University of Mumbai

“Intelligent Automation in Manufacturing &

Supply Chain”
Bachelors of Management Studies
Semester VI
Submitted
In partial fulfillment of requirement for the
Award of degree of
Bachelor of management studies

By
KANCHAN VIJAY RAUL
Roll no 2841

Under the Guidance of

PROF. PUSHKAR DESHPANDE.

Karnataka Sangha's
Manjunatha College of Commerce & Junior
College of Commerce, Thakurli (E)
Accredited by NAAC with Grade ‘B’
Thakurli (E)
2019-2020
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am grateful for the people who were the part of this project in numerous ways and
who gave an endless support.

I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to our Marketing teacher Mr.
Pushkar R. Deshpande and our BMS Coordinator Mrs. Suchitra Poojari for their
moral support and guidance.

I take this opportunity to thanks the University of Mumbai for giving me chance to do
this project. I would also like to thank the Management, Principal Dr. V.S. Adigal for
providing necessary facility required for completion of this project.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank especially my parents, friends and
classmates who have helped me with their valuable suggestions and guidance
throughout my Project.

_______________

KANCHAN VIJAY RAUL

 DECLARATION BY THE STUDENT

I, KANCHAN VIJAY RAUL a student of T.Y.BMS, Roll no. 2841 here by wish to
state the work embodied in the project entitled A STUDY ON INTELLIGENT
AUTOMATION IN MANUFACTURING AND SUPPLY CHAIN by me to the
University of Mumbai for semester VI Examination during the academic year 2019-
20. The said report is from my own contribution-based work carried by me under the
guidance & supervision of Prof. PUSHKAR R. DESHPANDE.

I further wish to state that this work is original & has no submitted for any other
degree of this or any other examination. Whenever the reference has been made to the
previously work on others, it has been clearly indicated as such & included in the
bibliography or list of preferences.

Signature

(Kanchan Vijay Raul.)

Date:
Place:
 INDEX

SR. NO. CONTENTS PAGE NO.

01 Executive Summary 1

CHAPTER-I

02 Introduction of Project 2-3

 Aim
 Objectives of the project
 Scope
 Research Methodology
 Limitations of the project
CHAPTER-II

03 Intelligent Automation 4-8

 Definition
 Meaning
 Introduction to Intelligent Automation
04 Robotic Process Automation (RPA) 9-22
 Definition
 Meaning
 History
 Traditional Automation vs RPA
 RPA in Manufacturing
 RPA in Supply Chain
05 Artificial Intelligence (AI) 23-40
 Definition
 Meaning
 History of AI
 AI in Manufacturing
 AI in Supply Chain
06 Factory of Future 41-45

07 Companies that uses Intelligent Automation

  Walmart 46-56
 Tesla
 Apple
 Google
 Netflix
 Amazon
CHAPTER-III

08 Findings, Recommendations, Conclusion & 57-60

References
 Findings
 Recommendations
 Conclusion
 References
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Businesses today exist in an era of globalization, hyper-competitiveness and ever-

accelerating business cycles. To succeed in this environment, many enterprises are
focusing on the top-level objectives of reducing operational complexity, increasing
agility and speeding innovation while lowering the associated costs. Of all the various
levers organizations can pull to achieve these goals, smart technologies — which we
call intelligent automation — are among the most versatile and effective.

In many organizations, multiple processes continue to require manual workarounds,

which results in smart people spending their time on limited-value, rote and repetitive
manual process steps. These processes can be found in back offices, processing
centers and anywhere else that an interface has been built between legacy and digital
front-end applications.

Compared with many othe0r approaches — such as wholesale system migrations, new
ERP solutions or even many process re-engineering efforts — intelligent automation
can be implemented quickly, with limited cost. The value of intelligent automation
includes reduced cost, increased scalability, improved accuracy and consistency,
faster processing, better use of human efforts, improved compliance and audit trails,
and faster ROI.

The exponential advancement in Intelligent Automation i.e. Robotic Process

Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, and Natural
Language Processing (NLP) are rapidly transforming industries and societies across
the world. The way we work, the way we live, and the way we interact with others are
expected to be transformed at a speed and scale beyond anything we have observed in
human history.

1
 CHAPTER - I

INTRODUCTION OF
THE PROJECT

2
 CHAPTER - I

1.1 Aim

To study the application of Intelligent Automation technology, governed by business

logic and structured inputs, aimed at automating business processes concerning to
Robotics Process Automation & Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing & Supply
Chain unit.

1.2 Objective of the Project

 To study the Evolution of Digital Transformation that is Automation to
Intelligent Automation in terms of Robotics Process Automation & Artificial
Intelligence.
 To study the Strength and Weaknesses of Intelligent Automation.
 To understand the depth of Technological Advancement.
 To choose the right strategies & processes in Manufacturing & Supply Chain
Management.
 To get consistency of performance.
 To increase the productivity & efficiency.
 To study the future offerings of Intelligent Transformation.
1.3 Scope

The scope of this project is limited to the secondary data collected from internet,
reference books, websites, blogs, etc.

1.4 Research Methodology

The project contains secondary data, collected from different sources such as internet,
reference books, websites, blogs, etc.

1.4 Limitations of the project

As it is Secondary Data, the recent technologies may not be mentioned in the project
reports. However, the data is in massive amount therefore, it was not possible to
include all information.

3
CHAPTER-II

INTELLIGENT
AUTOMATION

4
Definitions of Intelligent Automation

- “Intelligent Automation is a term that describes a holistic solution for digital

transformation, mainly based on business process management (BPM) to
orchestrate users, tasks, systems and robots (RPA) depending on the business needs
at each moment.”

- “Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) refers to the application of Artificial

Intelligence and related new technologies, including Computer Vision, Cognitive
automation and Machine Learning to Robotic Process Automation.”

Meaning of Intelligent Automation

Intelligent Automation represents the overall umbrella of technologies that enable the
transformation and automation of business processes by leveraging any combination

5
of software robotics, cloud, artificial intelligence and smart machines. It is comprised
of basic robotics process automation (RPA), enhanced RPA, cognitive automation and
is enabled by ruled-based macros, artificial intelligence and natural-language
processing. At its most basic levels, robots or bots automate the steps in a process
instead of having people more transactions from one step to the next. At its most
complex level, cognitive systems draw on historical data to handle exception
processing, make judgements to resolve customer issues and complement knowledge
workers to provide new insights.

From another point of view, Intelligent automation is a more advanced form of what
is commonly known as robotic process automation (RPA). It is essentially a software
that mimics the behaviour of an end user by using existing enterprise application
screens or web pages to find, evaluate, cut, calculate, transform and enter data into
existing, enterprise application fields according to business rules. This technology is
ideal for many insurance processes, particularly those that are labour-intensive, such
as new business applications handling, policy change administration, claims set-up
and various finance and accounting activities. Any large-scale activities or groups of
repetitive tasks that draw on or feed information to multiple systems is an intelligent
automation candidate.

Because of its transformative nature, intelligent automation gives insurers a

competitive advantage through lower-cost scalability, nimbleness by redeploying
personnel to higher value work and an enhanced, customer-friendly brand image and
relevance.

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 INTRODUCTION

What is Intelligent Automation?

In recent centuries and decades many drastic developments in technology have

affected how we, as humans, work. One major development area has been in the
automation of work tasks. First automation entered the manufacturing world in the
19th century; increasing efficiency, cost effectiveness and removing bottlenecks in
production lines. This increased the productivity in manufacturing significantly and
enabled humans to focus on different kind of tasks. In recent decades the same kind of
development has been going on in the knowledge intensive lines of work. Now
automation is moving to those knowledge intensive back and front office tasks and
business processes, and as a result companies are slaying off people’s jobs – or at
least that might be first impression for people about one of the latest innovations in
this area, so called Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Name itself describes the
technology quite well. It means automating business processes, in other words
robotizing knowledge intensive manual tasks on computers that previously were
handled by humans.

This change and interest towards robotizing business processes have increased
tremendously in the past few years. However, as most companies are still continuing
their day-to-day operations without implementing RPA as part of their operations,
then some are already looking forward toward to the next step - what to do after
implementing RPA. After all, many of those companies who already have
implemented, piloted or just have done deeper investigation into the technology might
have had noticed that in spite of RPA’s tremendous possibilities, regarding
automation of business processes, it is just the first step in the automation journey,
and applicable to only certain kind of processes. RPA is highly powerful tool to
automate rule based high volume simple processes but as soon as complexity of the
process increases, the data becomes more unstructured or some kind of reasoning is
needed in decision points, then pure RPA isn’t enough anymore.

