AI Is Not Just a Buzzword: It Is the Driving Force Behind the Next Wave of Industrial Evolution

The dawn of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is upon us, (actually it is miles behind us in the rear view mirror), and most of us are just waking up and realizing how far behind we already are). It promises to transform Operational Excellence (OE) in ways we never imagined (The opportunities are endless). Imagine a world where data-driven insights predict market trends, enhance process efficiencies, and drive unprecedented levels of productivity (with the Lean or OE mindset, this means we can use our people more effectively). The future is not just coming—it’s already here, and those who embrace AI will lead the charge into a new era of operational supremacy (I am going to steal this!).

Full disclosure, the above was written by Microsoft Copilot. The text in parenthesis and the prompts that generated the above are mine.

For those who already follow me, you will know I have been passionate about people-first lean transformation with a holistic view of the enterprise. Those who have found me more recently will know I have been doing a lot of deep thinking and investigation on how AI will enhance what I do.

In the process of understanding the opportunities, pitfalls, and dynamics offered by AI, and positioning my fellow Opex practitioners for the future, I am engaged in some deep research on how AI is, can, and should, be used in this context (assisted byPerplexity). (One of the features that drew me to Perplexity was the ease of which I could identify and read the source information that was being summarized and presented to me.)

Side note: I will never let AI write my copy for me (although I was recently show how I can train one of the AI models to learn and speak in my authentic voice – I am not ready for that. I will use AI to help control my meanderings).

To my amazement, and somewhat my dismay, I came acrossRetrocausal. Zeeshan Ziaand his team have built accomplishes exactly what I had in mind to build. They have already put together an enhanced integration that “Boost(s**) the Productivity, Quality, and Safety of your Assembly Processes** – (Their) AI Copilots use (their) patented computer vision and machine-learning technology to empower your operators, industrial engineers, and line leaders to dramatically increase the quality, productivity, and traceability of your manual processes.”

How cool is that! They have thought about and come up with solutions that never even occurred to me – AI driven electronic Pola Yoke (no way)!

Real time updating and management of Work Instructions! I will admit I am divided on this one – not because I don’t see the value in how an AI driven vision system can identify the best technique or the most efficient process, but because it risks taking out the most important element which is the learning and empowerment of the line workers.

What I love is their approach does not take the employees or engineers out of the process, but gives them tools to help them be fore effective and more efficient.

I look forward to diving deeper into this tool in the coming days and will happily report back on what I find.

For some context:

I came at this as I realized that in the most basic of ways AI has been transforming how I work. My learnings went from simple use increasing in complexity and sophistication as the tools developed and evolved.

I first had my socks knocked off, when I had to create a job description (jd) for a position I had not managed for many years, the jd was due 20 minutes later, the manager was on vacation. To make matters worse jd was being used to hire someone into a critical position that has just been vacated, so time was of the essence. In desperation I turned to ChatGPTand entered in a prompt that read something along the lines of: “create a comprehensive job description for someone in this , who works as an independent contributor within this ”. What it spat out blew me away – it would have taken me over an hour to generate something remotely as effective. The following week when I reviewed it with their direct manager, she changed 3 words…

Next came an engineering problem, (I confess that I don’t remember what it was), my engineer was fully capable of calculating the required value – however, it was not something he had done since his university days, and required some fairly complex calculus. We put the problem to ChatGPT, with the request to “show your work”, and not only got the answer in seconds rather than hours, we were able to verify, correct and or modify the assumptions made to ensure we had the best possible answer.

In smaller organizations, we don’t always have the systems we need to be efficient and effective. In one particular organization just getting IT to approve and put a database in place proved impossible. So we were faced with the task of keeping 6 different legacy spreadsheets up to date manually. As a result of the ways the tables were built and the data structured, this was time consuming, and, often out of date. Each table was stored in a different location, using different tools. AI provided the solution which allowed us to make one change – get prompted on what was important for the other sheets to be updated, and keep the sheets aligned. This may sound basic, but ironically it saved the team over 12 working hours per week!

My next challenge that I wanted to tackle was how to take issues identified on the shop floor and update the: work instructions, PFMEA, control plans etc.Retrocausal has solved this one as well and integrated it into their tool. I will be very interested to play with this and report back on how effective it is.

(Side note: if the workflow above is alien to you, please reach out directly, you might be missing a key process that will help you get out of firefighting mode and solve problems for once and forever).

Now this may sound a bit like an advertisement, and I can assure you, as of the writing of this I have no affiliation with the company, it is really a Fan Boy who is excited because he discovered a hidden level.

If you think AI is not going to impact you - it already has. If you think it cannot replace what people do, it will, and it is. In the OperationsExcellence world as in the Lean, TPS, SixSigma, LeanSixSigma, it is a matter of understanding how we can use AI to enhance and accelerate.