelEdge, which creates software to give businesses a competitive edge;

• David Arturi, president of TetraLabs, the company behind Tetra, an AI platform that helps manufacturers modernize company-wide operations and reduce downtime; and

• Ben Grande, president of the Western Mass. chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Assoc. and president of Meridian Industrial Group in Holyoke.

Usman told BusinessWest that his breakout session will focus on how companies can achieve return on investment in AI, and the many forms that ROI can take beyond cost savings on labor.

“It goes beyond simple head count,” he said, while acknowledging the importance of cutting labor costs, especially in manufacturing, and noting that ROI can and often does come from improved efficiency, streamlining processes, and letting AI handle simple tasks, thus allowing people to focus on more important matters.

For this issue, BusinessWest talked with some of its partners in this ambitious AI series about this revolutionary technology and what it means for businesses.

Making More History

Both Silva and Longley said there is some symmetry, if not poetry, to staging the manufacturing-focused AI workshop at the Technology Park, which sits on the grounds of the Springfield Armory.

Indeed, the Armory, built on a site chosen by George Washington, played a huge role in the emergence of the precision manufacturing sector in Western Mass. — and well beyond — and in manufacturing innovation itself.

Scott Longley

“In order to survive, you’ve got to look at the situation and understand the potential and realize that you either get on board or get left behind.”

The assembly-line style of mass production was pioneered at the Armory by Thomas Blanchard, who invented a lathe that turned and finished gun barrels in a single operation. The Armory was also the site of Shays’ Rebellion, an unsuccessful attempt, led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays, to seize the arsenal’s weaponry and overthrow the government.

AI is revolutionary in many respects, Silva and Longley said, adding that, while it has been talked about seemingly without end for several years now, many manufacturers have yet to move on this front in a meaningful way — and for reasons that are in many ways easy to understand.

“Manufacturers, especially Western Mass. manufacturers, have had their hands so full dealing with the regular chaos of the economy that taking time for new technology has never been at the top of the priority stack, and understandably so,” Silva told BusinessWest. “It needs to be a conservative industry. You spend a lot of money for capital assets, so you can’t afford to really screw up; they have to be very careful.”

Meanwhile, technology is moving at an ever-faster pace, he went on, and it is increasingly difficult to stay on top of these advances, a situation that creates both risks and opportunities on a very large scale.

Indeed, with AI, companies will find they can no longer afford to be conservative and that ‘screwing up’ can take on new meanings and new dimensions with this technology and how quickly and effectively it is put to use.

“It’s tremendous chaos, and there’s going to be survivors, and then there’s going to be people who are left behind,” said Longley, adding that a thin line will likely separate the two groups. “And in order to survive, you’ve got to look at the situation and understand the potential and realize that you either get on board or get left behind.

“It’s like getting on a plane; the plane is flying, but it’s a prop-driven plane,” he went on. “And you look out and see a Concorde or a space shuttle … you realize, ‘I better get on that one, or I’m gone.’ That’s what’s going to happen with AI, and it’s going to happen very fast.”

Attendees at the upcoming workshop will gain an appreciation for just how fast, while also getting an opportunity to hit the ground running, if you will, through a sampling of the technology and how it can be put to use.

“In some cases, attendees can walk in with a laptop and walk out with a piece of AI that can help them with their business the next day,” Silva said. “It’s not going to transform their business, it’s not going to double their profit margin, but people will be able to say, ‘in just one workshop, I came back with a taste of what this technology can do. Imagine if I spend more time; imagine if I get a couple of people at the company to really think about how this can be a lever we can push to get some modifications.’”

Learning Curves

When asked about the broad impact of AI in manufacturing, Longley said it comes on many levels, but especially the ability to lower the cost of production, which is a game changer for many players in this region and this country, where the costs of labor are higher.

As an example, he relayed the story of a Connecticut-based plastics manufacturer.

“They were competing against a plastics manufacturer in Asia, and what they did was buy a robotic arm, and using AI, they were able to automate their quality control,” he said. “They were able to use their robotic arm to accept certain pieces and segment certain pieces out. And then they were able to take those pieces and transfer them from one workstation to another, run them through the process, and then pull out the finished goods and get them ready for packaging.

Ben Grande

“What they need to know is that, if they’re not looking into AI, they’re falling behind already.”

“That entire process was done [before] by people on their shop floor,” he went on. “They essentially created a work zone that was seamless, from the process of loading to finished goods to packaging, quality control … everything. And by doing that, they were almost able to reach cost parity with that Asian competitor. That’s a complete game changer when you’re able to do things like that.”

That’s just one example of how AI can help level the playing field and perhaps provide a competitive edge, he continued, adding that the upcoming StratAI workshop will provide insight into the many types of return on investment possible from AI, and how to maximize it.

Grande, like Silva and Longley, said most manufacturers have only recently started dabbling in AI — perhaps using ChatGPT to help write an email, for example. But they know they need to probe deeper.

“What they need to know is that, if they’re not looking into AI, they’re falling behind already,” he told BusinessWest, adding that the National Tooling and Machining Assoc. is working on a regional and national level to educate manufacturers on this subject, and BusinessWest’s series on the subject represents another important step in that process.

Usman agreed, adding that the focus moving forward should be on educating manufacturers on the many ways AI can benefit their operations.

“The indirect savings are sometimes overlooked by the industry,” he said, adding that AI can be used to improve safety and reduce the number of accidents, for example, and it can also be used to help capture the knowledge of retiring machinists — a huge issue for this industry.

“You can use AI to grab the knowledge that these people have and make the training much more effective,” Usman noted. “There are so many different ways to gather and use the information from these talented people, and once it’s been captured, that information can be converted more effectively into training programs.”

These are just some of the ways manufacturers can utilize AI and join the revolution, if you will, and the upcoming workshop, the first of several on this subject, will help bring these concepts to light.