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To achieve a true end-to-end process automation, or to even get closer this stage,
other supporting technologies are also needed. To address this need and possibility for
end-toned process automation existing literature shows implications that combining
basic RPA solutions with different artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, depending
on the nature of the process, could result in a much higher level of automation where
in an ideal state the whole process could be almost completely automated without
need for humans to intervene. This combination of RPA and AI is often referred to as
cognitive automation (CA), cognitive intelligence (CI) or intelligent automation (IA)
depending on the source material. Here in this study this combination of RPA and AI
will be referred to as intelligent automation.

As Professor Stephen Hawking said, we do not yet fully understand and cannot
predict the true impact of AI, and yet the race to business and operational
transformation via the implementation of digital technologies, such as artificial
intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA), is on an inexorable rise. And
whilst there may be some debate as to the socio-economic impact of the rise of the
machines and whether they will in time decimate the human race in a form of science
fiction disaster movie, for the time being their use is slightly more prosaic. There is no
doubt that AI and RPA are here to stay, and businesses, academic institutions and
governments are being encouraged to develop their intelligence further, and so it is
essential to look to the intelligent future and work to both facilitate innovation,
allowing businesses to embrace technology and at the same time mitigate any
associated risks. We examine some of the business opportunities and challenges
faced, as well as providing our insight on how to manage these issues both in strategic
sourcing programmers and in transformative, technology-enabled projects.

As above said that Intelligent Automation is a combination of many technologies such

as:

I. Robotic Process Automation

II. Artificial Intelligence
a. Machine Learning
b. Natural Language Processing
c. Deep Learning

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 d. Speech Recognition
e. Computer Vision
f. Expert System

Which are explained in detail as follows:

I. ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION (RPA):

Definition:
-“Robotic Process Automation or RPA is a form of business process
automation technology based on metaphorical software robots (bots) or Artificial
Intelligence (AI) workers.”

Meaning:

Robotic Process Automation is a technology which aims to reduce human

intervention in computer applications, especially in repetitive tasks that vary very
little in each iteration. It involves automation of standardized and rules driven system-
based activities using scripts and other methods to support efficient business
processes. It is suitable in scenarios where it is too expensive or inefficient for
humans to execute a task or a process.

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RPA works primarily by interacting with “high level” applications, which are the
software layers at the graphic interface level, as oppose to machine language or
programming code. Put more simply, it is a type of software that emulates the real
interaction that a human would have with conventional computer applications.

This technology is suitable to replace simple and repetitive manual tasks such as data
entry in applications. This means that employees have more time to focus on other
branches of value for the company such as decision-making or improving customer
relations.

RPA tools have strong technical similarities to graphical user interface testing tools.
These tools also automate interactions with the GUI, and often do so by repeating a
set of demonstration actions performed by a user. RPA tools differ from such systems
including features that allow data to be handled in and between multiple applications,
for instance, receiving email containing an invoice, extracting the data, and then
typing that into a bookkeeping system.

It is a relatively fast technology to implement and can therefore bring immediate

benefits to a company through time and cost savings, especially if it can be applied in
the bottlenecks of certain processes.

Robotic process automation (RPA) is the term used for software tools that partially or
fully automate human activities that are manual, rule-based, and repetitive. They work
by replicating the actions of an actual human interacting with one or more software
applications to perform tasks such as data entry, process standard transactions, or
respond to simple customer service queries. Indeed, the “chat bot” that has started to
become ubiquitous on websites is almost always a robotic process automation tool,
not a human. It can handle the typical standard queries like “where is X on the
website”, “how do I reset my password”, and the like.

Robotic process automation tools are not replacements for the underlying business
applications; rather, they simply automate the already manual tasks of human
workers. They essentially look at the screens that workers today look at and fill in
and update the same boxes and fields within the user interface by pulling the relevant
data from the relevant location.

10
All of this said, in practice there are severe limitations on what a robotic process
automation tool can do – It has to be scripted/programmed to perform a repetitive
task. To do that a subject matter expert (SME) who really understands how the work
is done manually must be employed to map out those steps.

In addition, the data sources and destinations need to be highly structured and
unchanging – robotic process automation tools don’t deal with quirks, errors,
exceptions or the normal mess of human interactions well at all.

But even with these considerations, organizations are seeing tangible, concrete
benefits from robotic process automation.

As these tools get more sophisticated, they have begun taking on characteristics of
business process management tools as well as artificial intelligence tools. This allows
them to become even more efficient and could, for example, lead to a point where the
tool could analyse the sentiment within a particular customer query or correspondence
and make a recommendation about a discount.

In order to understand what is Robotic Process Automation or RPA explicitly, we

should have a look to what is traditional automation or simply automation which is
older version of RPA, we can say.

History of Robotics Process Automation

RPA is made up of a number of technologies, brought together under one toolkit to be

deployed as and when needed for different automation purposes.

One of the first steps towards the innovation which would eventually lead to the
creation of RPA was Machine Learning (ML). It’s widely credited that the name was
first coined in 1959 by Arthur Samuel, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence

11
who at the time was working for infamous computer company, IBM. Machine
learning started as a scientific endeavor aimed at creating artificial intelligence.

Explorations in Machine Learning allowed computers to do a lot of interesting and

useful things; enabling programs to be created that conduct complex, language-based
tasks such as translation and text summarization. However, there were, and still are,
limits in how computers could process language. This naturally led to the
development of Natural Language Processing (NLP). This subfield of science, which
begun in the 1960s, combined artificial intelligence with the interactions between
computers and human languages.

The main focus of NLP was to help computers understand and process human
language more accurately. Computers do not have the same understanding of natural
language that humans do - for instance, they can’t ‘read between the lines’ of what a
person is saying and so, NLP is dedicated to improving this. Aspects of both Machine
Learning and Natural Language Processing can be seen in the RPA of today, and as
RPA grows it is likely to incorporate even more aspects of these two developments.

Fast forward to the 1990s and as technology progressed further towards the
establishment of RPA, there were a few more key developments. Firstly, screen
scraping software made big leaps towards the creation of RPA. The technology is
used for extracting data from programs, websites and documents, which is something
that RPA draws on heavily.

The 90s also saw the emergence of technology which most closely resembles RPA. It
was in this decade that workflow automation tools were released and AI emerged in
its infancy; all of which paved the way for Robotic Process Automation.

Thanks to these developments, by the early 2000s simple RPA was developed;
however, it remained relatively unknown for some time - it wasn’t until 2015 when
RPA began to enter the mainstream. The basic RPA versions released in the early
noughties were useful for automating repetitive tasks, however it had its limits and so-
called cognitive RPA was considered to be inevitable evolution of the tech.

Cognitive RPA allows for better optical character recognition, natural language
processing and machine learning to handle semi-structured and unstructured data,

12
expanding the efficiencies of RPA to a wider range of enterprise activities. This is the
RPA we know today.

Traditional Automation vs Robotics Process Automation:

Traditional automation is a term that has been around for a while now. But the
Robotic Process Automation is a new approach to automate business process whose
full potential still goes unrealized by many.

- Traditional Automation is the automation of repeated tasks. It involves

application integration at a database level which will involve minimal human
involvement. In traditional workflow automation tools, a software developer produces
a list of actions to automate a task and interface to the back-end system using
internal Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) or dedicated scripting language.
In contrast, RPA systems develop the action list by watching the user perform that
task in the application's Graphical User Interface (GUI), and then perform the
automation by repeating those tasks directly in the GUI. This can lower the barrier to
use of automation in products that might not otherwise feature APIs for this purpose.

- While Robotic Process Automation is a software that is used to automate the

high-volume tasks using artificial intelligence and machine learning which usually
requires human beings to complete it. They can be used to automate workflow,
infrastructure, back office process which are labour intensive.

The difference between Robotic Process Automation and traditional automation and is
more than we imagine it to be so for better understanding it is given below in points:

 Traditional automation is primarily based on programming and relies on APIs

and other integration methods to integrate different systems. RPA on the other
hand mimics the actions of a user at the User Interface level.
 In traditional automation the developer needs to have a good understanding of
the target system whereas in RPA since the robot is mimicking the user actions
and as long as the robot can exactly follow the steps, we don’t need to worry
about the complexity of the underlying application.

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 With traditional automation, you could finish any task along the process. RPA,
on the other hand, is a form of automation that sticks to the front-end of your
system and carries out tasks without having to seek the help of humans for
anything.
 Both traditional automation and RPA need solid strategy and planning but the
time taken in implementation of RPA is quick.
 RPA software, unlike traditional automation, is capable of adapting to
dynamic circumstances, for example, when checking an electronic form of
new employees in a company. If the pin code is missing in a form, in
traditional automation the software would point out the blank field as an
exception, and then a human being would search for the relevant pin code and
correct the form.
 Traditional Automation is long drawn and requires considerable manpower,
time, effort and substantial cost while RPA is a quick fix to instantly generate
improvements.

