Industrialists adopt AI only with a successful proof of concept and guaranteed ROI

Recently, we’ve witnessed that the industrial sector is a fast adopter of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The growth of industries and its importance in society has made it a frontrunner in embracing disruptive technology. However, the real game is being played by Covid-19 pandemic, which is accelerating industries towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Whenever an industrial revolution in the past came to effect, the whole manufacturing sector saw a ray of difference in its working system. Initially, wars and political changes accelerated the revolution. But this is the first time that a pandemic has made industries stick to disruptive technologies in order to keep up the pace of manufacturing. The concept of Industry 4.0 has been around for almost a decade now. However, industrialists procrastinated switching to emerging technologies due to various reasons. Many Industry 4.0 projects hover in the realm of ‘pilot purgatory,’ a Dantesque term that determines the fate of most Industry 4.0 initiatives. Around 70% of which pilot purgatory never makes it out of Proof of Content (POC) to be deployed in production.

Industrialists were optimistic about a revolution before 2020. But at the same time, they had concerns on certain topics like,

• Security of the Cloud platforms
• Man-machine interaction and unemployment due to excessive robot usage
• Advanced manufacturing including integration and adoption

Industries showed delays over the adoption of new solutions over the old ones without the wildly successful proof of concept and guaranteed return on investment (ROI). They were set to the mechanism of working with human labour on most part and technologies at a minimum state. Switching to technologies like deep learning and artificial intelligence has been a challenging task for the industries. Even though AI has its features and could moreover, double or triple the revenue in a short period, industries were trembling to adopt new technologies without assurance.

Changing industries for better through technology

Since the beginning of 2020, when the pandemic broke out and forced industries to function with precautionary measures, industrialists had a set of lingering questions for which they seek answers. The questions include whether Industry 4.0 is a must have change? Are obstacles turning more surmountable now? Should industries change the working strategy? Are the processes sustainable? Will the new normal be difficult to follow? Etc.

Here are two new paradigms for the adoption of the fourth industrial revolution

Improving productivity with concern to pandemic parameters: Improving productivity is always a goal of the industrial sector. It is added with the product quality that satisfies the consumers. However, after the pandemic broke out, concerns on employees’ safety are taking a toll on manufacturing houses. Starting from small measures like mask-wearing and social distancing to big changes like involving mechanism in most part of the work, Covid-19 has changed a lot. Industries are turning flexible with technological invasion as AI analysis scales the demand and availability of products. For example, predictive analysis tells manufacturers the need for a certain product and calculates it with the availability of raw materials.

Accelerating adoption for quick-win solutions: Digital work instructions, augmented reality-based operation assistance and use-cases are relying on simple and inexpensive retrofit automation. This might become widespread regardless of the company’s existing technology infrastructure. Digital performance management (DPM) has been a popular early use case across wide range of companies.

The year 2020 has brought a lot of changes, both good and bad to the society and working system. There are emerging collision technologies that came out to fill the gap that the pandemic has made. The industrial sector will see growth on a whole if it switches to the Fourth Industrial Revolution at right time.