Close Menu
Global News HQ
    What's Hot

    Why Investing Abroad Could Pay Off

    June 28, 2025

    NYC real estate reels from primary, while big deals emerged

    June 28, 2025

    How to Master Leadership and Prevent ‘Owner Bottleneck’ From Hindering Your Team

    June 28, 2025
    Recent Posts
    • Why Investing Abroad Could Pay Off
    • NYC real estate reels from primary, while big deals emerged
    • How to Master Leadership and Prevent ‘Owner Bottleneck’ From Hindering Your Team
    • The best iRobot vacuums of 2025: Expert tested and reviewed
    • Don’t Toss Old Cardboard! 5 Ways to Reuse It in Your Garden for Better Soil and Fewer Pests
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube TikTok
    Trending
    • Why Investing Abroad Could Pay Off
    • NYC real estate reels from primary, while big deals emerged
    • How to Master Leadership and Prevent ‘Owner Bottleneck’ From Hindering Your Team
    • The best iRobot vacuums of 2025: Expert tested and reviewed
    • Don’t Toss Old Cardboard! 5 Ways to Reuse It in Your Garden for Better Soil and Fewer Pests
    • Weekly Horoscope For June 30-July 6, 2025, From The AstroTwins
    • Asus’s new BTF GPUs can now be used in standard systems courtesy of a detachable 1000W power connector — New 5090 and RTX 5070 Ti models have a dual personality
    • Asus’s new BTF GPUs can now be used in standard systems courtesy of a detachable 1000W power connector — New 5090 and RTX 5070 Ti models have a dual personality
    Global News HQ
    • Technology & Gadgets
    • Travel & Tourism (Luxury)
    • Health & Wellness (Specialized)
    • Home Improvement & Remodeling
    • Luxury Goods & Services
    • Home
    • Finance & Investment
    • Insurance
    • Legal
    • Real Estate
    • More
      • Cryptocurrency & Blockchain
      • E-commerce & Retail
      • Business & Entrepreneurship
      • Automotive (Car Deals & Maintenance)
    Global News HQ
    Home - Technology & Gadgets - AI Assistants Join the Factory Floor
    Technology & Gadgets

    AI Assistants Join the Factory Floor

    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr WhatsApp VKontakte Email
    AI Assistants Join the Factory Floor
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email


    The basic machine for grinding a steel ball bearing has been the same since around 1900, but manufacturers have been steadily automating everything around it. Today, the process is driven by a conveyor belt, and, for the most part, it’s automatic. The most urgent task for humans is to figure out when things are going wrong—and even that could soon be handed over to AI.

    The Schaeffler factory in Hamburg starts with steel wire that is cut and pressed into rough balls. Those balls are hardened in a series of furnaces, and then put through three increasingly precise grinders until they are spherical to within a tenth of a micron. The result is one of the most versatile components in modern industry, enabling low-friction joints in everything from lathes to car engines.

    That level of precision requires constant testing—but when defects do turn up, tracking them down can present a puzzle. Testing might show a defect occurring at some point on the assembly line, but the cause may not be obvious. Perhaps the torque on a screwing tool is off, or a newly replaced grinding wheel is impacting quality. Tracking down the problem means comparing data across multiple pieces of industrial equipment, none of which were designed with this in mind.

    This too may soon be a job for machines. Last year, Schaeffler became one of the first users of Microsoft’s Factory Operations Agent, a new product powered by large language models and designed specifically for manufacturers. The chatbot-style tool can help track down the causes of defects, downtime, or excess energy consumption. The result is something like ChatGPT for factories, with OpenAI’s models being used on the backend thanks to the company’s partnership with Microsoft’s Azure.

    Kathleen Mitford, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for global industry marketing, describes the project as “a reasoning agent that operates on top of manufacturing data.” As a result, Mitford says, “the agent is capable of understanding questions and translating them with precision and accuracy against standardized data models.” So a factory worker might ask a question like “What is causing a higher than usual level of defects?” and the model would be able to answer with data from across the manufacturing process.

    The agent is deeply integrated into Microsoft’s existing enterprise products, particularly Microsoft Fabric, its data analytics system. This means that Schaeffler, which runs hundreds of plants on Microsoft’s system, is able to train its agent on data from all over the world.

    Stefan Soutschek, Schaeffler’s vice president in charge of IT, says the scope of data analysis is the real power of the system. “The major benefit is not the chatbot itself, although it helps,” he says. “It’s the combination of this OT [operational technology] data platform in the backend, and the chatbot relying on that data.”

    Despite the name, this isn’t agentic AI: It doesn’t have goals, and its powers are limited to answering whatever questions the user asks. You can set up the agent to execute basic commands through Microsoft’s Copilot studio, but the goal isn’t to have the agent making its own decisions. This is primarily AI as a data access tool.



    Source link

    Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT manufacturing Microsoft
    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr WhatsApp Email
    Previous ArticleUsed Clothes Pile Up as Ghana’s Kantamanto Market Struggles to Rebuild After Fire
    Next Article What Kind of World Do Silicon Valley Billionaires Want to Create?

    Related Posts

    The best iRobot vacuums of 2025: Expert tested and reviewed

    June 28, 2025

    Asus’s new BTF GPUs can now be used in standard systems courtesy of a detachable 1000W power connector — New 5090 and RTX 5070 Ti models have a dual personality

    June 28, 2025

    Asus’s new BTF GPUs can now be used in standard systems courtesy of a detachable 1000W power connector — New 5090 and RTX 5070 Ti models have a dual personality

    June 28, 2025

    SCOTUS upholds part of ACA that makes preventive care fully covered

    June 28, 2025
    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    ads
    Don't Miss
    Finance & Investment
    11 Mins Read

    Why Investing Abroad Could Pay Off

    Each day, hundreds of millions of market participants around the world follow the news and…

    NYC real estate reels from primary, while big deals emerged

    June 28, 2025

    How to Master Leadership and Prevent ‘Owner Bottleneck’ From Hindering Your Team

    June 28, 2025

    The best iRobot vacuums of 2025: Expert tested and reviewed

    June 28, 2025
    Top
    Finance & Investment
    11 Mins Read

    Why Investing Abroad Could Pay Off

    Each day, hundreds of millions of market participants around the world follow the news and…

    NYC real estate reels from primary, while big deals emerged

    June 28, 2025

    How to Master Leadership and Prevent ‘Owner Bottleneck’ From Hindering Your Team

    June 28, 2025
    Our Picks
    Finance & Investment
    11 Mins Read

    Why Investing Abroad Could Pay Off

    Each day, hundreds of millions of market participants around the world follow the news and…

    Real Estate
    3 Mins Read

    NYC real estate reels from primary, while big deals emerged

    There’s no part of New York City that wasn’t touched by the seismic victory of…

    Pages
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Disclaimer
    • Homepage
    • Privacy Policy
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube TikTok
    • Home
    © 2025 Global News HQ .

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

    Go to mobile version