 Both i.e. Traditional Automation and RPA are aimed towards the common
goal of Automation but RPA is faster, better and cheaper than traditional
automation.
 RPA automation is geared towards techno functional SMEs who can teach the
robots what to do whereas traditional automation projects need software
developers and requires significant IT involvement.
 RPA automation does not need complex programming and testing efforts, RPA
focuses on easy to do “record and play” type of automation and has a faster
turnaround time than traditional automation.
 Therefore, Traditional Automation is a strategic move and RPA is a tactical
move.

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Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in Manufacturing

Automating back-office and operational processes within the manufacturing value

chain is key to moving faster and more effectively, while at the same time reducing
costs, accelerating time-to-market, and enabling innovation to flourish. Manufacturers
can integrate bots or co-bots on the production floor—including into various parts of
the order fulfillment, production and shipping processes—in addition to back-
office operations. Using technologies to gain efficiencies on the administrative side
can also yield important benefits. Automating repetitive tasks, such as compliance
reports or data entry for accounts payable and receivable, can lighten employees’
workloads, enabling them to focus on more valuable tasks.

In Manufacturing unit, RPA can be used to perform following more efficiently:

1.Bill of Materials

An important document for production, Bill of Materials (BOM) has a wide list of
raw materials, components, sub-components and other products for the new product
creation. Employees in the manufacturing industry should refer the document to get
detailed information. Then they can able to get an idea of where to purchase, what to
purchase, when to purchase and how to purchase.

This is the most painful part of the manufacturing industry. If any error happens, this
will lead to a massive loss in the industry. By using the RPA in this section will give
the companies create the product much faster, Better data accuracy, and the product
creation should be completed on time.

2.Administration and reporting

The process of running a manufacturing business is much harder than what we think.
Administration department can’t need to tackle all the process problems.
Implementing RPA in the administration department will help the industry to get all

15
the reports of their production and all other work in their business. So that they can
take a decision to manage and run their business very effective manner.

3.Customer Support and Service Desk

The main part of the success of a business is the customer service. Robotics Process
Automation can be helpful in the front office for an enhanced communication with the
customer. RPA will be used to alert a reminder while employee following up with
customers, maintain the contact schedule and if a customer has raised a complaint, it
will be trigger employees.

In the front office, an employee should navigate multiple systems while answering
single customer to access multiple data from multiple systems. When deploying RPA,
we can access multiple stored data at one place and the ability to serve customers
better.

As the first line to address user’s technical problems, RPA can help diminish the
workload of the human help desk by taking care of straightforward, repetitive issues.
These level-one tech support issues are simple but time-consuming. In addition,
regular diagnostic tests of a company’s computer systems completed by bots will help
the human IT staff stay ahead of issues.

4.Data Migration/entry and forms processing

Data migration is moving data from an old system to newly replaced systems. This is
the normally happening thing in every manufacturing industry. RPA is the perfect
choice to migration of data. When a company acquires new business, there should
keep the book of business which consists their policies. Even the data migration for a
small concern takes a long time and costs. With proper planning and execution of the
RPA will definitely reduce the periods and costs too.

Employees are often required to pull relevant information from legacy systems in
order to have the data available for newer systems. RPA can support this manual
process and complete it without introducing human error. When paper forms need to

16
be transferred to digital, an RPA solution can read the forms and then get the data into
the system freeing up humans to do other things.

5.Call centre operations

Many of the customer requests received by call centres can be supported with RPA
technology; common customer queries and solutions can be provided to agents via a
dashboard. When an issue gets escalated to human customer service agents, RPA can
help consolidate all the information about a customer on a single screen, so the agents
have all the information they need from multiple systems to provide exemplary
service.

6.Onboarding employees

RPA provides the perfect solution to ensure that every employee is onboarded
according to the established process and that they receive all the information required
to comply with company guidelines.

7.Support the sales process

Any sales division would tell you, time that should be spent building relationships is
instead used on administrative tasks such as updating the customer relationship
management (CRM) system, setting up the client in the billing system, and inputting
data into sales metrics and monitoring systems. Robotic process automation can be
used to streamline each of these activities.

8.Scheduling systems

Online scheduling or management of manufacturing unit can be enhanced with RPA

technology. Bots can gather all the details such as product or raw material
information, stock level, location preferences and more to make scheduling more
efficient.

9.Credit card applications

Today, bots are behind the scenes processing the majority of credit card applications.
They can be programmed to easily handle all aspects of the process from gathering
information and documents, doing credit and background cheques, and ultimately
deciding if the applicant is worthy of receiving credit and issuing the actual card.

10.Expense management

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Most companies require their employees to input details on expense reports such as
business name, data and amounts that an RPA bot can automatically extract from
submitted receipts.

11.Pulling data from multiple websites to find the best deal

Whether you're looking to travel or purchase a vehicle, you want to get the best deal,
and RPA tech can help make it happen by scraping data off websites, comparing it
and showing you the best deal.

These ten examples will hopefully give you a flavour of how RPA is used in practise
today and hopefully shows the enormous potential of this technology for any
business.

12.Logistics data automation

Every manufacturing industry should have the Logistics department and this
department manages the transportation of their completed products to their customers.
The transport management system should be integrated with RPA to provide
enhanced services as much fast as can.

While integrating RPA Transport management system, we can monitor effectively in

the transportation of products. It will reduce the human errors. When a company is
having multiple carriers and multiple insurances, The RPA will give the report of
which choice is giving the best cost, insurance and transit time.

You can have the real time freight tracking option while includes RPA in the
Transport Management System, this will give an enhanced report to you and your
customer that when will the product arrives and what are shipping charges.

13.ERP Automation

The integration of RPA in ERP could be the next stage in planning resources. The
reports, like inventory, Accounts Payable and Receivable, Pricing and other reports
are automatically generated and you can automate them to send via email or upload it
in a share point folder. In inventory area, A manufacturing industry can monitor the

18
current inventory and will notify them when the stock is low. Then you can automate
them to reorder again. They can also mass update the SKU automatically.

14.Web integrated RPA

A long-standing company might be having multiple branches of factories and offices.

There might be harder to manipulate the data in the system in particular system.
While deploying RPA in this area, A Manufacturing Industry can easily monitor,
access and update any changes in the web-connected systems. This reduces the
communication time between one area of the branch to another.

Robotics Process Automation is the next game changer in the Manufacturing industry.
A manufacturing industry that wants to unlock the full potential of their productivity,
management and administration, should probably consider using the RPA in their
every functional area.

15. Robotics in Manufacturing

We are all well aware of use of robots in manufacturing processes. It’s a fact that
machines can perform more efficiently than humans. Of course, they need a support
of human workforce. But any way machine is very much faster than humans in doing
tasks. AI-powered robots for manufacturing performs repetitive tasks without being
programmed. This is one of the best applications of AI and ML for manufacturers.

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Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in Supply Chain

1.Eliminate the Manual Input of Purchase Orders and Other Administrative

tasks

Raising, responding to and processing purchase orders is a significant administrative

overhead for suppliers, manufacturers and retailers. Robotic process automation
identifies required inventory levels and matches them against actual stock. RPA will
then raise purchase orders that travel up the supply chain without relying on human
intervention.

2.Respond to Supply Chain Requests for Proposals, Quotes and Questions

Organizations often have questions of suppliers and other stakeholders further up

the supply chain. Those stakeholders use a combination of NLP and RPA to parse,
understand and respond to questions and requests for quotes or proposals. This results
in faster turnaround and more accurate responses to common queries.

3.Analyze Repeatable tasks to Identify Supply Chain Efficiencies

Robotic process automation generates lots of data. This data is analyzed to identify
how processes can be enhanced further, resulting in greater efficiencies, reduced
waste, higher quality and fewer delays. When combined with predictive or
prescriptive analytics, robotic process automation becomes part of a continual
improvement process that streamlines the supply chain.

4.Seamless Integration with Other Supply Chain Systems and Tools

The efficiencies of robotic process automation aren’t limited to one platform or

organization. True RPA will integrate with and work across multiple software,

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systems and tools used by stakeholders throughout the supply chain. This reduces
duplication and increases speed and quality for all suppliers, manufacturers, retailers
and other organizations.

