Manufacturing, logistics and procurement - March 2019

Artificial Intelligence
The European Council has adopted conclusions on the Coordinated Plan on the development and use of Artificial Intelligence Made in Europe. With its conclusions, the Council underlines the crucial importance of fostering the development and use of artificial intelligence in Europe by increasing investment, reinforcing excellence in artificial intelligence technologies and applications, and strengthening research and innovation collaboration between industry and academia in this field.
In a recent article, Deloitte looks at several potential use cases of AI that are applicable to the consumer products industry. They are arranged based on the main categories associated with cognitive technologies: robotic process automation, language technologies, machine learning, and computer vision.

Digital twinning
According to a recent survey by Gartner, 13% of organisations implementing Internet of Things (IoT) projects already use digital twins, while 62% are either in the process of establishing digital twin use or plan to do so, Gartner defines a digital twin as a software design pattern that represents a physical object with the objective of understanding the asset’s state, responding to changes, improving business operations and adding value.

Industry 4.0
GS1 has released a paper (1.10 MB) that analyses business trends and emerging technologies that are expected to have a major impact on industry and all supply chain stakeholders—and offers recommendations to GS1 on how to help industry now, and into the future.
A year ago, Deloitte’s inaugural survey assessing readiness for the Fourth Industrial Revolution found that while executives conceptually understood the profound business and societal changes Industry 4.0 may bring, they were less certain how they could take action to benefit. Deloitte’s new survey suggests many who think they are ready may still not be as prepared as they need to be. On the other hand, the survey report (3.85 MB) also shows that leaders seem to be gaining a much deeper understanding of Industry 4.0, are increasingly aware of the challenges before them, and are viewing the actions needed to succeed more realistically.

Developments in robotics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has published two recent developments in robotics. Together with researchers from Harvard a new robot gripper has been developed that is both soft and strong: a cone-shaped origami structure that collapses in on objects, much like a Venus flytrap, to pick up items that are as much as 100 times its weight. This motion lets the gripper grasp a much wider range of objects. The robot currently works best with cylindrical objects like bottles or cans, which could someday make it an asset for production lines in factories. The shape of the gripper makes it more difficult for it to grasp something flat, like a sandwich or book. In the future, the team hopes to try to solve the problem of angle and orientation by adding computer vision that would let the gripper “see”, and make it possible to grasp specific parts of objects.
Another group of CSIAL researchers have developed a new system that allows robots to do many different pick-and-place tasks, from hanging mugs to putting shoes on shelves, without having ever seen the objects they’re interacting with.

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