FactoryBERT: An AI That Understands Manufacturing

Author(s): Saif Ali Kheraj

Originally published on Towards AI.

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Factories have their own way of talking. If you’ve ever been inside one, you might hear things like:

“OEE is dropping, the CNC lathe has spindle misalignment, and we need to adjust feed rates to reduce chatter!”

For most people (and most AI), this sounds like another language. Regular AI models don’t understand manufacturing terms. They are trained on general internet text like Wikipedia and news articles. If you ask them about “root cause analysis,” they might talk about tree roots instead of fixing a broken machine!

That’s why some researchers are working on ways to train AI specifically for manufacturing. The idea is to create a model that understands factory language, reads technical manuals, and helps with process improvement.

One approach is to train a BERT-based AI model (like ChatGPT, but focused on manufacturing). This could help factories improve efficiency, reduce downtime, and support Six Sigma projects.

Six Sigma is a method for improving quality in manufacturing. It focuses on:

Reducing defectsImproving processesMaking factories more efficient

It uses tools like root cause analysis, statistical control, and process mapping to fix problems. AI could help by analyzing factory data and suggesting ways to make things better.

But… Read the full blog for free on Medium.

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Published via Towards AI