Why RPA Matters to the Supply Chain

Robotic process automation provides significant benefits for the supply chain:

 Supply chain stakeholders can adapt to demand and scale up operations more
quickly due to automated processes.
 Organizations can reduce administrative overhead, resulting in lower staffing
costs.
 Businesses in the supply chain can shift their staff away from low-value,
repeatable tasks towards value-added activities that generate revenue and drive
other improvements.
 RPA can eliminate human error and duplication in the supply chain, resulting in
less rework, higher quality outputs and more streamlined processes.
 Retailers can get stock delivered faster due to earlier identification of inventory
needs that translates into timely purchase orders throughout the supply chain.

The Challenges of Using RPA in the Supply Chain

There are several challenges to implementing effective robotic process automation in

the supply chain. These include:

 Ensuring supply chain data is captured, managed and output in a structured way so
that RPA intelligent agents make efficient use of the information.
 Implementing RPA agents too quickly, or not integrating them properly with
business processes will create significant project and operational overheads that
are financially challenging.
 Not thinking about how changes to business processes elsewhere will affect
intelligent agents can significantly impact supply chain operations.

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 Poor RPA change management or design will result in erroneous outputs that are
hard to track down and resolve.
 RPA must be built into every aspect of the development lifestyle to ensure proper
integration and operations with other tools and platforms.

RPA Use Cases in Retail and Manufacturing Supply Chain

 Supply chain managers use robotic process automation to create, update and
manage contract and other data for better supplier management.
 Retailers take advantage of RPA to ensure they have the right inventory levels to
meet consumer demands.
 Supply chain managers use RPA to research the supplier and manufacturer markets
using consistent criteria, allowing for easier supplier selection.
 Manufacturers easily respond to RFPs, questions and quotes in a timely and
accurate way.
 Retailers and manufacturers get early shipping notifications, so they can plan to
receive and process raw materials or finished products.

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II. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI):

Definition:
In computer science, artificial intelligence (AI), sometimes called machine
intelligence is, intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural
intelligence displayed by humans. Leading AI textbooks define the field as the study
of "intelligent agents": any device that perceives its environment and takes actions
that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals. Colloquially, the term
"artificial intelligence" is often used to describe machines (or computers) that mimic
"cognitive" functions that humans associate with the human mind, such as "learning"
and "problem solving".

Meaning:

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AI is composed of 2 words Artificial and intelligence. Anything which is not natural
and created by humans is artificial. Intelligence means ability to understand, reason,
plan etc. So, we can say that any code, tech or algorithm that enable machine to mimic,
develop or demonstrate the human cognition or behaviour is AI.

The reason being earlier we had a very small amount of data to make accurate
predictions. But today, there is tremendous increase in the size of the data which is
generated every minute and help us to make more accurate predictions. Along with the
enormous amount of data, we also have the support of more advanced algorithms, high
end computing power and storage that can deal with that huge data size. Examples
include Tesla self-driving car, Apple’s Siri and many more.

Artificial intelligence, or as often just shortened to AI, is a concept that has become
somewhat a hype word during the last few years due to technological developments.
This can be also seen from the Gartner’s hype cycle of emerging technologies where
many AI based technologies like Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Artificial
General Intelligence are mentioned. However, many times these concepts and
definitions are used somewhat interchangeable and there don’t seem to be consensus
on what AI actually even means. Companies that create AI applications stress the
potential of it and make grand promises on how it’ll change the way people live and
how businesses operate whilst any real value creation often drowns in the midst of
hyped marketing. Then there is also the technology part to AI which consists of
computers, data and mathematic models which often seem to go beyond
understanding to people from outside the developer world.

AI concept and approaches to defining it have thus also shifted through time. Often
AI concepts have been tied to some certain ability to perform intelligent like tasks.
This in turn has meant that as over time technological advances have increased and
expanded computers’ capabilities, these tasks have become more ‘ordinary’ and
therefore executing these tasks don’t seem so intelligent anymore. Similarly, if belief
of what is human intelligence changes, also requirement for computer programs
performing tasks that are considered AI like, change. Thus, methods and technologies
that previously has been thought as examples of intelligence move to just being
ordinary everyday applications.

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AI concept itself has existed for over half a century as the term “artificial intelligence”
was first mentioned in 1956 by John McCarthy during a scientific conference
discussing if machines could be intelligent. However, for a longtime progress in the
field was slow and even stagnated a few times due to inflated expectations and
withdrawal of funding from AI researches. Only in the last couple decades real
improvements and more actual use cases in the field has started to appear which have
muchly been made possible due to the rapid technological developments; especially in
processing power, growing amounts of data masses, cheapening storages and by ever
increasing connectivity. For example, many everyday applications that are used today
in people’s everyday life actually take advantage of AI capabilities. Most noticeably
for everyone this can be seen in smartphones. Vast majority of them have
sophisticated AI capabilities, whether it’s Google Assistant, Siri or Cortana. All of
these examples are already pretty mature solutions and they can help in everyday life
but they are still rather limited in what they can actually do. All of these rely to
turning speech into words and then aim to find meaning for those words. Once the
intent has been figured out, the following parts of the process are rather simple
automation; be it checking the weather, getting timetables or starting an application.
AI as a whole is however much more than just speech recognition and natural
language understanding (NLU).

History of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is not a new word and not a new technology for researchers.
This technology is much older than you would imagine. Even there are the myths of
Mechanical men in Ancient Greek and Egyptian Myths. Following are some
milestones in the history of AI which defines the journey from the AI generation to
till date development.

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Maturation of Artificial Intelligence (1943-1952)
o Year 1943: The first work which is now recognized as AI was done by
Warren McCulloch and Walter pits in 1943. They proposed a model
of artificial neurons.
o Year 1949: Donald Hebb demonstrated an updating rule for modifying the
connection strength between neurons. His rule is now called Hebbian
learning.
o Year 1950: The Alan Turing who was an English mathematician and
pioneered Machine learning in 1950. Alan Turing publishes "Computing
Machinery and Intelligence" in which he proposed a test. The test can check
the machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to human
intelligence, called a Turing test.

The birth of Artificial Intelligence (1952-1956)

o Year 1955: An Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon created the "first artificial
intelligence program" which was named as "Logic Theorist". This program
had proved 38 of 52 Mathematics theorems, and find new and more elegant
proofs for some theorems.
o Year 1956: The word "Artificial Intelligence" first adopted by American
Computer scientist John McCarthy at the Dartmouth Conference. For the first
time, AI coined as an academic field.

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At that time high-level computer languages such as FORTRAN, LISP, or COBOL
were invented. And the enthusiasm for AI was very high at that time.

The golden years-Early enthusiasm (1956-1974)

o Year 1966: The researchers emphasized developing algorithms which can
solve mathematical problems. Joseph Weizenbaum created the first chatbot in
1966, which was named as ELIZA.
o Year 1972: The first intelligent humanoid robot was built in Japan which was
named as WABOT-1.

The first AI winter (1974-1980)

o The duration between years 1974 to 1980 was the first AI winter duration. AI
winter refers to the time period where computer scientist dealt with a severe
shortage of funding from government for AI researches.
o During AI winters, an interest of publicity on artificial intelligence was
decreased.

A boom of AI (1980-1987)
o Year 1980: After AI winter duration, AI came back with "Expert System".
Expert systems were programmed that emulate the decision-making ability of
a human expert.
o In the Year 1980, the first national conference of the American Association of
Artificial Intelligence was held at Stanford University.

The second AI winter (1987-1993)

o The duration between the years 1987 to 1993 was the second AI Winter
duration.
o Again, Investors and government stopped in funding for AI research as due to
high cost but not efficient result. The expert system such as XCON was very
cost effective.

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The emergence of intelligent agents (1993-2011)
o Year 1997: In the year 1997, IBM Deep Blue beats world chess champion,
Gary Kasparov, and became the first computer to beat a world chess
champion.
o Year 2002: for the first time, AI entered the home in the form of Roomba, a
vacuum cleaner.
o Year 2006: AI came in the Business world till the year 2006. Companies like
Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix also started using AI.

Deep learning, big data and artificial general intelligence (2011-present)

o Year 2011: In the year 2011, IBM's Watson won jeopardy, a quiz show,
where it had to solve the complex questions as well as riddles. Watson had
proved that it could understand natural language and can solve tricky
questions quickly.
o Year 2012: Google has launched an Android app feature "Google now",
which was able to provide information to the user as a prediction.
o Year 2014: In the year 2014, Chatbot "Eugene Goostman" won a competition
in the infamous "Turing test."
o Year 2018: The "Project Debater" from IBM debated on complex topics with
two master debaters and also performed extremely well.
o Google has demonstrated an AI program "Duplex" which was a virtual
assistant and which had taken hairdresser appointment on call, and lady on
other side didn't notice that she was talking with the machine.

