There is a lot of discussion today about artificial intelligence completely transforming businesses. In manufacturing, that can make AI sound more complicated than it needs to be.

At KrisDee, we have found that some of the most practical uses of AI are much simpler.

Recently, we used AI to help organize tooling and production strategy across a group of CNC machining centers. The goal was not to have AI determine how to manufacture our parts. Our programmers, engineers and production team still make those decisions.

The goal was to take a large amount of information we already had and organize it faster and more effectively.

We used AI to help review items such as:

• Part-specific tool lists
• Common tooling between jobs
• Available tool positions
• Annual production requirements
• Cycle times and machine capacity
• Opportunities to standardize tool locations
• Potential alternate-machine routing

One of the biggest benefits was identifying opportunities to keep more tooling permanently loaded in each machine and standardize common tools across the equipment.

Every time tools need to be removed, located, installed and touched off, the machine is not producing parts and skilled employees are spending time on setup instead of higher-value work.

By organizing compatible jobs around common tool libraries, we expect to reduce those changes, increase machine uptime and simplify what is required at the machine during normal production.

That also changes how we use our skilled workforce.

The objective is not simply to reduce labor. It is to reduce the amount of skilled labor required for repetitive production tasks so our experienced people can focus on programming, process improvement, troubleshooting, launching new jobs and supporting new business.

That is where we believe AI can provide immediate value to many businesses.

Not every AI project needs to automate an entire process. Sometimes the best use is helping people sort, compare and analyze information that would otherwise take hours or days to work through manually.

There still needs to be human review. AI does not understand our machines, tooling, workholding or customer requirements the way our team does.

But if it can help us increase spindle uptime, simplify production and allow our most skilled employees to spend more time on work that grows and improves the business, it has created real value.

For us, that may be one of the best places to start with AI: not asking what it can replace, but asking how it can help us use our equipment and our people more effectively.