Smart Industry: What do you mean by "the looming manufacturing war"?
Ron: When you consider the increase in the volume of data over the past five years, and the speed that data continues to escalate, many manufacturers are having a hard time keeping pace. Imagine how many things will be additionally connected in the next three years, or eight years. Data is exploding exponentially, so much so that there is no way that we as humans could ingest this much data much less analyze it. Imagine something that is limitless, that’s what data is becoming. As soon as tomorrow, the strategic advantage will include the ability to make objective decisions based on the shared knowledge and collective intelligence of the entire enterprise—at speeds and accuracies that are orders of magnitudes higher than anything previously possible. It’s your digital intelligence vs. your competitor’s digital intelligence.
Michael: The AI is really about competing in the exponential age and a companies ability to create value at the rate its data grows. AI will be required to manage decisions across that complexity of scope and scale. A new realm where humans can only manage sub-optimize the opportunities by prioritizing things today.
Smart Industry: Why is speed of decision-making critical in the modern manufacturing era?
Ron: As companies grow, decisions become more complicated. Add to that, the rate of data growth compared to the gap in our ability to process that data well enough to make a timely decision could result in the loss of millions of dollars—or worse. With the exponential growth of data also comes the exponential asymmetry of competition. How do we compete if we are paralyzed with the countess options available? Which option is the best one? As soon as tomorrow, the performance of a business will be proportionally related to the speed and accuracy by which the business makes decisions.
Michael: For superstar businesses, their business is performed at the speed of digital across networks of humans all connected in real time. For the rest decisions at the speed of biology creates a competitive gap that can’t be closed. Because of the nature of exponential these unfortunate companies may likely watch their competitors disappear over the horizon ahead of them.
Smart Industry: What's an emerging application of AI that excites you?
Ron: Imagine being able to combine the best of traditional AI (correlation-based decisioning), with the human knowledge of Subject Matter Experts, along with the logic of cause and effect derived from causal modeling to form the basis of an engine that can make complex business decisions at super speeds. The engine understands the business, its strategies, markets and unique enterprise principles. It focuses compute power on what computing power is good at—resolving complex problems at high speeds—combined with a symbiotic relationship with what humans are good at—resolving problems that involve nuance and other awareness factors not easily taught to any computer. The result is a powerful decision-making capability that weighs all these factors and makes multiple real-time decisions that could not even be contemplated without the intervention of a super system. This will change the way people work and create a ‘smart’ and continuously “smarter” organization.
Michael: AI will not change what gets done in our facilities, however, it will change how we get it done.