Now AI has developed to a remarkable level. The concept of Deep learning, big data,
and data science are now trending like a boom. Nowadays companies like Google,
Facebook, IBM, and Amazon are working with AI and creating amazing devices. The
future of Artificial Intelligence is inspiring and will come with high intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence includes other Technologies such as:

a. Machine Learning

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 b. Natural Language Processing
c. Deep Learning
d. Speech Recognition
e. Computer Vision
f. Expert System

a. Machine Learning:

Machine learning (ML) is the scientific study of algorithms and statistical

models that computer systems use to perform a specific task without using explicit
instructions, relying on patterns and inference instead. It is seen as a subset
of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algorithms build a mathematical
model based on sample data, known as "training data", in order to make predictions or
decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform the task. Machine learning
algorithms are used in a wide variety of applications, such as email
filtering and computer vision, where it is difficult or infeasible to develop a
conventional algorithm for effectively performing the task.

Machine learning is closely related to computational statistics, which focuses on

making predictions using computers. The study of mathematical optimization delivers
methods, theory and application domains to the field of machine learning. Data
mining is a field of study within machine learning, and focuses on exploratory data
analysis through unsupervised learning. In its application across business problems,
machine learning is also referred to as predictive analytics.

1. Facebook timeline uses machine learning to customize posts shown to each

member, based on the number of interactions, clicks and sharing that user
participates in.
2. Netflix recommending online offers and what to watch
3. Googles self-driving car
4. Communication on Twitter and other social sites… all thanks to Machine
Learning.

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b. Natural Language Processing:

Natural Language Processing, usually shortened as NLP, is a branch of artificial

intelligence that deals with the interaction between computers and humans using the
natural language such as English.

The ultimate objective of NLP is to read, decipher, understand, and make sense of the
human languages in a manner that is valuable. Most NLP techniques rely on machine
learning to derive meaning from human languages.

Processing of Natural Language is required when you want an intelligent system like
robot to perform as per your instructions, when you want to hear decision from a
dialogue based clinical expert system, etc.

c. Deep Learning:

Deep learning is a subset of machine learning in artificial intelligence (AI) that has
networks capable of learning unsupervised from data that is unstructured or unlabeled.
Also known as deep neural learning or deep neural network. Deep learning is
an artificial intelligence function that imitates the workings of the human brain in
processing data and creating patterns for use in decision making.

Deep learning learns from vast amounts of unstructured data that would normally take
humans decades to understand and process.

Deep learning has evolved hand-in-hand with the digital era, which has brought about
an explosion of data in all forms and from every region of the world. This data,
known simply as big data, is drawn from sources like social media, internet search
engines, e-commerce platforms, and online cinemas, among others. This enormous
amount of data is readily accessible and can be shared through applications like cloud
computing.

However, the data, which normally is unstructured, is so vast that it could take
decades for humans to comprehend it and extract relevant information. Companies

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realize the incredible potential that can result from unraveling this wealth of
information and are increasingly adapting to AI systems for automated support.

d. Speech Recognition

Speech recognition is technology that can recognize spoken words, which can then be
converted to text. Alternatively referred to as speech recognition subset of speech
recognition, which is the technology for identifying a person based on their
voice. voice recognition is a computer software program or hardware device with the
ability to decode the human voice. Voice recognition is commonly used to operate a
device, perform commands, or write without having to use a keyboard, mouse, or
press any buttons.

Speech recognition software works by breaking down the audio of

a speech recording into individual sounds, analyzing each sound, using algorithms to
find the most probable word fit in that language, and transcribing those sounds into
text.

Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Apple — five of the world’s top tech
companies — are already offering this feature on various devices through services
like Google Home, Amazon Echo and Siri.

e. Computer Vision

Computer Vision is the science and technology for building artificial systems that
obtain information from images or multi-dimensional data. However, a significant
part of AI deals with planning for system/machine which can perform mechanical
actions.

In other words, Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals

with how computers can be made to gain high-level understanding from digital
images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to automate tasks that
the human visual system can do.

Computer vision tasks include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing and
understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real

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world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g. in the forms of
decisions. Understanding in this context means the transformation of visual images
(the input of the retina) into descriptions of the world that can interface with other
thought processes and elicit appropriate action. This image understanding can be seen
as the disentangling of symbolic information from image data using models
constructed with the aid of geometry, physics, statistics, and learning theory.

f. Expert System

In artificial intelligence, an expert system is a computer system that emulates the

decision-making ability of a human expert. Expert systems are designed to solve
complex problems by reasoning through bodies of knowledge, represented mainly
as if–then rules rather than through conventional procedural code. The first expert
systems were created in the 1970s and then proliferated in the 1980s. Expert systems
were among the first truly successful forms of artificial intelligence (AI) software. An
expert system is divided into two subsystems: the inference engine and
the knowledge base. The knowledge base represents facts and rules. The inference
engine applies the rules to the known facts to deduce new facts. Inference engines can
also include explanation and debugging abilities.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Manufacturing:

1.Quality checks
Some flaws in products are too small to be noticed with the naked eye, even if the
inspector is very experienced. However, machines can be equipped with cameras
many times more sensitive than our eyes – and thanks to that, detect even the
smallest defects. Machine vision allows machines to “see” the products on the
production line and spot any imperfections. The logical next step might be sending
the pictures of said flaws to a human expert – but it’s not a must anymore, the
process can be fully automated. Landing.AI, a company founded by Andrew Ng,
offers an automated visual inspection tool to find even microscopic flaws in
products. The system recognizes defects, marks them, and sends alerts.

2.Prediction of failure modes

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Do you know the story about Abraham Wald and the missing bullet holes? And it’s
a true story, may I remind you. Abraham Wald was a brilliant statistician. During
World War II, he was asked by the Royal Air Force to help them decide where to
add armor to their bombers. You don’t want your planes to be shot down, and
neither adding too little armor nor adding too much of it works. The British
analyzed the bombers that returned to Britain and found that most damage was done
around the fuselage area of the bomber. Using simple reasoning, they should
reinforce this part of the plane, right? They should not. The sample didn’t include
the bombers that never made it home. And Wald was only looking for the “missing
holes” – those around the engine. If a plane was shot there, it never came back. And
the damage around the fuselage still didn’t stop the planes from returning to Britain.
That’s were survival bias happens – we select some data to take into consideration
and overlook other, often due to lack of its visibility. This can lead to false
conclusions.

We can make false conclusions considering products and processes, too. Products
can fail in a variety of ways, irrespective of the visual inspection. A product that
looks perfect may still break down soon after its first use. Similarly, a product that
looks flawed may still do its job perfectly well. The way we observe objects and
flaws is biased and many things may be different than they seem. With vast amounts
of data on how products are tested and how they perform, artificial intelligence can
identify the areas that need to be given more attention in tests.

3.Predictive maintenance
Predictive maintenance allows companies to predict when machines need
maintenance with high accuracy, instead of guessing or performing preventive
maintenance. Predictive maintenance prevents unplanned downtime by using
machine learning. Technologies such as sensors and advanced analytics embedded
in manufacturing equipment enable predictive maintenance by responding to alerts
and resolving machine issues. An excerpt from Deloitte’s the digital edge in life
sciences report explains how IoT contributes to predictive maintenance:

An example of the use of Internet of Things and machine learning can be illustrated
by predictive maintenance of machines used for manufacturing titanium implants.

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Titanium’s hardness requires tools with diamond tips to cut it. The level of dullness
of the diamond tips, and thus the optimal time to sharpen them, has been difficult to
figure out because of many different variables that affect it. The use of vibration or
sound sensors and torque monitors can help assess the state of the machinery, as
dull tips move and sound differently.

Predictive maintenance is already used by a number of manufacturers, including LG

and Siemens. Roland Busch, Siemens AG CTO, says:

By analyzing the data, our artificial intelligence systems can draw conclusions
regarding a machine’s condition and detect irregularities in order to make
predictive maintenance possible.

Since research conducted by Oneserve in the UK shows that 3% of all working

days are lost annually due to faulty machinery, and the impact of machine
downtime was estimated to cost UK manufacturers more than 180 billion
pounds a year, predictive maintenance is gaining more popularity to help prevent
losses.

