At the last meeting of the Engineering of the Future Club (May 2024), all stakeholders in the GEPPIA ecosystem were represented: manufacturers, equipment suppliers, digital technology specialists, and industrial end-users. AI experts, experienced automation engineers, and innovation managers shared their visions on the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence on future generations of machines. They discussed their approaches, their respective progress, and the limitations to be placed on AI.
They are all convinced that artificial intelligence will rapidly transform the development, operation, and maintenance of process and packaging machinery. They also believe that a collaborative approach will accelerate this progress.
AI is already present in process and packaging machines, as well as in fault diagnosis algorithms, vision-based defect recognition, and automatic code generation systems. The question for manufacturers now is how to create value by integrating generative AI and various machine learning models into their products, services, and internal processes (knowledge management).
The integration of AI is seen as a source of innovation rather than optimization. The emerging idea is that AI is only truly effective when trained for a specific purpose within a specific ecosystem.
It remains to be determined how far to extend the limits of this ecosystem to make machines truly intelligent and what governance principles to adopt to encourage the emergence of collective intelligence while protecting the confidentiality of data and know-how.
These questions echo topics already addressed by GEPPIA in discussions on Industry 4.0 and cybersecurity. The ongoing collaboration should accelerate the development of innovative solutions for food processing companies.
