ALM leader issues AI ‘call to action’ to QC manufacturers

ALM Positioners is confronting a workforce shortage that is creating productivity challenges for that small Rock Island manufacturer and other makers – big and small – across the nation, ALM President and CEO Pat Pollock said.   The way his company is tackling that problem in an increasingly global business world, he told attendees at the […]

ALM Positioners is confronting a workforce shortage that is creating productivity challenges for that small Rock Island manufacturer and other makers – big and small – across the nation, ALM President and CEO Pat Pollock said.   The way his company is tackling that problem in an increasingly global business world, he told attendees at the Corridor Media Group’s Manufacturing Conference, is through the strategic application of artificial intelligence. Increasing productivity is critical for ALM, which makes machines that position equipment for dozens of industries. These days it is pioneering intelligent positioner equipment through the use of AI to increase its productivity and better serve its customers. “The reason that we care about that is because we always have to be able to do more with less. That’s what productivity is,” Mr. Pollock said at the one-day conference Thursday, Sept. 5. In addition, he said, today “American workers are not competing with American workers anymore, we’re competing globally.” AI can help them do that. But Mr. Pollock warned the crowd at East Moline’s Bend XPO, “This is not a how-to presentation. This is going to be a call to action presentation. So when we’re done I want everybody to remember we need to do something different.” The workforce shortage is a significant productivity challenge, he said.

Take welders for example. “Depending on whose data you believe or read, there is somewhere between a 300,000-350,000 deficit in skilled welders in the U.S. right now,” Mr. Pollock said. Equally troubling is that two-thirds of the welders are 45 years or older.  The challenge is not limited to welders. Today’s younger workers typically aren’t pursuing manufacturing and, Mr. Pollock said, “What is probably most alarming and most challenging is that when you look at two-thirds of the manufacturing workforce is 55 years or older that means they’re aging out.”

Manufacturing AI reboot

As a result at ALM, he said, “We’re talking about trying to give manufacturing a reboot and AI can help.”  ALM first turned to AI to help it streamline its customer experience. “We’re growing like many of the small manufacturers and we were roughly 35% year-over-year last year,” Mr. Pollock said. To help deal with that growth, he said ALM was looking for something that would make it more productive in the upfront selling cycle. “We have a limited number of people,” he said. They have “to turn quotes quickly,” and to do that, they need better data. So ALM began looking at machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities. The company turned to what’s now known as DAVE or Data Application Virtual Engineering. That large language model swallowed large amounts of data that were fed into it from, for example, phone calls, questions from customers and employees, email inquiries and more. The goal was for DAVE to provide the company with better analytics and insight.  “What we’re saying is the more data that you put through that artificial intelligence application, the smarter it will become. It will start to see patterns that maybe we can’t see, it will pick up things from conversations that maybe one of our data all becomes part of the database. Better and better data can lead to better and better solutions,” he said. In addition, ALM also is working to improve productivity and differentiation through what is currently called Voice Initiated Kinetic Intelligence, or VIKI. These are time-saving language control and speech control machines to make workers’ jobs easier. Consider those welders who are in such short supply. Through a speaker inside their weld helmet they will be able to give their machine positioning commands that will increase their productivity exponentially, he said. That’s especially critical for welds that have multiple sides that, Mr. Pollock said, will require multiple physical repositionings by the welders. Each time a product is repositioned, it requires performing 11 individual steps that include putting down their torch, stepping away from the machine, taking off helmet, gloves and aprons before repositioning the work on a machine that can be as many as 10 to 20 steps away. Once repositioned, the operator has to repeat the process in reverse.  “That’s a lot of wasted motion and a lot of non-valued-added stuff,” Mr. Pollock said.

VIKI saves six step

Thanks to the VIKI system, operators can keep their helmets, gloves and apron on while delivering voice commands to seamlessly interact with their machine. In going from 11 steps to five for each repositioning, both quality and efficiency are enhanced.  “Think about the productivity gain that you get from not doing that,” Mr. Pollock said. For all its advantages, Mr. Pollock added, AI is not without its challenges. Training employees, for example, “takes more time than you think.” It’s critical, too, that those employees embrace AI, he said, especially because there is still a lot of fear surrounding AI. “You have to share with them why you are doing it, and you’ve got to start with why it’s good for them and why it can help them. From there you’ve to hope that they will embrace that,” he said. There also are legal and ethical concerns surrounding AI, for example, data security, 5G networks and cybersecurity. “There’s going to be regulations that are going to be coming down,” Mr. Pollock said. “I don’t know what they are. I don’t think the regulators know what they are.”