4.Generative design
Generative design is a process that involves a program generating a number of
outputs to meet specified criteria. Designers or engineers input design goals and
parameters such as materials, manufacturing methods, and cost constraints into
generative design software to explore design alternatives. The solution utilizes
machine learning techniques to learn from each iteration what works and what
doesn’t. Let’s have a look at this example from Autodesk:

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The above image illustrates generative design of a parametric chair. The algorithm
finds countless ways of designing a simple thing – e.g. a chair. You have to input
the parameters: four legs, elevated seat, weight requirements, minimal materials,
etc. Then, the algorithm generates a variety of options. The software is not there to
replace humans, though. It’s another example of AI being an augmentation to
human work. As described by Autodesk:

Computational design doesn’t replace human creativity—the program aids and

accelerates the process, expanding the limits of design and imagination.

Generative design is a way to explore ideas that could not be explored in any
different way – just think about how much time it would take a real person to come
up with a hundred different ways to design a chair. Artificial intelligence can do it in
no time, letting the human expert choose from a wide range of options. Digital
transformation like that can change the way a company delivers value to the
customers and improve efficiency of processes.

5.Environmental impact
The manufacture of a variety of products, including electronics, continues to
damage the environment. How? Extraction of nickel, cobalt, and graphite for
lithium-ion batteries, increased production of plastic, huge energy consumption, e-
waste – just to name a few. However, Jahda Swan borough, a global environmental
leadership fellow and lead at the World Economic Forum claims that AI could help
to transform manufacturing by reducing, or even reversing, its environmental

35
impact. AI can support developing new eco-friendly materials and help optimize
energy efficiency – Google already uses AI to do that in its data centers.

6.Making use of data

This sounds very general but in reality, there’s a whole variety of ways to use big
data in manufacturing. Manufacturers collect vast amounts of data related to
operations, processes, and other matters – and this data combined with advanced
analytics can provide valuable insights to improve the business. Supply chain
management, risk management, predictions on sales volume, product quality
maintenance, prediction of recall issues – these are just some of the examples of
how big data can be used to the benefit of manufacturers. This type of AI
application can unlock insights that were previously unreachable.

7.Price forecasts
To manufacture products, you first need to purchase the necessary resources, and
sometimes the prices can get a little crazy. For example, if you buy stainless steel,
its price is affected by a variety of factors, including the listings of Metal Exchange
or the prices of other elements, some of them not listed on the metal exchange. With
the rapid changes in prices, sometimes it may be hard to assess when it’s the best
time to buy resources. Knowing the prices of resources is also necessary for
companies to estimate the price of their product when it’s ready to leave the factory.
Let’s stick to the example of stainless steel: the prices can vary, depending on the
current listings of e.g. nickel or the price of ferrochrome. The system is able to
provide accurate price recommendations just like in the case of dynamic pricing
that’s used by e-commerce businesses like Amazon where machine learning
algorithms analyze historical and competitive data to always offer competitive
prices and make even more profit.

8.Customer service
When you think about customer service, what industries come to your mind?
Hospitality, retail, banking? They deal with customers directly, so customer service
is a huge part of their business. In manufacturing, however, the importance of
customer service is often overlooked – which is a mistake as lost customers can
mean millions of dollars in lost sales. AI solutions can analyze the behaviors of

36
customers to identify patterns and predict future outcomes. Observing actual
customers’ behaviors allows companies to better answer their needs. In 2018, Nokia
unveiled the latest version of its Cognitive Analytics for Customer Insight software,
providing powerful new capabilities so service provider business, IT and
engineering organizations can consistently deliver a superior real-time and
personalized customer experience. The software allows service providers to quickly
identify issues and prioritize improvements. There’s a variety of ways artificial
intelligence can improve customer service – read more about this topic here.

Is AI the future of manufacturing?

Artificial intelligence is a game-changing technology for any industry. As the
technology matures and costs drop, AI is becoming more accessible for companies.
In manufacturing, it can be effective at making things, as well as making them better
and cheaper. The manufacturing industry has always been eager to embrace new
technologies – and doing so successfully. Now, with AI adoption, they are able to
make rapid, data-driven decisions, optimize manufacturing processes, minimize
operational costs, and improve the way they serve their customers. This doesn’t
mean that manufacturing will be taken over by the machines – AI is now an
augmentation to human work and nothing can be a substitute of human intelligence
and the ability to adapt to unexpected changes.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Supply Chain:

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Use of artificial intelligence in the supply chain management is rapidly increasing.
The technology is gaining momentum across supply chain management operations.
Machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, robotics and speech
recognition are making supply chain management tasks smarter.

AI has multiple applications in supply chain management. They include:

• Establishes a strong communication channel among departments

supply-chain management solution for manufacturing industry brings different
management streams of an enterprise at single platform. Thus, the best
communication channel among teams helps to improve overall business performance.

• Warehouse management & logistics

Artificial intelligence tools and apps can optimize the warehouse management and
logistic operations. From product storing to delivery and receiving, everything can be
analyzes using AI.AI-enabled devices and tools can also manage and track fleet
operations efficiently.

A smart warehouse is a fully automated facility wherein most work is done through
automation or software. In the process, tedious tasks are simplified, and operations
become more cost-effective.

Alibaba and Amazon have already transformed their warehouses through the use of
automation. Amazon recently rolled out machines that automate the job of boxing
customer orders. In Amazon warehouses, robots work alongside humans to increase
productivity and efficiency.

• Development of autonomous vehicles for logistics

Artificial Intelligence in manufacturing is going to its next level in the form of
autonomous vehicles. To better manage the distribution centers, the manufacturing
companies are investing in AI-powered autonomous vehicles to automate the logistic
operations.

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Hence, together with artificial intelligence robotics and tools, self-driving vehicles
reduces dependency on human drivers. A big thanks to artificial intelligence
technology.

Once have a look at what our artificial intelligence solutions offer:

• Forecast Product Demand

Artificial intelligence systems using predictive analytics can also forecast the product
demand efficiently. AI tools for manufacturing collects data from various sources and
based on it, they can accurately forecast the product demand.

• Customer Management
AI applications for manufacturing customers help in increasing sales, productivity,
and business performance through managing their customers smartly. Yes, with the
use of smart AI apps for manufacturing, service providers can quickly understand the
customer issues and resolve them, and also personalize their experience.

• Price Forecasts
Using historical data of product prices, and analyzing pricing structure of various
competitor’s product prices, machine learning algorithms can forecast the price of a
product. Competitive prices are always offers more profits to the companies.

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• Inventory Management

Artificial intelligence app in manufacturing allows you to manage order records and
delete/add new inventories. Here, we should talk about machine learning technology.
It was one of the most significant technology that is used for managing supply,
demand, and inventories.

• Predictive capabilities are helping demand forecasting. When inventory

lags demand, companies suffer losses. AI is ramping up efficiencies in network
planning and predictive demand, allowing merchandisers to become more proactive.
By knowing what to expect, they can adjust the number of vehicles and direct them to
locations where maximum demand is expected. This leads to lower operational costs.

• Chatbots are redefining customer support. According to Accenture, 80

percent of all customer engagements can be handled by bots. AI can personalize the
relationship between customers and logistics providers.

A recent example of personalized customer experience is DHL’s partnership with

Amazon. By activating DHL Parcel “skill” via the Alexa app, DHL customers can ask
Alexa to connect with Amazon Echo or Echo Dot smart speakers and confirm their
parcels’ status. In the event of any issues arising during the interaction, Echo users
can directly contact DHL for assistance by its customer-support team.

40
• Genetic algorithms are improving delivery times and reducing costs. In
the logistics business, every mile and minute matters. Companies can use a route
planner based on genetic algorithms to map out optimal routes for deliveries.

UPS uses Orion, a GPS tool that helps drivers make timely and cost-effective
deliveries. Routes can be planned and optimized depending on traffic conditions and
other factors. Orion has helped UPS save nearly $50m annually.

In the near future, AI will set a new standard of efficiency across supply-chain and
logistics processes. The game is changing quickly, creating a “new normal” in how
global logistics companies manage data, run operations and serve customers, in a
manner that’s automated, intelligent, and more efficient.

Regardless of how one views these changes, AI and associated technologies are about
to take over global supply-chain management.

Factory of the Future with the help of Intelligent Automation

Defining the Factory of the Future

The Factory of the Future has an evolving definition, even different names. Some call
it Smart Manufacturing, Industry 4.0 or the Digital Enterprise.

While the terms vary, some elements are always in common. The Factory of the
Future is the product of fast-changing disruptive technologies hitting manufacturing
like a cyclone. Information technology and operational technology are both seeing

41
drastic innovations. The convergence of these two forces is creating a paradigm shift.
Manufacturing is experiencing the fourth industrial revolution.

We are already seeing results:

According to a report from SCM World, 40% of manufacturers they surveyed say that
smart manufacturing along with its foundational technology—the Internet of Things
—is within reach, and it’s the right time to invest.

Huffington Post reports that early adopters who have at least partially implemented
smart manufacturing initiatives have documented measurable results:

 82% reported increased efficiency

 49% reported fewer product defects
 45% reported customer satisfaction gains

The impact promises to grow and be even more substantial as manufacturers and their
suppliers deploy and integrate more technologies across the entire manufacturing
landscape. Greater speed, value, innovation, and closer alignment with demanding
customers will be the new normal.

Analysts often cite the year 2020 as the next milestone moment. Some point to 2030
or 2050 as being the thresholds.

Some common traits or features of Factory of the Future:

 Collaborative: Collaborative tools—and a willingness to share concepts—are

important to being truly modern and innovative. Engaging with partners and
customers to participate in product development as well as process
improvement is important.
 Innovative: The company supports a culture of out-of-the-box thinking and
encourages personnel—at all levels—to contribute ideas. This applies to new
product introductions as well as internal processes and facilities management.

42
 Agile: The company makes decisions quickly and reacts in a timely manner to
new opportunities or changes in market status.
 Cloud enabled: The company likely uses cloud solutions to take advantage of
the many benefits such as always-modern capabilities, agility, and speed of
implementation.
 Customer-centric: Today’s consumer, no matter the country or type of
industry, is highly demanding and expects products and buying experiences
that are highly personalized and tailored to individual needs.
 Vertically specialized: The trend to specialize in narrow niche markets and
focus on a few core products continues to be a tactic for success.
 Data driven: The company makes decisions based on real-time facts, not
outdated suppositions or guesses.
 Efficient: To remain competitive and profitable in a global economy,
manufacturers must meet the heightened pressures to continually increase
productivity, automate processes and operate with lean processes and minimal
waste.
 Distinctive: Manufacturers must create and promote differentiating
characteristics and be highly strategic in their positioning and product
development. Standing out from the crowd is a necessity to maintain or gain
market share.
 Automated: Pressures to modernize extend to the shop floor as well.
Production systems and processes must be fully utilized with minimal
downtime and wasted resources—of equipment and people.

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From advanced robotics in R&D labs to computer vision in warehouses, technology is
making an impact on every step of the manufacturing as well as supply chain process.

“Lights-out manufacturing” refers to factories that operate autonomously and require

no human presence. Because they don’t need human supervision, they don’t require
lighting, and can consist of several machines functioning in the dark.

While this may sound like science fiction, these kinds of factories have been a reality
for more than 15 years.

The Japanese robotics maker FANUC has been operating a “lights-out” factory since
2001, where robots build other robots completely unsupervised for nearly a month at a
time.

“Not only is it lights-out,” said FANUC VP Gary Zywiol, “we turn off the air
conditioning and heat too.”

To imagine a world where robots do all the physical work, one simply needs to look
at the most ambitious and technology-laden factories of today.

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 In June 2018, the Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com unveiled a fully automated
storage and shipping facility in Shanghai.

The factory is outfitted with twenty industrial robots that can pick, pack, and transfer
packages with no human presence or oversight.

Without robots, it would take as many as 500 workers to fully staff this 40K square
foot warehouse — instead, the factory requires only five technicians to service the
machines and keep them working.

As industrial technology grows increasingly pervasive, this wave of automation and

digitization is being labelled “Industry 4.0,” as in the fourth industrial revolution.

So, what does the future of factories hold?

To answer this, we took a deep dive into 8 different steps of the manufacturing
process, to see how they are starting to change:

 Product R&D: A look at how platforms are democratizing R&D talent, the ways
AI is helping materials science, and how the drafting board of tomorrow could be
an AR or VR headset.

 Resource Planning & Sourcing: On-demand decentralized manufacturing and

blockchain projects are working on the complexities of integrating suppliers.

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 Operations Technology Monitoring & Machine Data: A look at the IT stack and
platforms powering future factories. First, factories will get basic digitization, and
further along we’ll see greater predictive power.

 Labor Augmentation & Management: AR, wearables, and exoskeletons are

augmenting human capabilities on the factory floor.

 Machining, Production & Assembly: Modular equipment and custom machines

like 3D printers are enabling manufacturers to handle greater demand for variety.

 Quality Assurance (QA): A look at how computer vision will find imperfections,
and how software and blockchain tech will more quickly be able to identify
problems (and implement recalls).

 Warehousing: New warehouse demand could bring “lights-out” warehouses even

faster than an unmanned factory, with the help of robotics and vision tracking.

 Transport & Supply Chain Management: Telematics, IoT, and autonomous

vehicles will bring greater efficiency and granularity for manufacturers delivering
their products.

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COMPANIES THAT USES INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION

1. Walmart

In a bid to cut down on theft and mistakes, Walmart is using artificial

intelligence hooked up to cameras monitoring checkouts to ensure every item in your
cart is scanned and paid for. This is already happening at over 1,000 Walmart stores.

According to Business Insider Reports, the system is known internally as Missed Scan
Detection and uses computer vision to monitor both manned and self-checkout areas
at each store. The system is able to detect when an item goes unscanned, or is mis-
scanned, and reports the fault to a checkout attendant who can then approach and
rectify the problem.

According to Walmart spokeswoman LeMia Jenkins, "Walmart is making a true

investment to ensure the safety of our customers and associates ... Over the last three
years, the company has invested over half a billion dollars in an effort to prevent,
reduce and deter crime in our stores and parking lots. We are continuously investing
in people, programs and technology to keep our stores and communities safe."

When store inventory disappears without being paid for its known as "shrink." This
can happen through theft or mistakes and retailers are obviously very keen to reduce it

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as much as possible. If Walmart experiences the average for US retailer shrink rates,
then it's losing roughly $4 billion a year. With that in mind, you can see why heavy
investment and embracing AI to reduce shrink is worthwhile for the company.

One of the companies supplying Walmart with the computer vision tech required to
make checkout monitoring possible is Everseen. According to Everseen, CEO Alan
O'Herlihy, "People make mistakes ... In terms of shrinkage, or loss, that's the main
source." And if you're wondering which item causes the most problems, it's milk.
O'Herlihy explains, "People find it hard to scan milk ... Sometimes they get frustrated
and they just don't scan it."

Even though Walmart was founded in 1962, it’s on the cutting edge when it comes to
transforming retail operations and customer experience.

The Walmart store of the future has just been unveiled at the Neighborhood Market in
Levittown, New York. The unit, called IRL (Intelligent Retail Lab), is a 50,000-
square-foot store that uses AI to insure in-stock position and freshness of such
perishable items like produce and meat.

Mike Hanrahan, CEO of IRL, says that, “customers can be confident about products
being there, about freshness of produce and meat.”

The new Lab tests the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it can be applied
eventually to all stores. The store uses cameras throughout the store. They generate
analytics to trigger the need to respond when customers pick up the last item (i.e., a
piece of steak) and then track the store’s ability to quickly restock the item.

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2. Tesla

Thirteen years ago, in Silicon Valley, a company was born. Its name was Tesla. One
simple goal of this company was to prove that electric cars could be better in every
way over the traditional fuel-powered cars.

Since then, Tesla led by Elon Musk has become a household name in the automotive
industry, especially when it comes to manufacturing electric cars. They are said to be
the pioneer in manufacturing electric cars, but they were not the first one to make
electric cars.

Full Self Driving is an upcoming Tesla feature that currently exists in an unfinished
form. According to Musk, the feature will eventually make it possible for a Tesla
vehicle to drive itself from an owner’s driveway in the suburbs, onto the highway at
high speeds, into the city where there’s traffic, weather, pedestrians, and who-knows-
what-else, and into your office parking lot. Musk also claimed that by the end of 2020
Tesla would have fully-autonomous robot axis operating unrestricted on city streets.

How Tesla cars have used the technologies such as Intelligent Automation:

1. Advanced Sensor Coverage

Tesla car has eight surround cameras provide 360 degrees of visibility around the car
at up to 250 meters of range. Twelve updated ultrasonic sensors complement this

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vision, allowing for detection of both hard and soft objects at nearly twice the distance
of the prior system. A forward-facing radar with enhanced processing provides
additional data about the world on a redundant wavelength that is able to see through
heavy rain, fog, dust and even the car ahead.

2. Processing Power Increased by 40x:

To make sense of all of this data, a new onboard computer with over 40 times the
computing power of the previous generation runs the new Tesla-developed neural net
for vision, sonar and radar processing software. Together, this system provides a view
of the world that a driver alone cannot access, seeing in every direction
simultaneously, and on wavelengths that go far beyond the human senses.

3. Tesla Vision:

To make use of a camera suite this powerful, the new hardware introduces an entirely
new and powerful set of vision processing tools developed by Tesla. Built on a deep
neural network, Tesla Vision deconstructs the car's environment at greater levels of
reliability than those achievable with classical vision processing techniques.

4. Autopilot:

Autopilot advanced safety and convenience features are designed to assist its
customer with the most burdensome parts of driving. Autopilot introduces new
features and improves existing functionality to make the Tesla car safer and more
capable over time. Autopilot enables the car to steer, accelerate and brake
automatically within its lane. Current Autopilot features require active driver
supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.

5. Navigate on Autopilot:

Navigate on Autopilot suggests lane changes to optimize driver’s route, and makes
adjustments so car don’t get stuck behind slow cars or trucks. When active, Navigate
on Autopilot will also automatically steer the vehicle toward highway interchanges
and exits based on the driver’s destination.

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6. Autosteer:

With the new Tesla Vision cameras, sensors and computing power, Tesla will
navigate tighter, more complex roads.

7. Smart Summon:

With Smart Summon, Tesla car will navigate more complex environments and
parking spaces, maneuvering around objects as necessary to come find you in a
parking lot.

8. From Home:

All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go. If you don’t say
anything, your car will look at your calendar and take you there as the assumed
destination. Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even
without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs
and roundabouts, and handle densely packed freeways with cars moving at high
speed.

9. To Your Destination:

When you arrive at your destination, simply step out at the entrance and your car will
enter park seek mode, automatically search for a spot and park itself. A tap on your
phone summons it back to you.

10. Standard Safety Features:

These active safety technologies, including collision avoidance and automatic

emergency braking.

 Automatic Emergency Braking: Designed to detect objects that the car may
impact and applies the brakes accordingly.
 Side Collision Warning: Warns the driver of potential collisions with obstacles
alongside the car.

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  Front Collision Warning: Helps warn of impending collisions with slower
moving or stationary cars.

3. Apple

Apple, one of the world’s largest technology companies, selling consumer electronics
such as iPhones and Apple Watches, as well as computer software and online
services. Apple uses artificial intelligence in products like the iPhone, where it
enables the FaceID feature, or in products like the AirPods, Apple Watch, or
HomePod smart speakers, where it enables the smart assistant Siri. Apple is also
growing its service offering and is using AI to recommend songs on Apple Music,
help you find your photo in the iCloud, or navigate to your next meeting using Maps.

Apple’s phones come with new chip technology with a focus on helping the devices
understand the world around them using artificial intelligence algorithms. The
company says the improvements allow the new devices to offer slicker camera
effects and augmented reality experiences.

For the first time, non-Apple developers will be allowed to run their own algorithms
on Apple’s AI-specific hardware. That could enliven the iTunes app store with rich
new experiences for socializing, creating art, or getting things done. Machine
learning algorithms can help apps to understand and respond to what’s happening in
photos and video.

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Artificial intelligence has become a key area of competition between Google, Apple,
and rivals such as Amazon. In April, Apple hired Google’s top AI boss, John
Giannandrea. He is now Apple’s chief of machine learning and AI strategy, and
reports directly to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc. Ltd. A search for “machine
learning” on Apple’s jobs site Tuesday turned up more than 400 open positions
worldwide, in areas ranging from Siri to health data to manufacturing.

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4. Google

Google AI is making it easier for people to do things every day, whether

- it’s searching for photos of loved ones.

- A standard feature on smartphones today that is voice-to-text. By pressing a button

or saying a particular phrase (“Ok Google”, for example), you can start speaking
and your phone converts the audio into text.

- breaking down language barriers in Google Translate.

- Google Maps, which can analyze the speed of movement of traffic at any given
time. And can more easily incorporate user-reported traffic incidents like
construction and accidents. Access to vast amounts of data being fed to its
proprietary algorithms means Maps can reduce commutes by suggesting the fastest
routes to and from work.

- Gmail, typing emails on the go, Through the use of machine learning
algorithms, Gmail successfully filters 99.9% of spam. Gmail uses a similar approach
to categorize your emails into primary, social, and promotion inboxes, as well as
labeling emails as important.

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- or getting things done with the Google Assistant, which can interact with
your Android phone to do a variety of tasks, such as setting alarms or playing music.

5. Netflix

NETFLIX, this platform doesn’t need any kind of introduction, it’s the largest
movie and television show company of its kind, ever.

We all know it’s the most popular content-on-demand service, but… have you ever
wondered where all those suggestions and trends come from?

How does the app know your likes and dislikes?

Thanks to artificial intelligence, of course!

Thanks to its predictive technologies (like algorithms), Netflix analyzes hundreds of

records so it can suggest movies, TV shows and documentaries similar to those you
have seen and rated positively.

It also considers other aspects as well, like the time of day and what day it is, so it
can you better content based on your consumption habits.

Just like the other apps we’ve mentioned, Netflix is constantly getting “smarter” as
its database continues to expand.

Yes, that kind of large database analysis and processing is called Big Data.

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6. Amazon

Amazon searches (“ironing board”, “pizza stone”, “Android charger”, etc.) quickly
return a list of the most relevant products related to your search. Amazon doesn’t
reveal exactly how it’s doing this, but in a description of its product search
technology, Amazon notes that its algorithms “automatically learn to combine
multiple relevance features. Our catalog’s structured data provides us with many
such relevance features and we learn from past search patterns and adapt to what is
important to our customers.”

You see recommendations for products you’re interested in as “customers who

viewed this item also viewed” and “customers who bought this item also bought”,
as well as via personalized recommendations on the home page, bottom of item
pages, and through email. Amazon uses artificial neural networks to generate these
product recommendations.

At Payment Gateway, Machine learning is used for fraud prevention in online credit
card transactions. Fraud is the primary reason for online payment processing being
more costly for merchants than in-person transactions.

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Amazon expanded upon this model with the announcement of complimentary
hardware and software components:

- Alexa, an AI-powered personal assistant that accepts voice

commands to create to-do lists, order items online, set reminders, and
answer questions (via internet searches)

- Echo (and later, Dot) smart speakers that allow you to integrate Alexa
into your living room and use voice commands to ask natural
language questions, play music, order pizza, hail an Uber, and
integrate with smart home devices.

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 CHAPTER – 3

Findings,
Recommendations,
Conclusion &

References

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FINDINGS

Intelligent Automation (IA) is a wide-ranging term that enables people to rethink how
we integrate information, analyze data, and use the resulting insights to improve
decision making and already it is transforming every walk of life. In this report, AI's
application across a variety of sectors, especially manufacturing and supply chain
unit, address issues in its development, and offer recommendations for getting the
most out of IA while still protecting important human values.

RECOMMENDATIONS

 The main reason of failure in the business while using technologies like AI,
robotics is maybe the lack of knowledge or incomplete knowledge about
technological world, hence the company should know in explicit manner what
are those technologies that they are going to use.
 A business should hire an expert of that particular field to get full advantage
with precise knowledge and its implementations.
 Before releasing any system of technology in the business, a management
should give a trial and list out the forthcoming opportunities, threats or errors.
 Once technologies have used in the business field, then the next step after
implementation is to evaluation and reviewing of that applied technologies and
according to that making changes in it.
 Even if a business reaches its goals and objectives, it should always look
forward and be updated with recent technologies and trends.

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CONCLUSION

The above study shows that, distilling a generally-accepted definition of what

qualifies as Intelligent Automation has been attempted for many decades. One reason
why a definition is hard to get that Intelligent Automation is not a single technology,
but a consolidation of many disciplines. From Machine Learning to RPA, to Natural
Language Processing to Computer Vision, Intelligent Automation plays an important
role in the modern technological world and has merged into our daily life.

Intelligent Automation in Manufacturing and Supply Chain unit has contributed to the
businesses by reducing operational cost and vocational costs. It has introduced a new
level of accuracy and due to Artificial Intelligence’s learning ability, efficiency
increases over time. Even though, there is a good advancement in the field of
Automation and Artificial Intelligence, both Artificial Intelligence and machine
learning are yet to be optimized. Companies have realized that the key to the business
success is subjected to machine learning, artificial intelligence and automation. Soon,
the companies will be fully equipped with these start systems and would completely
change the traditional systems with by yielding significant benefits.

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 REFERENCES

Books referred:

 Alok Mani Tripathi- Learning Robotic Process Automation

 Artificial Intelligence- A Modern Approach by Stuart Russell & Peter Norvig

Websites:

 www.researchget.net
 www.wikipedia.org
 www.forbes.com
 www.techiexpert.com
 www.study.com

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